2015 Columbia Crest Syrah

Well, it was sweltering today, but I still ended up getting some yard work done, including redoing some flagstone, digging up some unwanted trees, pulling weeds and mowing, and now I am surely ready for a nice dinner and a glass of wine.  Tonight I've decided to open a bottle of 2015 Columbia Crest Syrah from the Columbia Valley of Washington.  I think I may have bought this at my local market a year or two ago, so let's see how this wine from one of Washington's biggest producers tastes.

The wine is a deep ruby color in the glass, just as you might expect from a Syrah.  The nose is full of raspberry, green grass and mint with an undertone of tar.  The taste is a burst of red berry fruit, raspberry, cherry, currant and strawberry that transition nicely to some earthy peat and graphite midpalate.  The tannins are medium bodied, providing for a nice, smooth dry finish that lingers on the palate.

Overall, I would rate this wine a solid 8, as it's a very pleasant drinking Syrah at a value price (I doubt I paid much more than $10 for this bottle).  This wine would be ideal for casual dinners, from pizza and burgers to barbecue and tacos, but tonight I'm going the other way and enjoying this wine with a rare grilled prime filet mignon with some of the last of the garlic scapes of the season, along with roasted baby potatoes and pearl onions and steamed broccoli.  Cheers!

2008 Cougar Crest Dedication Five Columbia Valley Red Wine

Another day, another wine from Walla Walla!  Tonight I am enjoying a bottle of 2008 Cougar Crest Dedication Five Columbia Valley Red Wine that I picked up from my summer vacation adventure to Walla Walla!  Cougar Crest (come on now seriously, with the friends I have, how could I not stop at a place with "cougar" in the name?) has a tasting room just a mile or so up U.S. 12 from L'Ecole No. 41, so it was an easy stop as I was making my way back to Oregon on my wine tasting adventure. 

A bit about the "Dedication" part, it's an interesting story.  The winemakers dedicated this wine to the Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, Ore. as their doctors and nurses saved the life of the winemakers' daughter in 2005, and ever since they've dedicated their wine and donated a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the "Dedication Five" to the hospital each year as a sign of their gratitude.  It's really a neat story and great symbol for what these folks stand for.

As for the wine, Cougar Crest has received some pretty nice accolades over the last few years, and after tasting some of their red wines it wasn't hard to figure out why!  The Dedication Five is their basic table wine, and it is a little different than many of the basic red wines I tasted in Walla Walla.  This wine is a blend of four varietals: Merlot (43%), Syrah (33%), Cabernet Sauvignon (15%) and Cabernet Franc (9%).  This wine is a little lighter in color and the body matches the lighter color.  The nose still has that sharp aroma of leather and spice which suggests a nice bit of that Columbia Valley quality.  The taste is quite dry, but that quickly gives way to some nice ripe fruit flavors mid-palate.  The nicely structured tannins provide for a smooth finish without the harshness that so often accompanies a house red like this one.

Overall I would rate this wine a solid 7.5, as it's a wonderful wine, but the $20 price is a little steep for an everyday sort of wine.  Tonight I am enjoying a bottle with a grilled tenderloin, but I think it would pair nicely with grilled or smoked meats, and especially a nice barbecue (that reminds me I need to get some ribs!).  So if you happen to be in Walla Walla, or if your local store carries the line, pick up a bottle today and enjoy!

2008 Valley of the Moon Zinfandel

I love vacations, you can drink as much wine as you like, and never have to worry about the alarm clock disturbing your malolactic slumber!  So, since I'm on vacation, we'll have plenty of time to explore some wonderful wines, and tonight we have a 2008 Valley of the Moon Zinfandel!  You know how I love Zins, and this one has a cool label to add to the mystique of the wine. 

This particular Zin is from Sonoma, which produces some very nice wines and this one is no exception.  The color is a bright ruby in the glass, and the nose is rich with ample red fruit, with hints of blackberry, plum offset by a bit of leather and cedar.  The taste is somewhat fruit forward, with a bit of berry and black currant, which quickly gives way to a bit of jammy sweetness mid-palate, that finishes with a bit of vanilla and spice.

Overall, this one has a little more fruit than I'm used to, but that's what makes this wine the perfect accompaniment to my thick rare ribeye and grilled savory veggies, like peppers, onions, leeks and asparagus.  I tried this one at a tasting at my favorite local wine merchant, G.B. Russo's and it was great, so how could I resist buying a bottle for only $12?  I would rate this wine a solid 8, and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a wonderful easy drinking wine as the summer nights heat up!

2008 Rockridge Road Red Wine

WOW!  It has been a hellacious couple of weeks!  Work has been absolutely insane so my priorities have been turned completely upside down with nary a moment to enjoy a nice glass of wine.  That's not to say I haven't been drinking wine, I just haven't had the time to enjoy it! 

That all changes now, I am getting back to somewhat of a normal schedule, and I even have some vacation time coming up, so watch out wine world, here I come!  So as I sit home on a Sunday night, I've decided to open up a bottle of 2008 Rockridge Road red table wine, a perfect wine for the every day.

This wine is a little lighter in style, but still a medium bodied red with a lovely ruby color.  The nose is an interesting combination of sweet fruit, leather and just the faintest hint of mint.  But don't be deceived by the aroma of sweet fruit, as this wine is really not sweet or fruity, there is a bit of blackberry on the front end, followed by tea leaves and spice midpalate.  The tannins are very soft, leaving the finish something to be desired, but still it's a nice easy drinking wine for a sunny, 75-degree day like today! 

Overall, I would rate this wine a solid 7, and it's certainly helped a lot by the fact that it's incredibly affordable at only $6 (come on, you can't afford not to drink this wine at that price!).  I picked up a few bottles after a tasting at G.B. Russo's, my favorite local wine merchant a few weeks back.  Tonight I am enjoying it with classic summer fare, some locally made brats and sweet potato fries!  YUM!

2007 Monte Antico Toscana

What a lovely evening, nice and cool, clear skies and a beautiful sunset...it's just too bad I've been busy as all get out today!  Work, then the gym for an hour, then I stopped to pick up a chicken burrito for dinner from the local Qdoba (see not every day is a gourmet feast!) and now I'd just like a nice glass of vino to relax before I start all over again tomorrow!

So tonight I've decided to open a bottle of what I consider a very wonderful everyday wine.  Not a spectacular, special occasion type wine, but a nice wine that comes at a price that doesn't have you filling out mortgage applications should you decide to have more than a bottle a week!

The 2007 Monte Antico Toscana is a nice blend of mostly Sangiovese with a bit of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot that seems to give this wine a little more body than a typical Sangiovese.  The wine itself is medium bodied, with a nice bright ruby color in the glass.  The nose is filled with ripe fruit and leather, with a hint of sour cherry.  The taste is somewhat earthy, with tart fruit flavors, giving way to a strawberry jam flavor midpalate, and then some nicely structured tannins for a smooth dry finish.

Overall I would rate this wine a solid 7, with a half point deduction for the screw cap (you know how I love my corks!).  It's a lighter style that goes very well with take out Mexican food, or just sipping on the patio after a long day. I think I bought this at my local supermarket for just $7, so again, how can you complain?

2008 Mawson's Wrattonbully Cabernet Sauvignon

Tonight we have the time change, where we get to lose an hour of sleep so that farmers in the 19th century would have more daylight to plant and harvest their crops, and apparently now it helps with greenhouse gas emissions or global warming or some other hokum.  All I know is that I'm getting up effectively an hour early on one of two days a week I actually get to sleep in!  Man I could use a glass of wine to get ready for this...

Oh yes that's right, this is a wine blog!  And tonight, to celebrate the loss of an hour, I'm enjoying a wine from the land down under, a place where if you traveled there you'd lose the better part of a day, let alone an hour!  Tonight's feature is the 2008 Mawson's Wrattonbully Cabernet Sauvignon.  This is an interesting wine for it's names, Sir Douglas Mawson was a famous Australian explorer who embarked on expeditions to the Antarctic in the early 20th century.  Wrattonbully is an emerging wine region in south Australia along the Limestone Coast.  Certainly Australia has produced some absolutely wonderful wines, particularly their Shiraz, and more common now their Merlots and Cabernets.

This wine is a wonderful ruby red color in the glass and exhibits a nose of leather, oak, dried herbs and subtle fruit, cherry and blackberry.  I was expecting some bright fruit at the outset, but this one surprised me, as the taste of cassis was quite subdued, with a touch of berry at the high notes.  Mid-palate, there is a touch of woodiness, followed by well integrated tannins for a nice smooth finish.  Based on prior experience with Australian Cabs, I was expecting this wine to be much more fruit forward, but somewhat less bold that a typical California Cab, but this one is really elegant, medium bodied and subtle in unexpected ways.  It's the kind of wine that would be shocked and ashamed if it overpowered the dish it accompanies, rather I envision that it would provide a playful counterpart for a variety of savory dishes, from lamb or braised short ribs, to a hearty steak or a variety of seafood dishes.  Tonight I am enjoying it with some cod, rice and steamed asparagus. 

Overall, I would rate this one a solid 8, especially at the price, I bought a lot of 4 bottles from wineshopper.com for $40.  The only negative was the screw cap, but for $10 and a lovely wine, I'm willing to overlook that discretion!

2009 Lost Weekend STB

Ok, get your minds out of the gutter, the wine is an STB, for Super Tuscan Blend, even though it's from California.  I got three bottles of this wine last week, thanks to a thoughtful wine gift certificate from my friends Carter and Kellyn (thanks guys!).  Now I decided on this wine because of course I like Tuscan blends, but also for the story behind this wine.  Apparently, "The Lost Weekend Saloon" was a hangout of forward thinking members of the coastal mountain community of Bonny Doon, Calif. since the early 1900s, but now it's the tasting room for Beauregard Vineyards, which produces this wine.

Now I will certainly give kudos straight off for the natural cork and the painted label on the bottle, very cool indeed, but we all know it's what's inside the bottle that counts!  Well inside this one is a blend of Sangiovese (80%), Cabernet Sauvignon (16%) and Durif (aka Petite Sirah, 4%).  As I uncorked a bottle, I was greeted with the aroma of a nice Italian red wine, with strong aromas of sweet fruit, plum, cherry and blackberry.  I poured a glass, and the color is lighter, very typical of the wines of Tuscany, and after letting the wine breathe a bit in the glass, the nose revealed less sweet fruit, and more spice, leather and earthy aromas.  The taste is quite fruit forward, with hints of cherry and ripe strawberry, but the finish is somewhat unremarkable.

This wine is a medium bodied blend, so if you are looking for a big, bold California cab like wine, you'll be disappointed, but it's a nice wine for what it is, somewhat fruity with a smooth finish that is unlikely to overpower the dish that it's paired with.  In fact, tonight I am taking a different approach and having this wine with some Indian curry, as I think the fruit will really complement the spice and earthy richness of the curry.  Overall, I would rate this wine a solid 7, it's a very nice everyday blend that I probably never would have encountered without the help of an online Christmas gift, and it is encouraging all the more that we are producing such nice Sangiovese blends domestically!  So if you find yourself in Santa Cruz with an extra $20 burning a hole in your pocket, pick up a bottle and have a picnic along the coast, or if you're like the rest of us snowbound in the middle of the country, considering ordering a bottle or two off the web!

2007 Rumpus Syrah

Ok, seriously, how can you not just love a wine called "Rumpus"?!?!?  I saw this one on the WTSO cheapskate Wednesday a couple weeks back and couldn't resist, after all even if the wine was terrible, it's called RUMPUS!!!

Well, lucky for me and several friends who shared this purchase, it's not a terrible wine.  Quite the opposite, this is really an exceptional Syrah from California's Sonoma Valley.  No often times we see a syrah or "shiraz" and expect it to be lighter and a great pairing for lighter summer fare, or just sitting on the patio enjoying a glass of wine on an August evening, but this one is much more like a petite syrah, which is such a misnomer...

The Rumpus syrah is a blend of 86% syrah with the balance of Cabernet Franc, which is a blending grape that is so underappreciated in my opinion.  So in this instance you end up with a wine that is a deep ruby, almost inky color in the glass, so you get the sense that this is not the lighter side of syrah.  The nose is ripped with scents of cedar, leather and pepper, which merely whets your appetite for the wine that's to come.  The taste has an infusion of berries, with spice and delicate tannins that scream fine age worthy wine from the south of France!  But this is from California, showing that our friends outside Napa can compete just as effectively on the world wine stage.

I've been sipping this wine all evening as I've been cooking dinner, and thankfully I have a full glass left to enjoy with my summertime dinner of barbecued chicken breast, sweet potato fries and steamed asparagus.  Such a wonderful evening!  As for my rating, I would put this wine at a solid 8.5, and it was a WTSO cheapskate Wednesday selection for only $13!

2009 Chateau de la Taille Bordeaux

Ahhh...summer time, it's officially here and it's such an awesome time for enjoying the joy of outdoor cooking, or "cookouts" as we used to call them!  Although having my 60,000 BTU Charbroil grill allows me to grill steaks, fish, chops and other sundry items year round, it really comes into its own during the sweltering days of summer.  So today, I am enjoying my grill along with a bottle of 2009 Chateau de la Taille Bordeaux, another bottle from that super vintage (at least as it's been billed) from France.

Now don't get me wrong, the experts who tasted from barrels are probably right on, but given that for us plebians it takes at least 4 or 5 years for a great or even mediocre Bordeaux to be drinkable much less outstanding, it's really an unfair tease in my opinion.  Granted, I did order a case of '09 Margaux on futures and can't wait for it to arrive sometime in 2012, but come on!  We all know the reason we buy great bottles of wine is not to satisfy our squirrel instinct for stocking the cellar, but to enjoy the great wine now! 

Well, fortunately, many of the early 2009 Bordeaux are drinking quite nicely right now.  Could they benefit from time in the cellar, certainly, but that doesn't mean we must opt for future enjoyment over immediate satisfaction.  Such is the case with today's wine, a wonderful blend of 75% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Malbec (this might be a somewhat familiar blend to those who like me, enjoy the Bordeaux blends of the Pacific Northwest).  I've found in my personal experience, the early releases that have a heavy Merlot emphasis tend to drink much better right now than many other blends, particularly the heartier wines like a recent St. Emilion I purchased and can't imagine opening until 2014.

This wine is a very young wine, with ample fruit.  The nose exhibits some hints of cedar and leather, with a strong body of fruit, ranging from cherry to dark plum.  The taste is quite light right now, and very dry with silky tannins for a long finish.  Unlike some others I've tried, this wine is actually drinking quite nicely right now, though it's certainly worthy of another year or two in the cellar. I've heard some suggest this would be a great wine with lighter fare or perhaps some soft cheeses (but come on, what wine wouldn't go well with a fine brie?), but call me crazy, I'm going to enjoy this bottle with a summer cookout of a prime porterhouse steak, grilled rare (oh yes, cool red center please!), some red, yellow and orange peppers roasted in extra virgin olive oil and some fresh sweet corn grilled in the husk!  Ohhhh my!

This wine is still young, and I would rate it 7.5, certainly with room to grow.  I expecially like it at the bargain price of $9 that I found it for at my favorite local wine merchant, G.B. Russo's!  So crack open a bottle and get grilling!  Salut!

2008 Round Hill Cabernet Sauvignon

Have you ever had one of those really crappy weeks where everything seemed to just go wrong?  Where the end of the week came and you had to go through a critical thinking exercise to convince yourself not to drive headlong into a bridge abutment at 80 miles an hour?  Well, that's the week I just had (and it's not even over yet!!!).  So to take the edge off, I just wanted to drink tonight, now granted, I should be addressing this in a vodka or grain alcohol blog, but alas I settled for a bottle of wine tonight (though I must admit, all I could think of on the way home from the office just before 8:00 pm on a Friday night was the scene from the movie "Airplane!" where Robert Stack as Rex Kramer kept upping the ante, with "looks like I picked the wrong week to stop smoking/drinking/taking amphetamines/sniffing glue" as that described my work life this week!).

So I made it home, and bless you G.B. Russo's for hooking me up with a case of 2008 Round Hill California Cabernet Sauvignon!  This wine is nothing too special, but you know what?  It's a great, easy drinking cab, with mild aromas of rich red fruit (cherries, blackberries, etc.) along with some leather and tobacco.  The taste is mildly fruity, with a nice clean finish that just says, "you've had a tough day, let me help you take the edge off."  And that is certainly can do, since I got this wine on close out from Russo's.  Apparently they designed a new label (this is it in the photos) and it looks absolutely horrific, so they decided to trash all the old/new labeled bottles and make room for the not so loud and graphically challenged labels to come.  As a result, I picked this one up for only $4 a bottle!  I can't afford not to drink this!  Sure, it's not an awesome 94-point WS big bold Napa cab, but for that price, I could drink this one all summer long!  As a result of the terrific value offset by the horrific label, I give this one a solid 7!  Enjoy and here's to hoping I make it through the next week of work!

Whoops!  The phone just rang, time to get back to work!

Washington Wine Month, a last Hurrah! 2007 Januik Columbia Valley Red

Wow!  This week has been one right from the crapper as far as work goes!  It's 8:43 and I just got home from work (you know I just mistyped "for work" and I think that's more than a Freudian slip!).  So I don't know if I'll even have time for dinner tonight, so I better open some wine!  And to celebrate the last day of Washington Wine Month, I opened one of my 6-pack from Madwine.com, this one is the 2007 Januik Columbia Valley Red, what a treat!  Unbeknownst to me, Mike Januik is a very consistent winemaker who according to Robert Parker "does is make good wine, year after year, without a lot of fanfare or glitz."  This wine is a blend of 62% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Syrah, 6% Cabernet Franc 6% Petit Verdot, and 2% Malbec (but I won't hold that against it).  And the grapes are sourced from some of Washington's great vineyards, including Klipsun, Stillwater Creek, Alder Ridge, Seven Hills, Lewis, Ciel du Cheval and Weinbau vineyards.

The wine itself is quite pleasing, with a deep ruby color and a nose exhibiting aromas of leather and cedar.  The wine is nice and dry, with flavors of black currant and berries that really holds up remarkably well.  With some initial spice, at the end, this wine has a wonderfully smooth finish.  Although I appear to be drinking this one for dinner, I could imagine it holding up quite well to grilled steaks, but also going quite well with salmon or a nice dry rubbed pork tenderloin.  I have no idea what this one cost me, since it was a 6-pack for $160, which averages out to $26.67 per bottle, so at that average cost it's not a great value, but still a solid red that I would rate an 8.0! 

2006 Cepa 21 Ribera del Duero - which I think loosely translates to I have a really short attention span...

Ok, so I'll admit it, maybe I have attention deficit disorder, or maybe it's not a disorder at all, but just a fun part of being me, being totally distracted by the latest shiny object!  Take yesterday, a perfect example of me being distracted by shiny objects multiple times!  I went out for lunch to pick up sandwiches at the Grand Central Market on Monroe Center in Grand Rapids.  Well, this market offers great sandwiches and a nice selection of natural products, and a wonderful wine selection.  So as I am waiting for the kind folks in the deli to make my sandwich, I browse the wine and see a Snoqualmie Whistle Stop Red, DING DING DING!  Shiny object #1, a combo of two of my favorite things, trains (it has a nice grade crossing signal on the label)and a nice red wine from Washington State (did you know that March is Washington wine month?).  So I learned that Grand Central has a March Madness sale going on and all wines are 10% off in March, so WINNER! A nice Washington Wine for under $10!

Went back to my office, finished lunch and then just before I was getting ready to leave for the weekend, I got an e-mail from G.B. Russo's in Grand Rapids about an unannounced sale!  DING DING DING!!!  Shiny object #2!  Wow!  A 2006 Riscal Tempranillo from Spain closeout for only $3.49! And a 2008 Gru Montepulciano D'Abruzzo from Italy closeout for only $2.99!  I can't afford not to drive out there after work and buy a couple cases!  Then as I am at Russo's, I get a call from some friends up north in Rockford and they are making some dinner and want to play this card game called "Dominion" that our other friend introduced us to a few weeks ago (it's really quite addictive), so I go home drop off the groceries and race up to Rockford for a late dinner (so much for celebrating Washington Wine month!)  At any rate, I did open a bottle of the closeout Tempranillo and it was very nice despite having a screw cap, bur more on that in a future posting!

So, after all that, our wine for this evening is the 2006 Bodegas Cepa 21 Tempranillo Ribera del Duero, which I am finishing tonight (I bet you couldn't see this one coming!).  This is a really nice tempranillo, quite dry with a beautiful deep purple color that sits heavily in the glass.  The nose presents a heavy scent of leather with a hint of chocolate and berry.  The taste is somewhat fruity, with hints of cherry and cassis, but still quite dry with a pleasant finish.  I had this wine tonight with leftover corned beef and cabbage from St. Patrick's Day, so at the very least you can call it versatile, but I think it would go quite well with a rare grilled steak with some grilled veggies and olive oil as well.  Of course it's not after dinner and I'm quite enjoying my final glass all by itself.  This bottle I bought from wineshopper, and I think I got it for $22 which is a little pricey in my opinion.  The wine itself I would probably rate higher, but given the price I would downgrade this one to an 8 (though I'll note that others have rated it higher).

In the end, this post might have given you a taste of what ADD is like, or at least what it's like living a day in my world, handicapped by having the attention span of a gnat!

2005 Chateau de Launay Bordeaux Superieur

Ah...tonight I need to relax a bit, and that calls for a glass of nice red wine.  Today I received 4 bottles via Fedex from my favorite online wine merchant, WTSO so I am trying a bottle tonight.  This one is a 2005 Launay Bordeaux Superieur, which comes from a very solid vintage for bordeaux.  The Chateau is located on the highest point of the Gironde, a place known for Saint-Emilion, with exceptional chalky clay soils.

Since living in Seattle and learning to love the many Bordeaux blends from the Columbia Valley, the nose on this wine hit me with a definite sense of familiarity.  A blend of around 90% merlot, and the balance cabernet, this wine exudes aromas earth and leather with just a hint of dark coffee.  As for taste, it's a medium body, and really quite dry, as to be expected from a true French bordeaux, with hints of cherry, tobacco and cassis.  This is the type of wine where the nose adds so much to the taste, that it should not be consumed with any sort of nasal congestion!  Overall a wonderful blend, a wine I could spend hours on a porch enjoying on a spring afternoon.  Overall I would rate this one a solid 8, particularly given the value price of just $11!  À votre santé