Wine Tasting @ Kappy's!

Sunday Kappy's had the grand holiday tasting. Here were my standouts:

Tangley Oaks Chardonnay: A hint of sweetness, SO refreshing compared to the buttered popcorn Chardonnays I'd been having. Food friendly, versatile, some fruity apple notes. YUM YUM YUM YUM.

Oriel "Etereo" Barolo: Structured, some tannins but not unctuous. Red fruit, spice. At $70 a bottle, not something I could drink every day.

Stangeland Pinot Gris: Clean, good drinking. Light fruit, a great "house white"...and I love the story of the retired chemist deciding to make wine!

Gancia Prosecco Extra Dry: I still like the Mionetto Prosecco Brut better, but this was a party in my mouth. Crisp, easy drinking sparkler.

Oriel "Palatina" Riesling : Fruity but not sweet, steely mineral notes. Food friendly and a fuck of a good wine.

Renwood Zinfandel: What a pleasant surprise! Fruity, jammy easy drinking wine. I guess I like my fruit bombs!

Banfi Pinot Grigio: Light citrus, apples, pears. Great with seafood. MMMMMMMM.

Eating Crow and Drinking Wine

At some point (two Boston Wine Expos ago I believe), I tasted several dreadful sparklers . One was a sparkling white zinfandel (I'm fairly sure it's Beringer, and I wouldn't recommend it), another was a sparkling Shiraz. In any event, despite loving sparkling wine in general (and I'm not opposed to sweet or unsophisticated!) these two wines left me cold.

As will happen when you drink 100+ samples of wine in a few hours, I mixed up the name of the sparkling Shiraz and Banfi Rosa Regale, a delicious frizzante--lightly sparkling--red dessert/aperitif wine we had last night at Icarus. I was denouncing the Rosa Regale during one course and loving it in the next. I'm not too proud to admit I was wrong!

And I was wrong--the Rosa is a sweet and fruity treat, great with the peach compote/poundcake combination it was paired with, but also delicious with the decadent chocolate cake I had. It's low in alcohol and gorgeous in color. And it definitely has a celebratory tingle. Drink it with a smile!

Lightly Chilled Beaujolais and Date Night!

Mike and I had a hell of a good time last night.

We'd gotten some lamb chops at the grocery store...which I let sit in a cup or so of Louis Jadot Beaujolais Villages 2005, five or so garlic cloves (minced roughly), good olive oil, a little apple cider vinegar, some salt and pepper.

While that was marinating, I made panzanella (an Italian bread salad--the bread is toasted in olive oil--with shallots, tomatoes, cucumbers, red and green peppers, plenty of fresh basil, and a yummy mustard vinaigrette). Letting that sit, I threw the lamb chops in the broiler (if we ever get a house, a grill is absolutely a must!). We had that spread with the Louis Jadot Beaujolais, lightly chilled (maybe half an hour in the fridge). Not the most complex of wines of course, but the fruity flavors really paired nicely with the pepper and sweetness in the salad. I also liked the contrast of the intense earthiness in the lamb chops with the slightly rustic flavor of the wine. By far the best red wine drinking experience I've had in the summer months.

If you're curious, the recipe for the panzanella is here (I changed the red onions to shallots and left out the capers).

The Punk Rockers Strike Again!

I had written a review of the Four Vines Old Vine Cuvee Zinfandel...a fruity Zin blend that makes me want to buy one of their "Zin Bitch" shirts.

Anyway, fun little surprise in the Boston Globe...every month they recommend some "plonk" (relatively inexpensive and surprisingly drinkable wine) and Four Vines Naked Chardonnay is one of their picks!

When we were at the Boston Wine Expo, they slapped a "Naked" tattoo on my arm because I liked this unoaked Chardonnay so much. Gives me a little validation for my palate.

Here's the "Barebones Chardonnay" Plonk of the Month.

Here's the Four Vines Wines.

Five Dollar Bottle of Wine

Now, let me first say that there's nothing wrong with cheap bottles of wine. The Lost Vineyards Chenin Blanc/Sauvignon Blanc is surprisingly tasty and worth every penny (it tends to retail for $4 or less). Check it out here.

Over the weekend I had bought a few bottles of wine (our friend Bedlam was in town, and I knew we'd be drinking something tasty). One of those was the 2005 Honey Moon Viognier from Trader Joe's. Price point is about five dollars. It's a ripe, ripe mouthful of honey, apricot, citrus and tropical paradise. It lacks some subtlety, but at five dollars it's a keeper!

Costco and Cheval Blanc

I wandered about the Food and Wine section of Costco.com and was incredulous to find that they are selling 2005 Bordeaux futures~!

I managed to find (although I certainly can't afford to order) Cheval Blanc for the low, low bargain price of $724.99 per bottle (a bit of sarcasm). Retail cases of Cheval Blanc for the 2003 vintage went for between $3600 and $4600, so this price point may be a bit...shall we say...excessive? On the other hand, the Cheval Blanc is certainly a candidate for wine of the year, at least according to some of the tasters that had it in the barrel. And 2005 was an excellent, excellent year for Bordeaux. Read more about Bordeaux future pricing and tasting notes here!

Interesting Article on Wine

"Wine … tastes primarily of wine—grape-juice, tannin, and so on," Dahl wrote. "If I am wrong about this, and the great wine-writers are right, then there is only one conclusion. The chateaux in Bordeaux have begun to lace their grape-juice with all manner of other exotic fruit juices, as well as slinging in a bale or two of straw and a few packets of ginger biscuits for extra flavouring. Someone had better look into this."

The Dahl in this case is Roald Dahl, and the above quote is from an article by Mike Steinberger on Slate magazine. Apparently Roald Dahl--the writer of Matilda, The Witches, etc--was a renowned oenophile (and obviously someone who doesn't subscribe to the "ooh it has flavors of tobacco and a hint of smoky ribs" approach to describing wine).

Read the entire article here: http://www.slate.com/id/2168406/fr/flyout

relaxing with a floral friend

I am such, such a fan of interesting whites...be they steely, fruit bombs, or a mouthful of flowers. I am not so much a fan of the stereotypical California oaked-to-hell Chardonnay. (Although I do enjoy a nice UNoaked Chard!).

On the "interesting white" front...Clay Station 2005 Viognier. Another Trader Joe bottle ($8.99) and a mouthful of flowers. But in a good way.

Here's the tasting notes from the bottle:
An elegant aromatic wine that pairs well with many including scallops, pasta with pesto and Szechwan green beans. Our Viognier displays notes of honeysuckle, jasmine and orange blossom layered with juicy guava and peach character for a refreshing finish that lingers.

Here's my tasting notes:
Like walking into a flower store, but very pleasant. Tropical undertones...maybe some passionfruit? This is a hell of wine, great for sitting on the back patio in the spring with your feet up and the sun on your face.
We had this wine with Coho salmon initally...cooked with soy sauce and a little sugar. It was delicious. A few days later we also had this with a tomato and basil salad. Also a winner.

Ghostbusters, Blues Brothers, and Ice Wine

Dan Akroyd is adding his name to some Canadian wines. Check out this link: Q&A

Punk Rock Zinfandel

Those of you who attended the Boston Wine Expo with me probably remember Four Vines, those great "Pirates of Paso"! The thing that sold me on them...in addition to the wine, of course...was the fact that they gave everyone temporary tattoos (I got "Naked"--which references their unoaked Chardonnay).

So while at Trader Joe's on Sunday, I came across Four Vines 2004 "Old Vine Cuvee" Zinfandel (it was about $9). I did a little happy wine buying dance, cooked up some French onion soup, and sat down with a glass.

Here's the tasting notes from the site:
On the nose the wine has layers of berry fruit and anise aromas with hints of spice. On the palate, blackberry and spicy plum fruit with a rich mouth feel. Big and opulent on the mid palate with plenty of structure, trailing to a velvety toasted oak finish. Enjoy with a friend!

My notes:
Relatively user-friendly...it goes nicely with the saltiness of the beef broth. Dark berry flavor, good mouth feel, nice oak. Not a fruit bomb. Went well with a piece of dark chocolate too. Fuck, that's nice.

First Post, some Oregon flava

I thought my first post here (thanks for setting this blog up for me Mike!) should be something significant. So my first review/wine I'll talk about on http://www.agirlandhervino.com/ is the first bottle we drank in our new apartment: a 2005 King Estate Oregon Pinot Gris. I had asked Mike to bring me back something from Oregon (he went to the Nike headquarters for work) and that was his choice. Slightly validating for him, since Food and Wine listed it as one of the "50 Wines You Can Always Trust" in the April 2007 issue a few weeks later. Go Mike!

Also of note: the wine is produced from sustainably-farmed vineyards. I approve.

Tasting notes from Food and Wine: a crisp white full of stone-fruit flavors that is a consistently great value.

My tasting notes: There's tropical fruit hues in the bouquet. Fragrant but not sickly. It's light and food-friendly. Bit of sweetness, bit of mineral, slightly herbaceous finish. I could see myself serving this at a summer backyard barbeque. It has the sort of easy way about it that doesn't scream "pretentious" or "serious wine"--which is sometimes exactly what you want.