Archives for May, 2007
Caparone Sangiovese 2002
Unfined and unfiltered means this is a gamey wine. 100% Sangiovese gives it a tawny color. Deliciously grapey and tangy with insinuations of vanilla, cherry and pine-straw. The finish, believe it or not, reminds me of pineapple.
Double-Plus Good.
Scrugy - Wine Search Site
I don’t generally use specialty search sites. Google pretty much does what I want and it does it well. But that may be changing. Scrugy is a wine search engine that makes Google seem like overkill. I especially love that it can distinguish between winery web sites and tasting notes. They have a shopping feature but it isn’t integrated into the general search results. I hope they’ll figure that out. I haven’t looked close enough to see how their results compare to wine-searcher.com or winezap.com but I’m hoping this becomes my one stop wine search engine.
Another thing about Clautiere…
Just to add to my two previous posts… to get a sense of the kind of fun the Clautiere crew likes to have you should visit www.myspace.com/clautiere.
Clautiere Rose´2005
This is a big rose. Almost 15% alcohol and some substantial body makes it a bold and chewy wine. It lingers long on the tongue and works great as a pre-dinner opener if you’re looking for a little buzz to take the edge off of a busy work day. Drink it cold alone or with almost any kind of food. Like most rose´s it will have a soothing effect after eating something spicy but I always try a new wine without food so I can really taste it. The color is pale salmon and my first taste impression was a not too sweet bubble gum - not Bazooka but something in a stick and without the powdered sugar coating. It’s a 50/50 blend of Grenache and Counoise. The suggested retail price is $15 but it’s on sale for $7 if you buy it direct from the tasting room. I like it.
Clautiere
This was a fun tasting room. No tasting notes but I picked up a mixed case of 2005 Rose (Grenache and Cunoise), 2006 Grand Rouge (an odd blend of 41% Syrah, 18% Counoise, 17% Grenache, 12% Mourvedre, 7% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Viognier) and a 2004 Port (three Portuguese grapes: Touriga Nacional, Tinto Cao and Tinto Ruiz). I was hesitant to pick up a 750 ml bottle of Port but they insisted it would last up to a year after opening. I’ll let you know.
They keep a bountiful supply of wigs on hand for visitors to play with which was a natural for fools like us.
Chateau Gloria St. Julien 1997
We interrupt this Central Coast tour for a brief taste of a 10 year old Bordeaux. For someone who primarily drinks young wines this was a strange one. A very dark cinnamon color — almost opaque — with a finely gritty and smooth texture. It tasted like dirty, chocolate covered grilled broccoli — almost no fruit to speak of. Drank it alone for a first impression and then with mixed grill (pork, beef, lamb). I liked it but it was a little flat.
For what it’s worth.
Caparone Winery
One of my favorite discoveries thus far on this trip has been walking into the Caparone Winery tasting room and meeting Marc Caparone. As we pulled into the driveway one of our group exclaimed, “This is a tasting room? It looks like a warehouse,” to which I replied, “That’s why we’re here.” Al Caparone, and now his son Marc, has been making winery under the Caaprone label since 1979 and they still only make about 3000 cases a year. Their’s is a two man operation with Al slowly handing over the reigns to Marc. They make five wines: Sangiovese, Aglianico, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Nebbiolo. They have been working with Italian varietals from the beginning and introduced Aglianico to the US in 1992. They are committed to creating, “Interesting, high quality red wines, sold at an honest price” and they prove it by selling all their wines at the same $14 a bottle.
Alas, I can’t order wines from Georgia but I’m having four bottles each of the Sangiovese, Aglianico and Nebbiolo sent home for further inspection. These are all on the light end of the medium body spectrum and very acidic, not what you would expect for a Nebbiolo, perhaps, but very friendly, nonetheless. I look forward to getting to know them better.
What I’m doing in the Central Coast
Context is important when drinking wine so I find it hard to not like a wine when I’m in the tasting room of it’s maker. It’s not that I’m afraid to offend but probably more that I enjoy so much about experiencing: familiar wines, new wines, unusual wines, exotic wines, elegant wines, challenging wines and so on. Some might claim — indeed even be able — to discern a poor wine from a good wine from a great wine but I’m not one of them. I pretty much can only tell you what I like and, sometimes, why. I also know that my first impression of a wine cannot always be trusted as there are too many factors that may be in play that could create a false impression. For instance, a wine may need to breathe or it may work better with a particular kind of food, or my tongue may be biased by retaining some residual effects of the last wine tasted.
So what I’m doing on this trip is tasting a lot of different wines at several different tasting rooms and choosing a few wineries or wines that warrant a closer look. In some cases that means buying a bottle or two and drinking them with dinner but in others it means ordering a mixed case to be shipped home for later sampling. I’m also hunting for wineries that can ship to Georgia for future purchasing. Most can do so if I buy the wine on-site but I’m looking for wineries that I will be able to order from once home, especially those who have a wine club I may be interested in joining.
It should go without saying, but that never stops me from saying a thing, that I’m also looking for wines that are not available through the usual retail channels. I have largely been avoiding tasting rooms of the larger and more well known wineries.
Qupe 2006 Marsanne
Qupe Pronunciation test:
- koop
- kyoo-pay
- kwoo-pay
- koo-pay
- If I tell you I’ll have to kill you
Qupe 2006 Marsanne
87% Marsanne, 13% Roussane
A very young Rhone white which drinks well now but will age well. It’s a great summer lunch time sipper at 12.5% with subtle hints of Mexican mango (the small tart, yellow kind), peach skin and citrus and has a dry minerally finish. At $20 it’s a bit over-priced for drinking now but if you put a few bottles away for several years I bet it will impress your friends when you open it as a rich and and earthy medium bodied well rounded white for people who don’t like white.
Writer’s Block in Wine Country
We’re tooling around the Central Coast and I, for the life of me, am at a loss for words. That last meager tasting note is all I’ve been able to summon after our first day of tasting room visits.
The facts:
We’re staying in San Luis Obispo. We drove around Edna Valley yesterday. The cool climate is ideal for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and we’ve tasted some delightfully crisp and refreshing wines, most of which defy the dominant heavy California style.
Missus Dink and I are here visiting the offspring and their attachments, who all live in the Bay Area but we convinced them to meet us here because the largest outdoor wine tasting event in California, the Paso Robles Wine Festival, is happening this Saturday.
We’ve visited a few wineries but none that have won me over. We’ve tasted some nice wines but haven’t found the exact combination of style, affordability and accessibility that I’m seeking. By accessibility, I mean the ability to have wines shipped to Georgia when the order is made from Georgia. As far as I know, they can all ship if I buy the wine on-site but I’m looking for wineries that I can establish a long term relationship with.
BTW, visitors to this area should know that every tasting room we’ve visited thus far has charged us $5 to taste but most of them also will apply that to purchases. I’m spoiled by having tasted so often in Sonoma (and Napa) without ever having to pay a fee so I’m not happy about this trend but this amount is reasonable, at least at those wineries that aren’t stingy with their pours. (Here’s a lively discussion on this topic at Vinography.)
More later, hopefully…
Tangent Paragon Vineyard Pinot Gris, 2005
Under the
coarse grain of a
foggy ashen sky,
the gray grape
reigns.
This Edna Valley
version
is a perfect diamond,
crisp and light,
like lemonade
on the rocks
with a
dash of spice.
It longs for
a seaside snack:
grilled and smoky
squid with
cauliflower,
white bean and
garlic.
Topolos: Drink It Now
I don’t have a large wine collection but I do have a few cases in the cellar (crawl space) some of which I’ve been hoping to leave there for some years. One wine that I have been particularly looking forward to drinking in 2012 or later (I might have said 2022 except I can’t imagine holding anything that long) is a 2002 Topolos Alicante Bouschet. I’ve tasted very few wines where Alicante Bouschet was the featured attraction instead of a minor player but I have enjoyed them all. I bought a case of this one four or five years ago and I’ve only got four left but my intention had been to leave them alone. This is a varietal that is supposed to age very well. I’ve never had an aged Alicante but I’ve read that it can last as long as 20 years or more.
I also have some Topolos Zinfandel from 2000 and 2001. These I’ve been expecting to finish off no later than this year because Zinfandel doesn’t hold up much longer than 4-6 years. In fact, the last one I opened proved to be past it’s prime and so I’ve brought all the remaining bottles up from the cellar for drinking asap. They’re still good but they won’t last much longer — each one I open displays similar qualities including a brownish red color on the edges, a velvety soft texture and a sweetly alcoholic earthen flavor. Which got my curiosity up so last night I opened one of the last four Alicante Bouschets.
It’s a good thing I did because it’s also past it’s prime but so slightly so that it almost takes like a mature Amarone or Barolo. It’s incredibly rich, aromatic, smooth and full and just starting to fall out of balance with the alcohol starting to overtake the fruit. Topolos drinkers of the world: Drink it now! (They’ve gone out of business and I think their last vintage was 2003 or 2004.)
How to Tell if You’re a Wine Snob
What is your reaction to the following statement:
Instead of using grapes, Peter and Denisse Schnebly make wine from such [tropical fruit] as carambola and lychee, which won’t grow in cooler climates.
If you drink wine, chances are you just turned your nose up. I know I did. I also have walked past a wine store in Key West several times that specializes in these kinds of non-grape wines without even a glance or consideration of entering.
When did that happen to me? I used to say, “I’ll try anything twice — it might be an acquired taste.” I have been brave enough to try pink wine, ice wine, dessert wine, even wine from Georgia or South Carolina, some of which turned out to be pretty good. So why am I afraid to try a non-conventional wine made from mango, guava or passion fruit? Sweet, while not my favorite tongue sensation, isn’t always a bad thing.
Still, I resist…
Florida Couple Toasts Success Of Their Unique Wine