Well at least this author does.
I had the pleasure of opening a 1980 Robert Mondavi Reserve Cabernet (note: link is to different year) last night. The bottle was past its prime for sure, but this is the first time I have had a bottle from my birth year, and I hope its not the last. It was a treat to be sure. You can read tasting notes by following the link to the right.
In addition to the Mondavi I found a bottle of 1995 Lagrange on winebid.com. In contrast to the Mondavi, the Lagrange was much too young to have been opened. It took several hours in the decanter, but it finally opened up a bit. Wish I had another bottle to hang onto for another 15 years.
Tonight I'm drinking a nice Macon-Village from Louis Jadot that I picked up at Jewel for less than $10. Its much better than most of the stuff on the shelves at that price. A touch of oak, but nothing outrageous. Good melon and even some grassy sauvignon blanc like notes. I guess I'm hanging onto the fast fading summer, because I've been on quite a White Burgundy kick lately.
To continue with the theme of randomness for the post, I had an interesting time at the Binny's Buffalo Grove French Wine Tasting this weekend. Amongst the sea of wines that weren't very memorable, I found a nice Vouvray and a very interesting white wine that I can't seem t o find a link to anywhere on the Internet. It was some sort of White Rhone wine. Unfortunately my familiarity with the region is not making locating the wine any easier.
There are a few tastings coming up of note. One in Highland Park with over 75 California Reds, another major tasting on November 10 at Binny's South Loop with lots of collectible wines for $40. I'm also planning to attend the ERI pre-auction tasting, which I hope will be a good showing of some really special wines.
If anyone knows how I can get a ticket to the Union Des Grand Cru Tasting in January (I think its trade/press only) I would love to go. Just going to throw that out there in case someone happens to be listening.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Wine Shop Discovery
I just got back from Lafayette, IN this weekend where I was visiting my in-laws. I've always brought wine with me when visiting in the past, but this weekend I went out to the Village Bottle Shop on Sagamore Parkway in West Lafayette. I went to Purdue, and so I never made it up this way for liquore purchases, preferring to stop in at the Village Bottle Shop on campus, or occasionally make the trek out to Bar Berry. When I walked in the door I was pleasantly surprised to find a fantastic selection of wines. I remember wondering while taking wine appreciation at Purdue "where does our professor buy his wines". Had I asked, I'm sure he would have said Village Bottle Shop. Its packed full of great wines. Prices were fair, selection was vast, and well curated, and the staff knew their way around it. If you happen to be down in Lafayette for any reason. Maybe you are headed south to watch your Wildcats get trounced by my Boilermakers, then be sure to stop in. The beer selection wasn't half bad either.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Long Break and another trip to CA
Its been forever since my last post. Almost a full year. I'm not sure how active I will be in the coming year, but I wanted to make some notes on a trip I just took to California's wine country, and highlight a couple of really nice wines as well as a trip to visit a virtual friend's new wine venture.
Gustavo Thrace - The first place I visited on my recent trip to Napa may also have been my favorite. Thrace, the second half of Gustavo Thrace, was pouring and was most hospitable. The wines were all of high quality, but mostly were lost into the sea of things I tasted over the week. That is with the exception of the chardonnay. The '05 Carneros Chardonnay ranks among the best I have had from Napa. I won't get into tasting notes as their website nails it spot on.
Mt. Veeder Winery - This place is hard to track down. The tasting room is actually the Franciscian tasting room. I want to say we tasted through 5 Mt. Veeder wines. Each wine came from the Mt. Veeder Appelation. Again I won't go into specifics on the wines, but I will say that each one was more complex than the next leaving me with the general impression that the folks at Mt. Veeder really know what they are doing. I recommend taking the time to hunt these wines down.
Quivira - One of my favorite producers of Zinfandel, this winery has reinvented itself a bit since the last time I visited. The maps are gone (oh those maps) but now there is a chicken coupe, which my son just loved, and a huge garden of all sorts of beautiful vegetables. We treied a lot of stuff, but my favorite wine of the stop was the Grenache Rose. Done in a dry style, the rose was everything good rose should be, and everything white zinfandel is not. Crisp and refreshing, I could drink it all day long.
Cartograph - Long time readers may remember that I made wine with the Cellar Rat back in 2006. Alan has had an interesting journey that you can read about on his blog. He is in the process of launching a new winery and brand and I got the chance to barrel sample his Pinot Noirs and bottle taste his finished Gewurztraminer. Its really pointless to tell you about the barrel samples, other than to say that you should seek out his finished Pinot. It will be a classicly styled, understated wine that will go great with food. The Gewutz however was a real treat. not just because finding one of the most underrated wines out there has become more and more difficult, but because Alan's was quite good. Gewurtz has a classic and instantly recognizable aroma of orange, pepper and rose petals. This is usually the dominant character of a Gewurztraminer, but in the Cartograph wine it took a backseat to some of the more Riesling like citrus and honey. The Gewurtz signature was still there, but it was melded nicely into a complete wine that would go with more than just the traditional Thai that Gewurztraminer is so often paired to.
Gustavo Thrace - The first place I visited on my recent trip to Napa may also have been my favorite. Thrace, the second half of Gustavo Thrace, was pouring and was most hospitable. The wines were all of high quality, but mostly were lost into the sea of things I tasted over the week. That is with the exception of the chardonnay. The '05 Carneros Chardonnay ranks among the best I have had from Napa. I won't get into tasting notes as their website nails it spot on.
Mt. Veeder Winery - This place is hard to track down. The tasting room is actually the Franciscian tasting room. I want to say we tasted through 5 Mt. Veeder wines. Each wine came from the Mt. Veeder Appelation. Again I won't go into specifics on the wines, but I will say that each one was more complex than the next leaving me with the general impression that the folks at Mt. Veeder really know what they are doing. I recommend taking the time to hunt these wines down.
Quivira - One of my favorite producers of Zinfandel, this winery has reinvented itself a bit since the last time I visited. The maps are gone (oh those maps) but now there is a chicken coupe, which my son just loved, and a huge garden of all sorts of beautiful vegetables. We treied a lot of stuff, but my favorite wine of the stop was the Grenache Rose. Done in a dry style, the rose was everything good rose should be, and everything white zinfandel is not. Crisp and refreshing, I could drink it all day long.
Cartograph - Long time readers may remember that I made wine with the Cellar Rat back in 2006. Alan has had an interesting journey that you can read about on his blog. He is in the process of launching a new winery and brand and I got the chance to barrel sample his Pinot Noirs and bottle taste his finished Gewurztraminer. Its really pointless to tell you about the barrel samples, other than to say that you should seek out his finished Pinot. It will be a classicly styled, understated wine that will go great with food. The Gewutz however was a real treat. not just because finding one of the most underrated wines out there has become more and more difficult, but because Alan's was quite good. Gewurtz has a classic and instantly recognizable aroma of orange, pepper and rose petals. This is usually the dominant character of a Gewurztraminer, but in the Cartograph wine it took a backseat to some of the more Riesling like citrus and honey. The Gewurtz signature was still there, but it was melded nicely into a complete wine that would go with more than just the traditional Thai that Gewurztraminer is so often paired to.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Third Coast Visits the other Two Coasts
I had a fantastic week of wine drinking last week. After a memorial service took me out to California for a weekend I found a day to steal off to Napa for Father's day and treated my dad to a full day of tasting. The week ended with a business trip to Washington DC, a city which I'm spending more time in and will start to share about here. Here is the week in wines.
Deerfield Ranch - This is a small producer in Sonoma County. Deerfield Ranch is out in Valley of The Moon across the road from Kenwood. They were in the middle of construction of a new driveway when we were there, but it was a minimal annoyance. The wine cave they just finished is beautiful and tasting amidst the barrels and artwork in the cave added to the ambiance. Oh, and then there were the wines. We tasted two sauvignon blancs side by side and they were both fantastic examples of a milder oak aged sauvignon blanc. We moved on to a Pinot Noir that was typical Russian River Pinot Noir. It didn't blow me away but at $33 its a much better deal than some other Russian River bottles. The final memorable bottle was a "super tuscan", the Super T Rex. This had a lot of complexity to it and was a nice end to our tasting.
Beaulieau Vineyards - Beaulieau is a Napa legend, and this was the first time I have visited the winery. It was less impressive than I expected, but at the same time it was obvious that the intent of the tasting room was to convey a sense of oppulence and luxury. Looking beyond that to the wines was the goal of our tasting and a trip to the reserve room helped us do just that. They were pouring a 1999, 1989, and 1979 Georges de Latour Private Reserve along with a 1994 that they happened to have open. The '79 was absolutely showing its age, but it was a beautiful bottle. The '89 I honestly don't remember very much about, and the '99 despite being 10 years old still seemed very youthful. I'm sure that will make for a great wine 10 to 20 years down the road.
Charles Krug - Up the road a little bit we found Charles Krug. This winery has been around for a very long time and has a strong history with the Mondavi family. The grounds of the estate were pretty uninspiring, we pulled into the parking lot and went into the tasting room without a lot of fanfare. The tasting room was much the same. I key in on these things and take it as a sign that a place like that is all about the wine. We had a very nice Zinfandel followed by what was certain to be a good batch of Cabernets down the road. There were other wines thrown in, including a chardonnay I think, but nothing else stood out as fantastic.
Cuvaison - This was an interesting find. I had never heard of the winery before but I'm always happy to take a chance on something out of the way. Cuvaison is over on the Silverado Trail tucked up on the mountain side of the road. Its a small place with what seems to be limited production. We tried a couple of their Chardonnays which were quite good. I'm always a fan of Chardonnay from the Carneros and personally think its the only place worth growing Chardonnay in the Napa Valley. Well Montelena, but its so far north its like its own little microclime in Napa. We also tried a smattering of other wines but nothing stood out until the final wine, a Cab, with more tannin than anything I had tasted all day, which is a lot considering the trip had already taken us to Krug and BV. I can't say if it will be that good in years to come, but it will certainly last for quite a while. Unfortunately what kept me from enjoying the visit as much as possible was the hard sell on the wine club. I know its a huge revenue stream for the smaller producers but it just drives me nuts.
Del Dotto - Del Dotto is a bit of a connundrum for me. I don't get really excited about their wines. Maybe its because you are tasting them in a 57 degree cave or maybe its because they just aren't that good, but I can't get behind them. With that disclaimer out of the way, this is absolutely the best tour in Napa. Its educational, its entertaining, and its luxurious. The tour guide trucks you all over the caves from barrel to barrel and theives out barrel samples from what seems like endless different combinations of oak barrels and varietals. The tour ended with pizza, meats, cake, port, and bread. It was fantastic. Of course it is also $50/person, but it made for a wonderful father's day gift.
Finally I had to get back on a plane and schlep myself across the country to DC. If you've never done that at 4:30PM pacific time to land at 12:30 ET and still have to get to your hotel I will tell you it is exhaustng. I woke up refreshed however and the following day was treated to dinner at Morton's. One of our party is related to the former manager and he pulled some strings to get us some extra special treatment. The night started with 2 free botles of Paradux, a fine wine made by Duckhorn. We continued thru the night ordering so many bottles I couldn't keep up, but they were all fantastic.
I'm looking back on my Napa trip fondly and looking forward to my upcomming trips to DC. Look for more as it happens. You may notice a several links to Snooth on the site. I've signed up as an affiliate to defray some hosting costs. Please visit the links if you have any interest in the wines I mention.
Deerfield Ranch - This is a small producer in Sonoma County. Deerfield Ranch is out in Valley of The Moon across the road from Kenwood. They were in the middle of construction of a new driveway when we were there, but it was a minimal annoyance. The wine cave they just finished is beautiful and tasting amidst the barrels and artwork in the cave added to the ambiance. Oh, and then there were the wines. We tasted two sauvignon blancs side by side and they were both fantastic examples of a milder oak aged sauvignon blanc. We moved on to a Pinot Noir that was typical Russian River Pinot Noir. It didn't blow me away but at $33 its a much better deal than some other Russian River bottles. The final memorable bottle was a "super tuscan", the Super T Rex. This had a lot of complexity to it and was a nice end to our tasting.
Beaulieau Vineyards - Beaulieau is a Napa legend, and this was the first time I have visited the winery. It was less impressive than I expected, but at the same time it was obvious that the intent of the tasting room was to convey a sense of oppulence and luxury. Looking beyond that to the wines was the goal of our tasting and a trip to the reserve room helped us do just that. They were pouring a 1999, 1989, and 1979 Georges de Latour Private Reserve along with a 1994 that they happened to have open. The '79 was absolutely showing its age, but it was a beautiful bottle. The '89 I honestly don't remember very much about, and the '99 despite being 10 years old still seemed very youthful. I'm sure that will make for a great wine 10 to 20 years down the road.
Charles Krug - Up the road a little bit we found Charles Krug. This winery has been around for a very long time and has a strong history with the Mondavi family. The grounds of the estate were pretty uninspiring, we pulled into the parking lot and went into the tasting room without a lot of fanfare. The tasting room was much the same. I key in on these things and take it as a sign that a place like that is all about the wine. We had a very nice Zinfandel followed by what was certain to be a good batch of Cabernets down the road. There were other wines thrown in, including a chardonnay I think, but nothing else stood out as fantastic.
Cuvaison - This was an interesting find. I had never heard of the winery before but I'm always happy to take a chance on something out of the way. Cuvaison is over on the Silverado Trail tucked up on the mountain side of the road. Its a small place with what seems to be limited production. We tried a couple of their Chardonnays which were quite good. I'm always a fan of Chardonnay from the Carneros and personally think its the only place worth growing Chardonnay in the Napa Valley. Well Montelena, but its so far north its like its own little microclime in Napa. We also tried a smattering of other wines but nothing stood out until the final wine, a Cab, with more tannin than anything I had tasted all day, which is a lot considering the trip had already taken us to Krug and BV. I can't say if it will be that good in years to come, but it will certainly last for quite a while. Unfortunately what kept me from enjoying the visit as much as possible was the hard sell on the wine club. I know its a huge revenue stream for the smaller producers but it just drives me nuts.
Del Dotto - Del Dotto is a bit of a connundrum for me. I don't get really excited about their wines. Maybe its because you are tasting them in a 57 degree cave or maybe its because they just aren't that good, but I can't get behind them. With that disclaimer out of the way, this is absolutely the best tour in Napa. Its educational, its entertaining, and its luxurious. The tour guide trucks you all over the caves from barrel to barrel and theives out barrel samples from what seems like endless different combinations of oak barrels and varietals. The tour ended with pizza, meats, cake, port, and bread. It was fantastic. Of course it is also $50/person, but it made for a wonderful father's day gift.
Finally I had to get back on a plane and schlep myself across the country to DC. If you've never done that at 4:30PM pacific time to land at 12:30 ET and still have to get to your hotel I will tell you it is exhaustng. I woke up refreshed however and the following day was treated to dinner at Morton's. One of our party is related to the former manager and he pulled some strings to get us some extra special treatment. The night started with 2 free botles of Paradux, a fine wine made by Duckhorn. We continued thru the night ordering so many bottles I couldn't keep up, but they were all fantastic.
I'm looking back on my Napa trip fondly and looking forward to my upcomming trips to DC. Look for more as it happens. You may notice a several links to Snooth on the site. I've signed up as an affiliate to defray some hosting costs. Please visit the links if you have any interest in the wines I mention.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
haut Brion Tasting
This is a rare event to be sure, and one I wish I was going to be in town for. Binny's South Loop is doing a Haut Brion Tasting. From the looks of it the winemaker will be on hand, and 3 vintages of Haut Brion Blanc, Haut Brion, La Mission Haut Brion, and Laville Haut Brion will be poured. Stupid business trips.
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