Oeno Files

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.

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.