May

22

We’ve been traveling in the Northeast for the past few days to spend time with family, and due to all of the flying and driving, we are surely wiped.  Fortunately, we will be staying with my folks for the next couple of days, which to our minds means only one thing: party time!  While they monitor the baby monitor tonight, we’re heading out for a big night on the town, during which we will dine on Italian food and stay out past our normal bed time of 9 p.m.  By the time we return back to where my folks’ place at 9:30, we will surely have polished off an unusually solid bottle of wine (which we have already started drinking) to mark the occasion of our first date night since our son was born.

Frankly, the Domaine Paul Autard Chateauneuf-du-Pape 2004 (a mix of Grenache, Syrah, and Counoise) is one of those bottles that reminds us that it really is worth shelling out a few extra dollars for a truly exquisite bottle of wine when the moment calls for it.  

We each took a few whiffs of this wine and with nearly every breath came away with a different aroma.  Figs… spice… honey… lasagna (!)  There’s just so much to enjoy about a wine that challenges the senses the way this one did, making the arrival at our final tasting notes — primarily sweet pipe tobacco (or dried fruit and nuts… in fact, cinnamon babka came to my mind at one point), along with black currant, in the nose and mouth, firm tannins, medium-to-large body, and smooth finish with a little bit of spice — all the more satisfying.  

Just wonderful!  We can’t wait to finish the rest…      

Where to get it: Use the Snooth search function under the heading “Wine Locator” on the right side of this screen, or visit wine-searcher.com or winezap.com, to locate a bottle near you.

May

15

It has been sweltering hot in San Francisco in the past couple of days.  Of course, as some of you may know, “hot” in San Francisco doesn’t have quite the same meaning as it does anywhere else.  For example, I remember when we first moved to the Bay Area from New York City, and we overheard someone characterize 80-degree weather as a heat wave – we had just left New York’s sticky, 90+ degree summer humidity, and so to us, that just sounded like gobbledygook.  Fast foward a year later, though, when we finally experienced that same weather for ourselves without air conditioning (which houses in San Francisco typically lack), and that same statement made a lot more sense.  I only share this recollection with you because, at the moment, Weather.com says that it’s 71 degrees in San Francisco, our thermostat reads 87, and our house feels like a sauna.   

Should you find yourself in a similar situation this summer, we suggest picking up a bottle of Jean Francois Merieau “Bulles” Touraine Sparkling, sticking it in the fridge for an hour or two, popping the cork, and drinking up!  We’re confident that you’ll find this sparkler to be brilliantly refreshing, just as we have found it to be during these past couple ”hot” days.

The organic “Bulles” Touraine Sparkling – composed of 80% Chenin Blanc and 20% Sauvignon Blanc – was produced in the Touraine appellation of the Loire Valley (i.e., it is not Champagne, although like Champagne, it was aged sur lie (the link is to Wine Spectator’s free online glossary)).

We loved the lightness of body and the juicy flavors of apple, pear, and a twist of lime, and as we polished off the bottle last night on our deck while watching the city reflect the sun’s pink light at dusk, we were sure that the drink in our glasses could not have been more appropriate. 

Where to get it: We bought our bottle at K&L Wines in San Francisco.  They ship.  You can also find it using the Snooth search function under “Wine Locator” in the right hand column of this page, or by visiting wine-searcher.com or winezap.com.

May

13

These days, cheap Pinot Noir tends to be an anomaly, so anything that’s actually decent is truly a treat.  The La Forge Estate Pinot Noir Reserve 2006 is far better than just decent, and with a price tag of only $11, we felt more than justified in selecting it as this week’s Weekday Wine.

We found the style of the La Forge to be more typically European than, say, a big extracted Californian version – at 13% alcohol, the La Forge was, in our view, perfect in body size.  On first sniff, we encountered a nose full of raspberry that, alone, would have been a little much for us.  Fortunately, a sniff or two later we detected a certain woodsy quality that we felt tempered the initially bold fruitiness and, also, gave the wine unique character all the way through to sip and swallow.  Excellent balance and good structure sealed the deal in our minds.

If you like Pinot Noir, you could conceivably enjoy La Forge’s version every day of the week, and twice on Tuesday, and still not feel a pinch.  Now that’s bang for the buck!  

Where to get it: We bought our bottle at Plumpjack Wines in Noe Valley.  They ship.  You can also find it using the Snooth search function under “Wine Locator” in the right hand column of this page, or by visiting wine-searcher.com or winezap.com.

May

1

seguinot-bordet-chablis.jpgWhat we liked so much about the Domaine Séguinot-Bordet Chablis Reserve Sainte Victoire 2006 was that it really was vastly different from any of the other Chardonnays that we’ve reviewed throughout the last few months.  The nose consisted of pears and green apples and had the unmistakable, minerally scent of stone — i.e., like the smell of a wet chalkboard slate – and the only point at which we detected any citrus (and it really was only a touch of lemon) was in the finish.  Also, before even tasting the wine, we knew that it could not be confused with any from the “new world.”  Just by checking the label, we noticed the alcohol content – 12.5%.  While that’s a teensy amount of alcohol by Napa standards, in no respect did this wine turn out to be watery.  This is yet another crisp white wine to serve chilled on a hot day, and it’s one everybody will be sure to enjoy.

Where to get it: We bought our bottle a while ago at Vintage Berkeley in the East Bay.  They ship.  You can also find it using the Snooth search function under “Wine Locator” in the right hand column of this page, or by visiting wine-searcher.com or winezap.com.  We’ve seen this one for as low at $15 before shipping (which would have made up the difference in our case). 

Apr

17

Last night’s Wine Library TV show (click the link to view the episode at WLTV) was about the Chenin Blanc grape and how it deserved more respect — this couldn’t have been better timing from our perspective, because just a couple of nights ago we opened one of our favorite ever bottles of that varietal: Prince Poniatowski’s Clos Baudoin Vouvray 2001. 

In white wines, as we’ve mentioned before, we tend to prefer crispness that straddles the line between high acidity and no puckeriness on the finish.  The Clos Baudoin was that — bright and refreshing — but also creamy due to aging, and it left literally no trace of bitterness at the back end.  We couldn’t imagine a more appropriate wine to drink chilled on a hot afternoon.     

We detected pineapple, smoke, minerals, and creamy lemon on both the nose and palate, and interestingly, we also found the scent of the wine to be a little bit deceptive: while it smelled sweet like lemonade, it turned out to be completely dry to the taste.

One last thing to note: the Poniatowski family no longer owns the Clos Baudoin estate, which it owned since 1918, meaning that if you think you’ll love it like we did, you might want to spring for a couple bottles in case you ever get the urge down the road to enjoy it again.    

Where to get it: We bought our bottle at Vintage Berkeley in the East Bay.  They ship.  You can also find it using the Snooth search function under “Wine Locator” in the right hand column of this page, or by visiting wine-searcher.com or winezap.com.

Mar

25

This is not the thick, syrupy Syrah that many wine drinkers out there may be accustomed to.   Nope, we’re talking about the more elegant French version, which usually — but not this time – costs a lot more.   

domainelabastide.jpg The Domaine la Bastide Syrah 2005 has a beautifully attractive ruby color, and flavors and aromas of plum, earth, licorice, smoke, and black pepper.  The body is in the medium range — almost reminiscent of the last couple of Bordeauxs we reviewed – and there’s plenty of acidity to make it food friendly. 

As Weekday Wines go, this one ranks up there.  Here are two strong reasons:

  1. It’s $9.  That makes it almost competitive with a six-pack of Heineken. 
  2. It’s of a high quality in terms of both balance and taste, relative to its cost.  To illustrate, let us refer you back, once more, to the wine tasting that we administered two Sundays ago and wrote about last week.  We weren’t keeping score, but it was pretty clear that this Syrah was a favorite of all wines tasted, judging by peoples’ positive reactions and by the fact that it was the first bottle to go empty.  There was certainly no bias for Syrah in this crowd, either: the Shiraz (a.k.a., Australian Syrah) against which we tasted the Domaine la Bastide, lasted the longest of any wine included in the tasting, and we eventually ended up dumping it due to lack of interest.

The Domaine la Bastide is yet another unusually excellent value in wine — a true jewel in the rough.

Mar

18

We enjoyed our last Bordeaux from a couple of weeks ago so much that we thought we’d give another one a try, but this time from the highly regarded 2005 vintage.  The result was something very, very different, which became apparent to us even from smelling the cork.

Whereas the previous Bordeaux’s defining features were its earthiness and elegance, we felt the Château Charron was best characterized by its bright black currant, red pepper, and (especially) minty aromas and flavors.  Kind of like the citrusy sensation you get on your tongue when you’re eating oranges, this wine left the cool sensation of mint in our mouths for a period of minutes after each swallow.  Whether mint is or isn’t your thing, the fact, in and of itself, that we haven’t encountered a wine with so much of it made the Château Charron worth experiencing, and at $10.99, you can feel guilt-free about opening a bottle any night of the week.

Note that this is one of the few bottles of 2005 Bordeaux that you’re likely to find in the $11 price range that are worth drinking.

Incidentally, last weekend we hosted our first WineRabbi sponsored wine tasting with a few friends, and we think it went rather well – particularly considering that, of the nine people in attendance, three were under the age of 10 months.   The emphasis was on experiencing the effect that terroir has on grapes, so we compared, first, a typical white Burgundy (i.e., French Chardonnay) to a California Chardonnay and, second, a French Syrah to its Australian counterpart, Shiraz.  The Chardonnays effectively demonstrated the contrast between the French version’s typically cooler climate fruit (e.g., pear and green apple) flavors and lighter body with the Californian’s tropical fruit (e.g., melon) flavors and fuller mouthfeel.  But best of all, the fruitiness and thick body of the Shiraz made an eye-opening contrast with the French Syrah, which tasted of smoked meat and was lighter in body.  Stay tuned, because we’ll be writing about some of these wines over the course of the next couple weeks. 

If you’d like some ideas on tastings that you can organize on your own with a few of your friends, we’ll be more than happy to give suggestions.   Post a comment below and we’ll gladly respond with an idea or two!

Mar

11

Ok.  The price is not a typo, and as soon as you get a whiff of this one, you may have an even harder time believing me.

While the Argentines make a lot (and probably most) of the world’s Malbec, the grape actually originated in France.  As you might expect, the French version is of a different style: subtler in body, less fruity, and earthier.  But why the low price considering the weak dollar?  Quite honestly, it’s completely beyond me.

In evaluating this wine, we found aromas and flavors of almond, blackberry, black currant and a tinge of herbs.  We thoroughly enjoyed the interplay of the wine’s medium body with its bright acidity and gradually revealing, velvety tannins.  This bottle would pair well with food, but it also stands up great on its own.

As weekday wines go, the Château de Gaudou Cahors Cuvée Tradition 2004 is hard to beat.  Remember back when we reviewed the Pascual Toso last month and raved about the value?  This is better.  Better tasting, better value, and better quality.  Given the option, I’d choose the Château de Gaudou over the Pascual Toso every day of the week and twice on Tuesday.

Special thanks to Drew at Plumpjack in Noe Valley for an outstanding recommendation.   

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