The Wine Thread

[brownie]

I'm no champagne fundamentalist

Like my champagne but also indulge in several sparkling wines including Crémant, although I've never tried Rosé Crémant

[Peter Friedman]

When I lived in the East I drank a lot of French wines. i recall the days when I could get many very very fine Bordeaux's at very reasonable prices - under $20. A bottle. Many of these were classified growths.

Here in the West the selection of French wines is very limited. So since living here I have focused more on wines from California, Oregon and Washington State. There was a period when I drank a lot of Zinfandels. But the high alcohol and jammy quality turned me away from that varietal. I drink very few white wines.

I have become a serious Pinot Noir lover. My favorites come from the Willamette Valley of Oregon. I also enjoy Pinots from Sonoma and the San Luis Obisbo regions in California. New Zealand is also coming out with some nice Pinots.

Along with Pinots, I also like Cabernets very much. Wines from Argentina, especially Malbecs are a good value, as are wines from Chile. There are many wines from Spain and Italy I like, but don't drink many of them. Wines from Australia have disappointed me lately so I tend to stay away from them for the most part.

We drink wine with dinner every night, and it is always fun to pick out what bottle to open depending on the food.

[jlhoots]

I'm very interested in Rhone style wines being made in California - esp. in the Paso Robles area.

[Michael Weiss]

When I lived in the East I drank a lot of French wines. i recall the days when I could get many very very fine Bordeaux's at very reasonable prices - under $20. A bottle. Many of these were classified growths.

Those days are long gone unfortunately. However there are many great and reasonably priced Loire reds (Cabernet Franc) such as Bernard Baudry, Languedoc Roussillon, Rhone, Beaujolais and other areas but you have to know your producers and importers.

[alankin]

My rule of thumb is to avoid wine with cute illustrations of animals or the like on the label.

[Ted O'Reilly]

Wines from Australia have disappointed me lately so I tend to stay away from them for the most part.

Wow, Peter, I'm surprised to hear that -- it was from you to John Norris to me that I started on Oz wines 20 years ago. I remember you choices at some dinners in Lewiston during the Artpark Jazz Festivals. I'm with you, though: I think success led to a lot of people jumping into th Oz wine biz, though there are still some Barossa Valley shirazes that are good drinking.

[Peter Friedman]

Wines from Australia have disappointed me lately so I tend to stay away from them for the most part.

Wow, Peter, I'm surprised to hear that -- it was from you to John Norris to me that I started on Oz wines 20 years ago. I remember you choices at some dinners in Lewiston during the Artpark Jazz Festivals. I'm with you, though: I think success led to a lot of people jumping into th Oz wine biz, though there are still some Barossa Valley shirazes that are good drinking.

Ted, Australia makes a lot of wine and no doubt some of it is apt to be very good. There was a period when wines from Australia were available at good prices for better than average

bottles. But things took off and a lot of mass produced wines from Australia started to inundate the marketplace. They became big sellers and were not to my interest. Also wines from Argentina and Chile

began to come into the market with many high quality wines at decent prices. So while on the whole I tend to not buy much wine from Australia, with care it is unquestionably possible to

locate some Australian wines that will be highly pleasing.

[brownie]

When I lived in the East I drank a lot of French wines. i recall the days when I could get many very very fine Bordeaux's at very reasonable prices - under $20. A bottle. Many of these were classified growths.

Those days are long gone unfortunately. However there are many great and reasonably priced Loire reds (Cabernet Franc) such as Bernard Baudry, Languedoc Roussillon, Rhone, Beaujolais and other areas but you have to know your producers and importers.

Too true...have given up on the top Bordeaux wines years ago.

I concentrate now on wines from lesser French regions particularily from Languedoc-Roussillon such as those from Lionel Maurel. Excellent natural growths...

[mr jazz]

I'll pitch in as wine is my other passion besides music. I've been buying steadily for the past few years and my cellar is around 750 bottles or so stored passively in a cool crawlspace and I use cellartracker for inventory control and insurance purposes. Washington DC is a good place to buy wine, plenty of choice and good pricing but with a sales tax of 10% for alcohol, I also buy online as there are free shipping offers and no sales tax (for now) and the wines come to my door. I grew up with Bordeaux but classified growths are at record price levels and I can find value elsewhere. France, USA and Spain make up the majority of my cellar at this point.

[Tim McG]

Since The Wine Thread is back up and running, here is the comment I made on the one I started:

I have to talk about a wonderful Pinot Noir vinted by Mark West Winery in the Sonoma Wine Region. The winery promotes itself as an every man's wine which will taste great without breaking the bank. That is a sure plus for me. I just don't get paying $90 bucks for ONE bottle of wine. And I don't care how good it is.

The 2010 Pinot I had was inky red and full bodied. A lot of berry in the mouth as well as a clean, soft finish. The 2011 is less so, but very drinkable. And for $10 bucks, it's a steal.

Tonight, I'm trying a blended red called Rare Red 4 Grape Blend from Eagle Rock Vineyards.

I have no idea what the four reds are, a mystery wine, I guess. They don't say. But for under $10 bucks I figured it was worth a try. So we see.

Edited March 16, 2013 by GoodSpeak

[sidewinder]

I've been enjoying this one from Central Otago in New Zealand over the past few years.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Since The Wine Thread is back up and running, here is the comment I made on the one I started:

have to talk about a wonderful Pinot Noir vinted by Mark West Winery in the Sonoma Wine Region. The winery promotes itself as an every man's wine which will taste great without breaking the bank. That is a sure plus for me. I just don't get paying $90 bucks for ONE bottle of wine. And I don't care how good it is.

The 2010 Pinot I had was inky red and full bodied. A lot of berry in the mouth as well as a clean, soft finish. The 2011 is less so, but very drinkable. And for $10 bucks, it's a steal.

Tonight, I'm trying a blended red called Rare Red 4 Grape Blend from Eagle Rock Vineyards.

I have no idea what the four reds are, a mystery wine, I guess. They don't say. But for under $10 bucks I figured it was worth a try. So we see.

I've never been a fan of Mark West Pinot Noir. It's typically too light for me. When I want a nice Pinot Noir these days, I pick up a bottle of Meomi, which is a Caymus Family vineyard. Beautiful Pinot with a nice heavy mouth. More Burgundian than the Mark West Pinot. Yeah, it's double the price but you only live once. Life's too short to worry about an extra $10 for a nicer bottle. When you're laying on your death bed, you don't want to be thinking about all that great wine you could've had.

Weird that your Rare Red bottle didn't have the grape varietals listed. This is what the label is supposed to look like:

[Tim McG]

Since The Wine Thread is back up and running, here is the comment I made on the one I started:

have to talk about a wonderful Pinot Noir vinted by Mark West Winery in the Sonoma Wine Region. The winery promotes itself as an every man's wine which will taste great without breaking the bank. That is a sure plus for me. I just don't get paying $90 bucks for ONE bottle of wine. And I don't care how good it is.

The 2010 Pinot I had was inky red and full bodied. A lot of berry in the mouth as well as a clean, soft finish. The 2011 is less so, but very drinkable. And for $10 bucks, it's a steal.

Tonight, I'm trying a blended red called Rare Red 4 Grape Blend from Eagle Rock Vineyards.

I have no idea what the four reds are, a mystery wine, I guess. They don't say. But for under $10 bucks I figured it was worth a try. So we see.

I've never been a fan of Mark West Pinot Noir. It's typically too light for me. When I want a nice Pinot Noir these days, I pick up a bottle of Meomi, which is a Caymus Family vineyard. Beautiful Pinot with a nice heavy mouth. More Burgundian than the Mark West Pinot. Yeah, it's double the price but you only live once. Life's too short to worry about an extra $10 for a nicer bottle. When you're laying on your death bed, you don't want to be thinking about all that great wine you could've had.

Weird that your Rare Red bottle didn't have the grape varietals listed. This is what the label is supposed to look like:

Thanks, Kevin.

All the label has on my bottle is:

Richly flavored

Full Bodied

Blended Red Wine

100% California

I will say this, it was a very nice bottle of juice. Not much of a nose, but a mouth full of juice with a Syrah or Zinfindel-like berry finish. Very smooth and with plenty of glycerin on the side of the glass; indicative of a fairly well made wine; so far as I know. And @ $4.98 a bottle, I'm going back today to buy a case.

BTW...as to Mark West, the 2010 Pinot was far better than the 2011. The former was a full bodied Pinot Noir, the type I like as well. The 2011 is very drinkable and definitely tasty, but not much body to it. I would use it as an aperitif rather than serve it with the meal.

Sadly, my wallet doesn't allow me to go beyond the $15-17 dollar "pain" threshold too often. Caymus priced me out years ago. I am but a humble civil servant

Edited March 17, 2013 by GoodSpeak

[erwbol]

I'm enjoying a bottle of Chateau David Médoc 2009 over dinner. Not too expensive at €10.

I wonder what a bottle of Médoc X times that price would taste like. I guess I'll never know.

[Tim McG]

Sadly, I have to say that about a lot of wines/wineries myself.

[Big Wheel]

Really good (at least consistently really good) wine is out of my price range, so I settle for finding great values. I have gotten very adept at spotting good closeout wines at Trader Joe's; a lot of their regular stuff is bilge, but every 4-6 months they dump a limited amount of cases of something that's legit. Often it's private-labeled to protect the winery; for example, last year I scored a few bottles of the $2.99 "Landing Place 2009 Chardonnay" which was actually an overstock of Rodney Strong Chardonnay (retail: $20). Excellent, and I don't even like a lot of Chardonnays.

Currently drinking this, which cost under $5 this year I think and is very nice, dry and easy-drinking: http://sourmashed.com/2012/11/review-louise-destree-brut-rose/ From what I can tell it's made in the champagne methode traditionelle but with a little red wine mixed in to make it a rose.

One interesting thing I learned this year is that a fair amount of professional cooks in the Bay Area actually are not big fans of California wines. They find most of them pair very poorly with food compared to stuff from Europe.

Edited April 6, 2013 by Big Wheel

[Kevin Bresnahan]

One interesting thing I learned this year is that a fair amount of professional cooks in the Bay Area actually are not big fans of California wines. They find most of them pair very poorly with food compared to stuff from Europe.

You meant to say "certain" Californian wines, surely. True, a lot of the more fruitier, jammy wines come from California and those are often difficult to pair with many foods but there are quite a lot of wines that pair very well with food. It's often very difficult to pair some of the wines in my cellar with a meal. Rare steaks off the grill - easy. A pasta dish with a chorizo, spinach & tomato in a light garlic sauce? Not so easy. And let's face it, a majority of the chefs in any area are usually making flavorful dishes like this all the time. Not too many "chefs" are making spaghetti Bolognese.

FWIW, a lot of the French & Italian wine makers have been slowly moving toward the fruitier, jammier styles for decades as this has been shown to be what the wine buying public likes (and often gets the high scores in wine publications). If someone opens a perfect "food wine" and starts sipping it as they cook, they might find the acidity or the earthiness or the lack of fruit off-putting. They might write off the wine right then & thyere. If they hold off until the food appears, they'd probably feel differently but most people can't hold off that long. Ha ha.

I go to a lot of wine tastings. There are a lot of times when I'm sipping a wine solo that I'm thinking "Good food wine". Others make me think, "Great standalone wine". And even others make me think "Great cheese & crackers wine". Those lines blur a lot too. I tend to buy the "great standalone wines" more often than "good food wines" because I never know if I'll be opening that wine with a meal or just for sipping when friends come over.

[Tim McG]

I agree, Kevin.

The "stand alone" wines are those which I might serve as an aperitif before dinner. Personally, I like the big, bold reds with lots of fruit. But as a pairing for food...perhaps not. A fair amount of California wines are geared for that purpose in my experience. Though the Central Coast varietals, especially white wines, pair well with food. Specifically, Pinot Grigio, Fume Blanc, Viognier and Sauvignon Blanc. Reds might include Pinot Noir [though there are some pretty full-bodied Pinots that might be a better fit for the "stand alone" category], Merlot, Syrah varietals as well as Blends/Meritage wines. Santa Maria, Edna Valley and Paso Robles/Templeton regions are my favorites of the Central Coast.

Up North in Sonoma/Napa some of the Rhone style reds would pair well with food...especially with roasted or grilled foods. I just think California wine makers, especially the new wineries, often try too hard to "create" rather than vint their wines. Though, thankfully, the Chardonnay "oak bombs" of the 80s/90s are gone.

The old tried and true method of red with meat and white with poultry and fish seems to work for me.

Edited April 6, 2013 by GoodSpeak

[Big Wheel]

One interesting thing I learned this year is that a fair amount of professional cooks in the Bay Area actually are not big fans of California wines. They find most of them pair very poorly with food compared to stuff from Europe.

You meant to say "certain" Californian wines, surely.

Right, obviously there are exceptions. And my sample size is very small and very Italian-centered (one friend was trained in Italy, and two others work in one of the highest-end Italian restaurants in town). But it was eye-opening to realize that much of California's wine culture today is actually not at all geared toward eating. I had always just sort of assumed that the rise of Napa and Sonoma was deeply intertwined with the development of "Caifornia cuisine," Alice Waters, eating locally, etc, etc., and it sort of was, but the reality turns out to have been much messier.

[jlhoots]

Seghesio 2011 Zinfandel

[Tim McG]

One interesting thing I learned this year is that a fair amount of professional cooks in the Bay Area actually are not big fans of California wines. They find most of them pair very poorly with food compared to stuff from Europe.

You meant to say "certain" Californian wines, surely.

Right, obviously there are exceptions. And my sample size is very small and very Italian-centered (one friend was trained in Italy, and two others work in one of the highest-end Italian restaurants in town). But it was eye-opening to realize that much of California's wine culture today is actually not at all geared toward eating. I had always just sort of assumed that the rise of Napa and Sonoma was deeply intertwined with the development of "Caifornia cuisine," Alice Waters, eating locally, etc, etc., and it sort of was, but the reality turns out to have been much messier.

For a while, wineries were churning out this so-called "California style" wines which were basically watered down versions [for lack of a better term] of California signature wines like Zinfandel, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Now, most of those wines are relegated to the screw cap, highly tweaked with additives to create the perfect "vintage" year after year or mass produced wines.

The higher and high end stuff is built with wine as the focus, not [necessarily] food.

FWIW...

[mr jazz]

Another nice bottle of 2005 Cliff Lede SLD (Stag's Leap DIstrict) cabernet last night . Good before and with veal with grilled Itailian artichoke hearts and rissoto.

[alankin]

I've had some nice, relatively inexpensive, bottles of Côtes du Rhône reds.

[Tim McG]

Another nice bottle of 2005 Cliff Lede SLD (Stag's Leap DIstrict) cabernet last night . Good before and with veal with grilled Itailian artichoke hearts and rissoto.

Lucky you.

Stag's Leap Winery Petite Syrah has always be one of my favorites...well, back when I could afford it.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Stag's Leap Petite Syrah is one of the finest Petite Syrahs being made these days. Well worth what they're charging, especially considering the grape's low yield. You should treat yourself to a bottle Goodspeak. You only live once and you don't want to lying on your deathbed wishing you had bought another bottle of great wine. Screw it, just buy a bottle.