Archive for the ‘Wine Review’ Category

If you’ve read even a few of my posts, you know that I strongly favor family-owned wineries. In fact, I shun the corporate-owned places like the plague. So why am I writing about Ghost Pines Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, which is vaguely related to Louis Martini Winery, which is in turn vaguely related to Ernest & Julio’s own Gallo. Ghost Pines tries to look family-owned, but I have the sneaking suspicion that Ghost Pines Winery is “family-owned” the way Donald Trump is a “landlord.”

So what? Why do I make an issue of corporate ownership?

Because in my experience, corporate-owned wine lacks passion, while family-owned wine shows commitment and authenticity in every sip.

But I’ll be darned if Ghost Pines Cab didn’t shake my prejudice just a little bit. First, the label uses a fairly unusual appellation designation. It shows “Napa County 50%, Sonoma County 50%.” Why point that out? Isn’t a single appellation supposed to designate quality? Apparently these young winemakers didn’t get the memo, because they believe that blending select lots from different appellations produces a better, richer, more complex wine. They’ll incorporate fruit from different vineyards, different appellations, even different varietals!

And I’d have to agree. Ghost Pines 2008 Cab shows elegance and weight at the same time, and that’s apparently the result of blending Napa County grapes (which add elegance and structure) with Sonoma County fruit (which brings richness, depth, and power).The nose shows classic Cab aromas of blackberries, vanilla and toast, and the palate offers rich, jammy fruit  with some spice and cocoa. The finish has enough grip for an age-worthy Cab, without turning your mouth inside out.

The overall package is really fun to drink, and it’s presented at a price point (just under $20) that 2010 wine drinkers can appreciate.

I hope this isn’t the beginning of a trend. I don’t want to enjoy corporate-made wines! But call me a sucker on this one — I Like!

To me, “Oregon” used to mean “expensive Pinot from the Willamette Valley.” The Oregon wine people used to tell us, (again and again) that they were on the same latitude as Burgundy, which justified the $40, $50 or $60 price tags on their Pinot Noir. But many of us weren’t so sure…

Then along came this rather iconoclastic group of wine people who had passed through many of Oregon’s best wineries. The founding members of A to Z Wineworks had roots in Domaine Drouhin, Chehalem, Archery Summit, Eyrie, Burgundy and New Zealand. Not to mention a celebrity basketball coach (Gregg Popovich) who happened to be a huge wine fan and collector. Their stated aim was to make “Aristocratic Wines at Democratic Prices.”

So instead of buying land and planting acres of vineyards in the Willamette Valley, this group of wine professionals made contracts with some of the best growers in Oregon to buy their grapes and blend them into great wines that they could sell at great prices.  That’s where the whole “democratic” thing comes in… Read the rest of this entry »

We like Spanish reds. A Lot. We’ve enjoyed the cheap and cheerful, under$10 values such as Vina Borgia, Protocolo, and Borsao. And we’ve positively salivated over the big, lush, super-premium reds like El Nido Clio (scarce as hen’s teeth and now kinda pricey, thanks to an unbroken chain of 92+ ratings) and Finca Sandoval (ratings just as high, and just as big, brawny and rich).

So I practically jumped up and down and squealed “Yippee” when I heard there was another entry in the Great Tasting But Affordable Spanish Red Sweepstakes. Finca Sandoval “Salia” 2007 is the “everyday” red made at the estate of Spanish journalist Victor de la Serna. The estate is located in a recently-named D.O. called Manchuela, which is snugged between two rivers in southeast Spain’s La Mancha district. What, another Man Of  La Mancha? (Sorry, I’ve always loved Broadway musicals and couldn’t resist the pun).

Manchuela has existed as a recognized wine region since 2000, and is know for cultivating a little-known red grape called Bobal. That grape is included in the high-priced Finca Sandoval bottling, But the Salia includes 50% Syrah, 38% Alicante Bouchet and 12% Garnacha. The nose is intense and fragrant, with hints of blueberries and cedar, and the color is dark and opaque, suggesting a wine you’ll need to cut with a knife and fork. So I was surprised at the bright fruit on the palate, and the soft vanilla spice in the middle (it was generously oaked, with 11 months in mostly French oak barrels). Of course, there was still a rich and weighty mouthfeel, since Salia is unfined and infiltered, like all the Finca Sandoval wines.

This whole package sells for well under $20 ($18 here) and is a tremendous value at that price. It’s also part of the Jorge Ordonez portfolio, which I’ve stated is the best collection of imported wines that I know of. Once again, Ordonez delivers a top quality wine that’s way better than just “everyday”. Enjoy Salia with a hearty meal — a side of beef, maybe?

We recently spent some time visiting wineries in California’s Sonoma County and Napa Valley, and one thing jumped up and hit us in the kisser (not that we hadn’t suspected it already, but this visit confirmed our worst suspicions). Here it is: there’s Good Wine, Wine Made From the Heart, Wine Made By the Family That Owns It; and then there’s Corporate Wine. And you don’t need to look at any business prospectus to see which one is which. It reveals itself when you call the winery, when you walk up to the tasting room counter, when you take your first sip of the wine. It may say, “We’re made with personal passion and conviction,” or “We’re made by someone else, and we just work here.”

We visited many family-owned wineries, because that’s who we seek out. We believe in their passion, their conviction, and their “make it or break it” drive to succeed. So we had a wonderful time discovering Seghesio Family Vineyards, Barnett Vineyards, Steltzner, Cline, Landmark, and Siduri and Novy. We loved (and respected) them all. But one of the best stories is the tale of Siduri and Novy, and it epitomizes everything we love about family-owned wineries.

We found Siduri and Novy in a sheet metal warehouse in Santa Rosa. There were no ivy-covered walls; no Tuscan style mansion; not even picturesque acres of rolling vineyards. And there was no STAFF — one person was the “staff”. It was just… a warehouse. But the wines… TO DIE FOR!

This winery was created by Adam and Dianna Lee, two folks from Texas who arrived in California Wine Country with a whopping $24,000 in their wish fund. They expected to buy vineyards and make great wine with their $24,000, not knowing that the Big Guys in the wine business spend more than that on their business cards. They didn’t realize that, with land prices in Napa running at about $250,000 AN ACRE (and that’s BEFORE you spend $20,000 an acre to put in vineyards) the wine business had become a rich man’s game.

But being tough Texans, they didn’t fold up and roll back to the Panhandle. Instead, they used their seed money in the most efficient way possible — they bought the best grapes they could find, from the best vineyards in the state. They made them into wine using the least intervention possible, so the great grapes would reveal themselves as…great wine. And, oh yeah, they happened to get some of this wine in front of this guy named Robert Parker, Jr. who gave it 90 points and shot it into orbit. The rest, as they say, is history.

But the point is, they knew that great wine starts in the vineyard, and it didn’t matter if they owned the land the grapes were grown on.  They could control the process, in part by buying fruit by the acre instead of the ton (ensuring that they got the best QUALITY out of their vineyards, rather than the most QUANTITY). Siduri now makes over 2o excellent Pinot Noirs, sourced from vineyards from Santa Barbara to Willamette Valley, and they are all spectacular values. They don’t own any land, and they haven’t built a Tuscan mansion tasting room — they just make damn fine wine.

As Dianna says, “Would you rather us put our money into a fancy building, or into the bottle?” Now that’s wine made with passion.

You’ve never seen an uglier excuse for plants. They’re stunted, and twisted, and gnarled, and – dead looking! And they’re “growing” out of something that should be on a beach somewhere, or in a desert…

These unlikely-looking plants are in fact Old Vine Zinfandel vines, and they’ve been gnarling and twisting for anywhere from 80 to 100 years in Contra Costa, California.

Back when these vines were young, Contra Costa was a booming farming community about 50 miles east of the San Francisco Bay area. Now there are strip malls and subdivisions threatening the vineyards, but they still somehow push out green leaves every spring and purple fruit every Fall. And Cline Cellars turns the purple fruit into some amazing wines.

If you wonder how really old plants can make great wines, let me explain that Old Vine grapes are particularly prized for the intensity and complexity of their fruit. Because they’re grown in this really lousy, sandy soil, the roots have to dig very deep – like 10 to 30 feet – in search of nutrition and water. They pick up lots of flavor components along the way, and in turn produce fruit with bolder and more complex flavors. They are “stressed”, as they say in the industry, and for grape vines that’s a good thing…

Mind you, they don’t produce a lot of fruit. But the winemaker doesn’t want a lot of fruit: vines with fewer grape bunches can concentrate more flavor in each bunch. And these Old Vines certainly pack in the flavor.

We tasted several Old Vine wines, starting with Cline Ancient Vines Mourvedre 2009. Almost inky black in color, it starts with a mouthful of blackberry fruit and a hint of something mushroom-y, with notes of spice and pepper. The body is very rich, but it’s saved from being “flabby” by some pretty good acid and tart cranberry fruit coming in at the end.

Then there are three single-vineyard Old Vine Zins, each named for the road that abuts the vineyard. Cline Bridgehead Zinfandel 2008 was my favorite. It had the deep, dark blueberry nose and palate that I look for in good Zin, with lovely hints of spice and vanilla. And did I mention that it’s 15% alcohol? This is typical of Old Vines, and can make them way too “hot” on the palate, but Bridgehead manages to stay in balance to produce a big, but not overpowering taste experience.

Cline Big Break Zinfandel 2008 shows much the same base flavors, but with more spice. And jumping right out at the end is a hit of eucalyptus. If you wonder how this herbal component gets into Zin, just look at the tall stands of eucalyptus trees lining Northern California’s vineyards. These monstrous trees with their peeling red bark and long, narrow, gray-green leaves literally drop their flavor (in the form of pollen and oils) onto the vineyards.

Cline Live Oak Zinfandel 2008 showed more of a fleshy nose, with blackcherry elements to the fruit and a soft fleshiness on the palate. It had more weight and less balance – I wanted something to lighten it up at the end. But of course, after tasting four of these big boys my palate could have been just a bit fatigued…

Unless you’re one of those purists who believe high alcohol is a sin against the Wine Gods, you’ll find this to be a really fun flight of wines. It’s like tasting Big, Bigger and Biggest! Just make sure you do it in the privacy of your own home, or in the company of a Designated Driver. Enjoy!

500,000,000  years is a long time. It’s long enough for molten rock to turn to solid stone, and for stone to turn into crumbly red soil.  And for 499,999,970 years that rock/soil baked in the Australian sun, just waiting for its destiny…

Which tuned out to be these red grapes that the Aussies call “Shiraz.”

Now, there’s  LOTS of Shiraz grown in Australia, because the Aussies love the rich, jammy black-raspberry-tinged wine that it produces (and so, incidentally, do we). But none of it tastes quite like the Shiraz grown on the world’s oldest soils — the Cambrian soils of Heathcote, Victoria province.

It was about 30 years ago that grapes were first planted in this area, and about 20 years since Bill Hepburn planted a 10-acre vineyard on the site that is now Tatiarra. There’s been about 10 years of drought that threatened the vines’ existence, but they’re scrappy Australian vines managed by savvy Australian vineyard managers. They’ve not only survived, but have produced intense, concentrated, inky-colored grapes for an unparalleled collection of wines.

Of course, they had some help: enter Ben Riggs, the talented winemaker that created Tatiarra’s amazing wines. After learning his craft at wineries in France, Italy and California, he came back home to Australia to do what he does best.

Ben loves these Cambrian soils, and the extreme temperature changes (remember that old dog, “Diurnal Temperature Shift”) that give Heathcote grapes their intense flavor and structure. These grapes make BIG wines — wines like Barolo’s and Rioja’s that are still young at 10 years, and don’t even grow whiskers until they’re 15 or 20. Heathcote Shiraz is like that: muscular, dark and mysterious, and loaded with complex flavors.

The first wine we tasted was Tatiarra Heathcote Cambrian Shiraz 2005, and I was blown away by the depth and complexity. It was inky dark in color, with a nose of leather, cocoa and black berries. The palate stopped me short, because just five years after vintage date it was dense and muscular. But some sloshing and swirling revealed the incredible rich fruit, balanced by firm tannins and moderate acid. Licorice and vanilla were lurking somewhere in the background, too. Amazingly, this thing was BALANCED! It was huge, but  it was balanced.

Tatiarra The Pressings Shiraz 2006 had less earthiness and more lush fruit than its cousin. I got dark berries, chocolate and cedar on the nose, and the  palate coated my mouth with blueberry and blackberry fruit. A good hit of vanilla comes in on the end, thanks to 18 months aging in new American oak, and the finish lingers… This wine needs time to reach its peak, that’s for sure, but even now it’s a pleasure to taste such hedonistic loveliness.

Both these wines are over 15% alcohol, and no doubt there will be critics who lament the high alcohol content. But they wouldn’t be Cambrian wine without it. The truth is that this terroir needs to produce massive wines, and I for one, will just sit back and enjoy every one of them. Cheers!

George Shinas is a guy you notice. He’s large enough to define his space in a room, and he has the manner of someone who’s accustomed to being listened to. And well he should be — he’s a Criminal Court Judge in Australia’s Victoria Province.

George also makes wines that are every bit as big and commanding as he is. He has a passion for wines and winemaking that comes through in his words and his bottles.

George grew up with wine: the son of Greek parents who emigrated to Australia in 1952, he was quite literally raised in their restaurant. Wine was a part of their heritage and lifestyle, and eight generations before him had made their own wine. George’s was so popular in his home town of Mildura that other restaurant owners begged him to sell it to them, and George finally sold his first commercial wine in 2002. Shinas Estates was born!

Shinas produces just three wines, all made from estate fruit. George handcrafts his wines, starting in the vineyard: irrigation is kept to a minimum to stress the vines, yields are kept low to concentrate flavors, and the fruit is given extra hang-time to maximize ripeness. George’s winemaking process also stretches the envelope, with extra soak time and barrel time, and no fining or filtering to strip away flavors. The resulting wines are so good, they should be illegal (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun). Read the rest of this entry »

So, how many of you out there remember The Millenium? It was supposed to be The New Years Eve To End All New Years Eve’s.  It was when the Big Universal Clock  was going to roll from 1999 to 2000, and all the world’s technology was going to (maybe) come crashing down.

So we all planned our New Year’s Eve celebrations very carefully. We wanted the most bang for our buck, since this might be our last buck (hopefully not our last bang…). Anyhow, I was bringing the bubbly to our party. I considered U.S. sparklers, of which there are many I like, and  even an Aussie  sparkler or two. But what I settled on was this: Cristalino Brut Cava, a wonderful (and wonderfully cheap) sparkling wine from Spain. I popped it open at midnight, and two things happened: 1- the world didn’t come to an end, and 2- everyone loved my bubbly.

Cava is the name the Spanish use for their sparkling wine, and before you get all “wine snob” about it, let me assure you that Cava’s can rival French Champagne for quality. They are made in exactly the same way as the French: the Cristalino bottle says, “Metodo Tradicional”, meaning “Made in the traditional Champagne way”. It is also “Fermented in this bottle”, which means the second fermentation has been allowed to happen just like in Riems, France. And that’s a good thing… Read the rest of this entry »

OK, we’ve just done four days and 2300 miles. We traversed eight states, experienced temperatures ranging from 37 to 102 degrees, and climbed from 1,200 feet above see level, to 10000, and back down 1800 feet. Did I say, in just four days?

I’ve gotta tell you, there are lots of amazing sights to see in this country. And lots of amazing stuff that’ll pop up and delight you if you keep your eyes and your mind open as you travel.

The welcome surprise we tripped over was the Colorado wine industry. Now I’m not a total, “American wines begin and end with Napa Valley” snob. I’ve written lots of good things about Washington State, New Mexico, and even Arizona. But I admit to being oblivious about Colorado wines until we started chatting with a very informative and helpful wine guy at a shop called Little Raven Vineyards in Denver. When we asked about the Colorado-made wines on his shelves, he recommended his favorites and pointed us towards the Grand Valley region in the southwest corner of the state. The next day we pulled off the interstate to investigate (always a good thing to do) and came across Plum Creek Cellars in Palisades, Colorado. And we were knocked out. Read the rest of this entry »

Some red wines are so rich that you could have them for dessert. I don’t mean actual dessert wines: I mean a wine with so much fruit that it tastes like a yummy dessert. Actually, we paired this wine with a chocolate raspberry dessert. And it was really yummy.

Bergevin Lane Columbia Valley Calico Red 2006 is the wine I’m reviewing today. It’s made in Washington State wine country, and if you’ve been reading my posts, you know I really like Washington State reds. But Bergevin Lane is especially cool. Read the home page of their website and you’ll see why. Bergevin and Lane are the two women you see here, and their passion for good wine is real and obvious. Many other critics have agreed — Wine Spectator, The Wine Advocate, Wine & Spirits and others have already given their wines a boatload of 90+ ratings and rave reviews, and they’ve only been around since 2001! They’re also located in the town of Walla Walla, Washington — that’s just too much fun to pronounce, and makes me want to go visit there soon. Read the rest of this entry »