Oeno Files

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 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.

Cheap and cheerful from Trader Joe's, went well with chicken, parsnips, and shallots braised in cider (yummy hard cider from Normandy!). Definitely not a complex or nuanced wine, but having the gewurz-y characteristics of apricot, floral notes, and a roundness in the mouth.

We had to drink a very young Petite Sirah tonight because a wine shipment got trapped and frozen in limbo by UPS's aversion to delivering it, despite many prior deliveries, without an "adult's" signature. This is the Preston Vineyards Petite Sirah Dry Creek Valley 2004 (est. $25, ). I was pleasantly suprised by how well balanced it was despite a 10-15 year apogee.

The wine had a deep, deep purple color with a black core that would make any Neon owner teal with envy. Immediately after opening, the nose was dominated by alcohol and tannins, and the tasting was likewise all acid, sugar and tannin. It's a big, young wine.

After about ten minutes of oxidation, the wine has changed a lot. The nose is now dominated by raisin and alcohol with just a hint of the previous tannin. I get a nice acid - sugar - tannin infrastructure overlayed with cherries near the fore and a very interesting combination of mint, menthol and pine saw dust (piney, but with burnt carmel overtones to tame it) near the rear. From the tasting notes, I know that the wine was stored in French oak for up to two years. I don't from where the pine slipped in, but I'm sure that the oak is the provenance of those happy carmel tones. I think that the sugar in the mouth middle still betrays how young the wine is. You can also see granular sugar sediment in the bottom of the glass. I bet this will congeal to a crusty sludge in a decade's time and reward your decision to decant the wine. It's already potent enough to constrict the throat when I try it out at the end of the glass. The sediment is sugar, tannin and something that's sort of napthalene like--interesting but not recommended.

The wine drank well with our dinner although the pairing, an Old World crossroads of ham, cabbage and cheddar-chive mashed potatoes revealed nothing new.

After dinner, the wine had added more delicate floral notes to the nose (gardenias or hibiscus?). I'm not great with floral scents, but we're talking flowers with sweeter perfumes) and a delicate, silica dominant terrior aftertaste. The appearance of that dirt is a testament to the quality of these California winemakers because they're not able to take advantage of a couple of millenia of humans mucking with the soil. The mint and pine flavors are still there. The acid/sugar combo in the fore, mid mouth is still a bit sharp.

We've got a second bottle that I expect big things from in about a decade.

One of the bottles from our cellar, the Preston Vineyards 1999 Barbera. Here are the varietal notes for the 2004 release.

The color is purple with a slight brown twinge, as you might expect for an 8-year-old wine. The nose is black pepper, earth, tart currant, and a little bit of green pepper. Not a lot of tannins.

In the mouth the wine had a big foretaste and almost nothing at the back of the mouth. In the middle there was a lot of acid, which balanced the wine and made it work well with food. Interestingly, broccoli brought out more fruit in the taste.

Barbera tends to be a thin wine, and when young it can be quite tannic (especially Barbera d'Alba from Italy). Given that, this is a nicely-balanced wine that has aged well. Preston typically recommends 10 years as the aging potential of their barberas, so drinking this one at 8 years was a good choice.

Another Preston from the cellar, this time the Carignane from 2003 (although the web notes are for 2004).

Carignane is a tricky grape; it can make pretty mediocre wine if not grown carefully. It is often blended with other Rhone varietals. Preston's notes indicate the care that they take with the grape:

Carignane has a reputation for large crops--that's why early farmers planted it. But treated with respect, sensitivity, and conservative production practices this grape makes wines of sophistication, complexity and power. Our vines look like small trees, tall with upreaching arms, and are trained the old way--no trellis wires. Crops are small, partly due to the age of the vines, partly the devigorating clay soils, partly to our severe pruning that favors canopy growth over fruit production.

The nose of the 2003 starts subdued, basically tannin and alcohol. Over time as it opened up, the nose got more tree-like (i.e., vegetal but not grassy) and smoky.

The taste upon first opening was well-balanced, not too acidic at all, with nice red fruit. In the fruit cherry was dominant but not the only fruit note. There was also a perfumey floral note in the taste that diminished over time. It had a dry, nice aftertaste with tannin. As it opened up the fruit diminished over time.

We drank it with lamb, which brought out a smoky mustiness in the taste. After we finished eating, the fruit flavors were richer and more subdued, more like dried fruit than fresh fruit. The tannin and acid characteristic of the varietal were still present.

As with the other quirky varietals at Preston, they grow the grapes and make the wine with great care, resulting in an unusual, interesting, and good wine.

Murphy Goode's Liar's Dice Zinfandel is a good, reliable, good-value-for-money zin (I think we paid $15.99). Typically it has nice cherry fruit, raspberry jam, and currant (as noted in their notes). We've never visited, but they are in the northern bend of the Russian River, north of Alexander Valley Road in Sonoma County, north of Healdsburg. One of the most delightful places in the world, and a good place to grow zinfandel.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate has this to say about the 2004:

This is a juicy, exuberantly-styled Zin from the reliable Murphy-Goode Winery. A very good value, the 2004 Zinfandel Liar’s Dice (16,000 cases produced) possesses a conservative (for currant day Zinfandels) alcohol percentage of 14.5. Its deep ruby color is followed by big, juicy, extroverted aromas of black cherries, earth, underbrush, pepper, and Provencal spices. It possesses loads of character, a full-bodied palate, terrific fruit purity, and a lovely, savory texture. Drink it over the next 2-4 years. Score: 89.

Our bottle had a deep purple-red color, and the nose had tannin, cinnamon, pepper, and hints of eucalyptus-y spice. The fruit note on the nose was more generic, and a little bit raisiny.

The first taste was typical zin -- big, fruity (as noted in the Parker review), and not very acidic. It was also quite tannic, but the type of tannin that would oxidize off over time. Where our experience starts to diverge from Parker's is that we found the fruit not to be particularly lush, but to be more resin-y.

It softened and the fruit developed as it opened and we drank more of it; in particular, the cherry fruit developed. It was still more resin-y than I would be led to believe from the Parker review. With food the cherry fruit also dominated.

All in all, we thought that we had liked Liar's Dice better in past vintages. In particular I prefer a more lush and less resin-y zinfandel style, so the persistent resin notes in this vintage didn't rock my world. But it's still a good wine and good value for money.