2011 Helix Sangiovese

Happy Friday!  I just got back from the gym and now I'm ready for wine!  Tonight I've decided to open a bottle from a recent wine club shipment from Reininger, the 2011 Helix Sangiovese, a pure blend of Sangiovese from the Stillwater Creek Vineyard in the Columbia Valley (quite a ways to the north and west of Walla Walla).  So let's see how this wine stacks up!

The wine has a classic reddish-purple coloration of a nice Sangiovese.  The nose presents aromas of sour cherry, pomegranate, tobacco and a bit of smoke.  The taste is vibrant, with a good bit of cherry cola and pepper up front that transitions into some tart cherry and earthy notes midpalate.  The tannins are exceptionally well integrated into the smooth, voluptuous dry finish.  This is not your standard Sangiovese, as it just appears to be a bit more influenced by the terroir of the vineyard.

Overall, I would rate this wine a solid 8, as I think it's a terrific effort on the varietal and represents the heritage well.  I think this wine would be ideal with a broad variety of Italian dishes, but tonight I am enjoying it with some porcini mushroom and truffle triang0li from Trader Joe's, served with some creamy pesto (could anything be better with Sangiovese than basil?  Cheers!

2005 Chateau de Camensac Haut-Medoc

So yesterday I received my 2012 State Tax forms in the mail, and that made me think of this wine.  No, I don't have anything against this wine or chateau, but it was a gift last year from my friend Chea for helping her do her taxes.  And since tax time is coming up again, I thought I should crack open this bottle and enjoy it!  For those of you who know me, I am a big fan of Bordeaux, and in fact I learned to like red wine in Paris back in the mid-1990s, and one of my favorite Bordeaux was the Haut-Medoc (I think I brought back like 5 bottles in my carry-on bag!) so you can imagine I've been looking forward to this one.

This wine has a wonderful deep purple color at the center, edging out to bright ruby.  The nose is just what you would expect from a well crafted Haut-Medoc, rich aromas of leather, mint, a touch of cedar and dried flowers.  The taste is somewhat fruit forward, with muted flavors of cassis and berry that transitions to a bit of sour cherry and some black pepper spice midpalate.  The tannins are soft and well rounded, making for a classic, bone dry finish.

Overall, I would rate this wine a solid 8.5, it's a little more expensive, but well worth it!  Tonight I am enjoying this wine with a rare New York strip, with some Danish bleu cheese crumbles melted over the top, along with a baked potato and some steamed broccoli, a classic steak house dinner done at home.  The wine paired very nicely with this meal, as the flavors stood up well to the red meat, but the dry finish really played well with the rich flavors of the Danish bleu.  And now I need a nap!

2009 Las Rocas Garnacha

Happy Birthday!  No, I'm not doing my best Frosty the Snowman impersonation, but today is my birthday, 12/12/12, and I spent most of the day in New York, but made it home in time for a late dinner and a bottle of wine, and the wine I chose was the 2009 Las Rocas Garnacha.  Now I partly blame my dinner companion last night, as I met a fellow Snooth board member, Greg T. in SoHo at a lovely little French bistro called La Sirene, which is all BYOB, with no corkage!  So Greg brought a lovely 1998 Rioja so I've had Spanish wines on the brain!

This wine comes from Calatayud, which is deep in the interior of Aragon, Spain, and from what I've read, the terrain can be quite intimidating, very rocky, with lots of limestone, and quite arid.  Yet somehow the Garnacha (or Grenache in France and elsewhere) vines took root, producing some of the loveliest wines I've had the pleasure of tasting, and as a bonus, they are seldom priced at a level that would suggest their true quality!

This wine has a lovely deep ruby color in the glass, and a nose that is a wonderful blend of jammy fruit, black cherries, currant, anise and somewhat of a sour twang, suggesting that the sweet fruit might be well balanced by acidity.  The taste is an explosion of fruit in your mouth, with rich ripe berries, yet the acidity of some sour cherry notes really balance the fruit mid-palate.  The finish is quite smooth, yet it has a wonderful woodsy sort of taste on the finish, which again is a surprising counterbalance to the rich fruit.

Overall, I would rate this wine a solid 8, particularly given the price, as this was a recent office wine club selection for only $8!  As for pairings, for my birthday, I had a hankering for some Thai food, and there is a new Thai restaurant that someone told me about last week, called Thai Chef, which was right on the way home from the airport!  So I enjoyed this one with some wonderful pad kee mao, and I found the fruit and acidity really played nicely with the spice of the dish, and the fragrant Thai basil!  Not one of my more traditional pairings, but it worked, cheers!

2010 L'Ecole No. 41 Wahluke Slope Grenache - Happy Thanksgiving!

So the Thanksgiving holiday is almost done, we've had turkey with all the fixin's, football (in the yard and on TV), a head start on all our Christmas shopping with all those "Black Friday" deals, and hopefully we thought at least a little bit about what we are thankful for, all those spiritual and material blessings that make us wonder what we've done to deserve them.  But enough of the philosophical, you really just want to know what wines I paired with my turkey last Thursday don't you?

Well, you get a treat today, as I am highlighting two wines that I enjoyed with my Thanksgiving dinner.  The first one I enjoyed most of since it's surprising how many people are intimidated by red wine with turkey, even when it's a lighter red like the 2010 L'Ecole No. 41 Wahluke Slope Grenache from the Stone Tree Vineyard!  The color in the glass was a lighter shade of ruby with a nose that had notes of sour cherry, cedar and smoke.  The taste was quite fruit forward with flavors of ripe plum, cherry and strawberry, intertwined with dried herbs and a somewhat earthy quality.  The tannins were quite subdued leading to a very delicate finish. The fruit flavors paired very well with the turkey, which even when perfectly cooked I find can be very bland.

You know how I love L'Ecole, but this one wasn't spectacular, perhaps because I love their bigger reds, but it was the perfect wine for Thanksgiving dinner, so I'll rate it a solid 8, with some room for improvement as it matures.

Now my second wine with dinner was the 2009 Espelt Corali Rosado, much less intimidating as a chilled rose than a red wine for most dinner guests!  This wine was very refreshing, with a nose of pear, strawberry and grass along with a few floral notes.  The taste was delightful combination of melon and peach with hints of fresh herbs with a clean, crisp finish.  Again, the crispness and light fruit made a nice counter to the heaviness of some of our dinner (think stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and the ever popular green bean casserole!) and really made the turkey sing.

This one I would rate a solid 7, as it was a descent wine, but a tremendous value as I bought this on close out from my local wine merchant, G.B. Russo's for only $1.50 + tax!  Less than 2-buck-Chuck!  I'm just glad I bought a few extra for next summer.  So that was my Thanksgiving wine, what did you enjoy with your feast?

2008 Helix Pomatia

What a lovely end to the day, I spent most of the afternoon running errands and cleaning, so tonight it's about time for a little R&R!  And with that bit of relaxation tonight I am enjoying a wonderful dinner (more on that later) and a nice table wine I bought at a newly discovered winery on my road trip to Walla Walla last May.  Tonight's wine is the 2008 Helix Pomatia from Reininger Winery, just up U.S. 12 from many other great Walla Walla wineries like L'Ecole No. 41, Woodward Canyon, Cougar Crest, and many others.

Now I bought a couple bottle of the Helix Pomatia since in the tasting room it just struck me as an ideal everyday red wine, that still had such wonderful flavor and quality that it made you feel special every time you open a bottle.  The 2008 vintage is a wonderful blend of Merlot (30%), Cabernet Sauvignon (27%), Syrah (27%) and Cabernet Franc (16%), a solid blend of the classic grapes that make Walla Walla's Bordeaux blends so fabulous.

The wine itself is a wonderful deep ruby in the glass, with a nose of ripe berries, leather and tobacco.  The taste is quite nice with flavors of plum, sour cherries, and black currants, giving way to spicy notes of black pepper, dark chocolate and a bit of licorice.  The smooth tannins create a wonderful, and playful finish that's long and dry, just as you would expect from a high quality Bordeaux.

Overall, I would rate this wine a solid 7.5, and I think it was a solid value but I can't remember what exactly I paid for it (but I think it was around $20).  The Helix label is Reininger's second label, which is more value priced, but in the tasting room, I found the two labels to be quite different and wonderful in their own ways.  And of course, tonight I've decided to treat myself to a wonderful dinner of surf and turf, which this wine so wonderfully complemented.  I had a nice rare porterhouse along with a Maine lobster tail nicely grilled, along with some grilled zucchini and corn on the cob.  The wonderful richness of this wine stood up well against the red meat, but the dryness also worked very well against the richness of the lobster, a great pick all around!

2010 Parducci Small Lot Blend Pinot Noir

So tonight I am hearkening back to my time in the Pacific Northwest, where spring salmon season was always accompanied by a raft of lovely pinot noir from the Willamette Valley.  Unfortunately, I now live 2,000 miles from the northwest and I have to make certain, shall we say, sacrifices.

So tonight, for a wine on the lighter side of this horrifically hot and humid evening, I've decided to open a bottle of 2010 Parducci Small Lot Blend Pinot Noir from Mendocino County, Calif.  And it's certainly a lighter wine, with a bright ruby color in the glass.  The nose is very interesting, with hints of cedar, tart cherry, grass and a tiny bit of pepper.  The taste is somewhat fruity at the outset, giving way to a floral taste midpalate and finishing with a good bit of tart fruit that reminds me of firm strawberries that just haven't quite ripened, but then it quickly transitions to a taste of strawberry jam.

Overall, I would rate this wine at about 6.5, perhaps it's too young, or perhaps I've been spoiled by Oregon pinots, but it just doesn't carry a lot of body, or even some lighter sophistication that would make up for it.  At least it was pretty inexpensive, I think I picked this one from Wineshopper.com for only $8!  Thank goodness I found some more Copper River sockeye to enjoy with this, tonight I've prepared it on an Alder plank, with some curried couscous and steamed purple asparagus.  The richness of the salmon really does pair well with the tart fruit of this wine, and given it's so light on its feet it's not a killer on a hot summer evening!

2008 Bonizio Sangiovese di Maremma

Tonight I'm enjoying a bottle of my office wine club's latest selection, the 2008 Bonizio Sangiovese di Maremma!  You know how much I love wine and my wine club buddies, so this is bound to be something fun.  Now many of you are probably already quite familiar with the Sangiovese grape, the foundational grape in so many wonderful wines of Tuscany, from classic Chianti to the king of the hill, Brunello di Montalcino.  Well, unlike a typical Sangiovese, the Sangiovese di Maremma comes from the southern and western section of the region, where a combination of the warmer climate and red soil provides for a more robust varietal.

Unlike a typical Tuscan Sangiovese, this wine is somewhat more fuller bodied, presenting a deep, brooding garnet color in the glass.  The nose is an interesting combination of ripe plum and sour cherry with hints of smoky herbs and anise.  The taste is somewhat fruit forward, with ripe berries, black cherry and cassis, yielding to licorice midpalate and finishing with bright tannins for a nice bit of tartness at the end (however, it's essential to note that letting this wine breathe a bit will diminish the tartness of the tannins significantly, leaving you with a smooth, almost creamy finish).

Overall I would rate this wine a solid 7, it's very pleasant for what it is, and an unbeatable bargain at only $8!  Though I'll have to give a downgrade for not having a natural cork, but I can overlook that on occasion.  Tonight I am pairing it with a little linguine with some Italian sausage and arrabbiata sauce.  The initial fruit and hint of sweetness plays wonderfully against the spice of the red sauce, so well I have an urge for a second helping!

1999 LaMarque Haut Mèdoc

Tonight I'm going back to the future!  That's the lovely thing about wine, it ages much better than most of us do, and it allows us to travel back in time.  Imagine, tonight I get to go back to Bordeaux in 1999, back when the franc was still in use, the euro was a dream, the internet bubble was going strong, and airport security was a breeze...and I was enjoying the last year of graduate school, those were the days!  And to remember, I'm enjoying the 1999 LaMarque Haut Mèdoc!

As I enjoy a bottle of nice Bordeaux from the last of the 20th Century, it brings back memories, but it also provides much pleasure on its own.  I recall falling in love with Haut Medoc when I was working in Paris in 1995, and I brought back 3 bottles to enjoy, all from the 1990 vintage if I recall correctly, wonderful vibrant, dry red Bordeaux that immediately brought back memories of enjoying a glass of wine at a sidewalk cafe a few block from the Eiffel Tower, with the warm breeze...printemps à Paris, c'est le meilleur!

This wine is very interesting, particularly in how it's aged over the last decade.  The color is a bright ruby with a hint of rust around the edges.  The nose is an experience in oak, leather, Asian spice, and a bit of sour cherry.  The taste is mildly fruit forward, giving way to a good bit of earthy Asian spice mid palate, and then finishing very dry, with remarkable tannic structure.  What a wonderful wine that 13 years on is still not past it's prime!  I'm enjoying this one tonight with some aged cheeses, gruyère, parmesan and gouda, all of which complement this wine exceptionally.  I don't recall where I bought this one, but I think it was just a couple years ago on a close out of some kind.  In any case, I would rate this one a solid 8.5, a great aged Bordeaux that has certainly reached it's prime.  I'm not sure you'd be able to find this wine anywhere, but even so, this should be an encouragement to open a bottle of older vintage wine tonight and relive the wonders of the past with a glass of great wine!  Salut!