2017 Spring Valley Vineyard Frederick Red Wine

Happy Thursday!  This day started on several sour notes as my coffee maker decided to cease functioning half way through the brew cycle, so I started the day with only a half a pot of coffee.  Then when I pulled out of the garage at 7:30 to go buy a new one, I realized I had a screw in my back tire and it was completely flat.  Add changing a tire into the mix and this was set to be an awful day until now!  It's supper time and I have a nice dinner coming and a nice bottle of wine opened.  The 2017 Spring Valley Vineyard Frederick Red Wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (93%), Syrah (5%) and Malbec (2%) all from the Spring Valley Vineyard in the Walla Walla AVA of Washtington.  So, let's see how this wine is making up for my sad start!

The wine is a deep ruby color in the glass with bright garnet along the edges, just as you might expect from such a Cabernet heavy blend.  Take a whiff and you are immersed in strawberry and raspberry aromas, with a bit of floral notes and some spicy undercurrents.  One sip and you are thrown into wonderland, bright red fruit intermingled with and acidity that has you first thinking of sweet tarts and then as you progress, you find yourself surrounded by wooded forest notes of cedar and peat, before the sturdy tannins usher in the very tight dry finish.

Overall, I would rate this wine a solid 9, as it has the earthy Bordeaux-esque character that I so love about Walla Walla wines.  This wine would pair well with a range of hearty dishes, from braised short ribs to hearty venison stew, thick steaks or mushroom risotto.  Tonight, I am enjoying this wine with a prime, dry-aged bone-in ribeye grilled rare along with some grilled leeks and hatch chiles, wild mushroom farro and asparagus with hollandaise.  Cheers!

2011 Dona Paula Estate Torrontes

Tonight I have a special treat, a Snooth virtual tasting of wines from the Dona Paula Estate in Argentina!  I really have to offer a special word of appreciation and a hearty thank you to Snooth and Dona Paula Estate for providing me with some lovely samples to try this evening, the 2011 Torrontes and the 2011 Malbec (which I will review on a separate posting tomorrow)!  Now the interesting thing is that the Torrontes is a white wine, so I think this might actually be the first white wine review on my blog, and it's a special one given it's source, the Valle de Cafayate in Salta.  This is special to me since I have long dreamt of retiring in the Cafayate near Salta in Argentina, home of beautiful vineyards and lovely cattle ranches, and farms with ample beautiful and healthy produce to enjoy.  Great wine and great steak, what more could you want in retirement?

So back to the wine.  I am so out of my depth with white wines I had to look up on Google what sort of grape this is, and I found that it's native to Argentina and typically displays some smooth mouthfeel and mild acidity with aromatics of peach and apricot.  And sure enough, there are some lovely floral notes to this wine, and some earthy notes that just bring to mind riding on horseback through the mountains.  The taste is quite refreshing, mildly acidic, and displays wonderful notes of peach, citrus and some earth notes that are mildly metallic, a taste reminiscent of copper and rustic forest.  The finish is very nice and crisp, perfect for a summer afternoon, and very dry, a white wine that I could definitely get to know and like!

Overall I would rate this wine a solid 7.5, as I think it's such a pleasant departure from the usual, sweeter, citrus dominated white wines I've tried in the past.  It strikes me that this could be an ideal white wine for us red wine drinkers.  Although I'm just having this with some antipasti tonight, I could see this going very well with some bright Mexican dishes, fish tacos or some fresh salsa with carne asada and a squeeze of lime, or the traditional Argentine pairing with empanadas.  So yummy!