Oeno Files

While the KP Spouse and I were enjoying the German Riesling we had with our roast pork and sauerkraut on New Year's, we were lamenting the lack of tasing notes that we take when we drink wine; in short, we have only a sketchy history of the many interesting wines we've tasted over the years. So we have been thinking about capturing our tasting notes in some way, and naturally we thought of doing so via a blog.

Then we got to thinking about this whole "aggregation of knowledge" thing, and we realized that if we could capture the tasting notes of our friends who like wine, we'd have quite a useful repository of knowledge, for ourselves and for others.

Thus Oeno Files. We have asked a few of our friends and family to join us in using this site as a repository of useful knowledge about our wine experiences.

A few things: we will organize our notes by varietal and by region; the regions are pretty general, and we will use the tags feature to include more specific detail (e.g., St. Joseph in a tag, Rhone as the category, although the region could also be a tag, because that enables Technorati and other engines to search on the region tags too).

We haven't picked a sole metric for evaluation. I am partial to taking the Wine Spectator or Wine Advocate number ratings and dividing that number by the price (i.e., quality per dollar). In fact, that's what Neil Monnens and the good folks at QPR Wines do in their publication. But if we are coming up with our own evaluations, I'm not sure that we all want to use a number rating. So another option is letter grading. I'll probably use both in my first few posts, and we can see how that evolves over time as we all use it.

OK, let's drink!

This is a post I made on Knowledge Problem in February 2006 about our local wine shop, Howard's Wine Cellar:

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Howard's Wine Cellar on Belmont Avenue in Chicago. Tucked into a very small shop in a strip mall, Howard's is the cellar of Howard Silverman.

Howard's passion for wine shows up in every aspect of the shop. It's stacked to the rafters with racks and boxes of wine from all over the world. He has a great, intelligently-selected variety, particularly when you consider the square footage into which he squeezes it all. He also does Saturday tastings, and he sends out a weekly email in advance so you know what he's opening each Saturday.

You can come in with requests ranging from "do you have the Bosquet des Papes 1999 Chateauneuf du Pape?" to "I'm looking for a mixed case of cheap-and-cheerful, but good, wine for midweek dinners," and Howard always delivers. His particular expertise is Burgundy (we actually bought a mixed case of red and white Burgundies from him in the spring to cellar), but he has broad and deep knowledge in other wines too. We have learned more about Spanish wines and German Riesling from Howard than I could ever have imagined!

Some of the great wines we've discovered with Howard include Cimicky Trumps Shiraz Barossa Valley (around $15, outstanding value), great German Rieslings whose names I can neither spell nor pronounce, the aforementioned Bousquet des Papes Chateauneuf du Pape, Drappier Brut Champagne (a little yeasty for my taste, but good), and some really yummy Sicilian red (nero d'avola) with a funky label whose name I can't remember, but what a heck of a value for $12.

Go see Howard; he'll set you up right. He's always been great to us, and very warm and welcoming (even after we went through a six-month phase of not buying wine because we were spending so much money on the house). Great wine, great value, great service.
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If you are looking for a wine shop in Chicago I also recommend Dr. Vino's interactive wine shop map. Hopefully my compatriots here will share their favorite wine shops around the world.

To claim ownership of Oeno Files:

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This is a wine review I wrote in January 2005 at Knowledge Problem, just to give you a sense of some of the kind of information I hope we capture here.

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After our knife skills class at The Chopping Block, we stuck around for the free monthly wine tasting. The instructor, John Fuente, was amazing; he has incredible depth of knowledge about wine, a good sense of humor and down-to-earth attitude toward wine, and a great teaching style.

We tasted four wines: a 100% Sangiovese from Tuscany that had undergone carbonic maceration, so we got to learn all about the controversy around using carbonic maceration; a Syrah/Carignane blend from Corbieres in France, a Fox Hollow Shiraz from California, and The Chopping Block's wine of the month: Edna Valley Paragon Vineyard Syrah 2002. Edna Valley is one of the long-standing wineries in the Central Coast of California, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. They are best known for their chardonnay, but they also make very good pinot noir and syrah, as well as pinot gris, sauvignon blanc, and vigonier.

We learned a lot in the course of this tasting (in addition to the carbonic maceration thing). On the nose of the Edna Valley syrah were prominent caramel/toasted sugar and vanilla notes. As John pointed out, caramel and vanilla on the nose mean new oak, and probably new French oak at that. Sure 'nuff, when you look at the winemaker's notes it says

Aged 10 Months 85% French Oak 15% American Oak 32% New Oak

The French/American oak difference is that French oak has smaller grain, so there is more wood surface area in contact with the wine. The toasty/caramely notes come from the toasting and charring of the interior of the barrel before the wine is put into it to age. As an aside, note that bourbon manufacturing follows the same charring and aging process.

The fruit was there on the nose, but very subtle. Pronounced blackberry.

Then the taste ... and again my reaction was wumph. The taste was lush, full of the dark blackberry and plum fruit flavors. The caramel and vanilla from the nose were much more subdued in the flavor, but they were there. There was some tannin there (and indeed this wine can cellar for another 3 years or so), but it was subtle. The first adjective that came to mind was velvety; the wine actually gave me a sensation of texture in the mouth.

At $24/bottle this is not a weeknight quaff, but I'd say for an occasional treat this wine is good value for money. The vineyard recommends pairing it with rack of lamb, which makes me hungry just thinking about it.

A big, "fruit bomb" type zinfandel (14.6% alcohol), but it also has a nice resin note to balance out the red fruit. The nose is generally red fruit with some nice acid; in fact, the acid makes this wine a nice accompaniment with food.

It has a nice round mouthfeel, and has some taste complexity from beginning through middle to end. But it does lack some complexity, and the abundant red fruit is hard to decompose into component fruit flavors. And even though it does have some acid and resin, it's not a particularly well balanced wine.

Here's what the winery has to say about the wine:

Playful blackberry with undertones of smoke and pepper greet one in the glass. Black cherry and jam are complemented by hints of violet and oak.

We couldn't distinguish among the blackberry, black cherry, and jam the way we would have liked, and the violet was too subtle for my (admittedly deficient) palate.

But it's a good wine at $14, from a winery in the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains (although these grapes are from nearby Lodi). We'd give it a B+, 88 points, which is pretty good value for money.

We had dinner Friday night at Graze, a new restaurant that serve small plates and has a pretty cool decor. The food was very good, ranging from salad to monkfish to lamb, so we wanted a versatile wine that would stand up to bigger dishes but not overpower the more delicate ones.

We chose Meditrina 2004 from the Sokol-Blosser winery in Oregon. Part of the story:

Everyone knows about Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and intoxication. Who knew there was also Meditrina, Roman goddess of wine and health! We couldn't believe that thousands of years ago the Romans had enough savvy to connect wine and health and name a goddess to oversee the two. What happened? Overshadowed for too long by Bacchus's flamboyance, Meditrina deserves to take her rightful place in the wine world. We decided to help her get there by creating a heart healthy red wine in her honor.

Meditrina is a blend of pinot noir (S-B's signature grape), syrah, and just a touch of zinfandel. Its garnet color reflects those varietals. Its nose was very strange; it started with a buttery, almost chardonnay tone (and the friend dining with us also got some mown grass notes on the nose), but then after it opened up for about 10 minutes it developed a more traditional pinot noir nose (dry, fruity, not much alcohol, some floral notes, low tannin). Later, especially with food, the nose had some of the typical peppery syrah stuff going on too.

Similarly, the taste changed and reflected either pinot noir or syrah features. In general the flavors were well-balanced. It was a very dry wine but not overly tannic.

Depending on what you ate with it, you could pull out more or less of the characteristics of each varietal; the lamb pulled out the syrah, the monkfish the pinot noir. This feature made this a really good wine for sharing at a restaurant where you are ordering a variety of dishes.

It was $38 at the restaurant, but is $16 on their web site. I'd give it a B+/87-88 rating.

We've not been drinking wine since Sunday, when the KP Spouse came down with a stomach bug. It only lasted about 24 hours, but it's meant simple meals (even cheese pizza!) and no alcohol.

Hopefully we'll be back in the swing of things soon. In the meantime, what have the rest of you been drinking?

We are very fortunate. My sister-in-law and her husband, A&C, are very generous and have great taste. For Christmas they send us a mixed case of wine from Navarro Vineyards in Mendicino County. Opening the box every year is a delight.

Tonight we had a a Sauvignon Blanc 2004 Cuvée 128 from the cellar. The winery's tasting notes say

You will fall in love with the bright lime and kiwi flavors and the sensual hint of fig.

We certainly like this wine; the nose is crisp and clean, but with a nice earthy, almost sulfurous undertone. Perhaps that earthiness is the "hint of fig" they are talking about. On the palate the taste is again very clean and dry, with a grapefruit/lime zest flavor; the flavor is more intense than the actual fruit would be, and not as sweet or as pungent. There's a really nice mineral (but not chalky) tone. It's got quite a bit of acid, and it's not at all grassy like some American sauvignon blanc (perhaps that's the bit of Semillon that's in the blend).

It's got a nice, clean, zippy finish; the little bit of malic acid at the end gives it a zippy little feeling of carbonation at the back of the tongue.

It's listed at $16 on the web site; I'd give it a A-/91.

Again we drink from our cellar, this time with a lovely Navarro Vineyards 2002 Pinot Noir. We chose it to go with a nice piece of ahi tuna that we seared this evening. We have always enjoyed their pinot; we've never been to Mendocino, so I don't know much about its temperatures etc. relative to, say, the Russian River valley. So I don't think about Mendocino when I think pinot. But we have found that this pinot is consistently wonderful.

In this year's incarnation, its inital nose is big and jammy (cherry jam), with a bit of pepper and some tannin/acid notes. The initial palate was one of round, lush fruit (cherries and blackberries), a typical taste and feel of an American pinot. There was also some tannin bitterness at the back end. It had almost no strong mineral or oak qualities to it.

As it oxidized and opened up, the bitter tannin aftertaste was gone, leaving only the lush fruit and a hint of vanilla that came out over time. This vanilla indicates some subtle oak effects.

All in all, this is an excellent, well-balanced wine, a fine example of an American pinot noir. It's not particularly complex or layered. So we give it a B+/A-, 89-91 points. The 2003 is listed on the web site for $22.

Check out this Wine Enthusiast interview with Kermit Lynch, one of my wine heroes. Don't over-intellectualize the wine, is the punch line. Love him, love him.