WINE POETIX REVIEW

The Chatelaine and Her Friends Wax Poetic Over Selected Goblets of Wine. Posts are typically written amidst open bottles. Let the w(h)ining begin!

Saturday, November 12, 2005

BIRDS OF A FEATHER WINE-TASTING

MICHELLE WRITES IN:

Italicized wines indicate ones we bought

Wine from the heart ($10 reserve/$5 regular):
list is from the reserve tasting we did on Sunday; on Tuesday we tasted the first two, plus had two additional ones
Baywood Cellars ($1 for any two; $3 taste your choice of wines)
Clos La Chance ($5 for the list of 6)
Silver Mountain
  • 1999 Santa Cruz Chardonnay – fruit light crisp
  • 2000 Santa Cruz Chardonnay – smooth, creamy



On Monday night we posted on the conference newsboard:
Birds of a Feather: Wine tasting crawl collaboration
3p-6p
Meet at Wine From the Heart, Portola Plaza
hosted by UC Berkeley
Just show up

I added "collaboration" just to add one of those "ringer" words in the title. And looking back, I would have chosen "stroll" rather than "crawl". Didn't want to look completely like lushes. This BOF was earlier than the usual BOFs at 5pm, because most of the wine tasting places closed at 5pm. By 3pm no one had written their name down. I myself was a bit nervous putting my own name down and claiming this idea since both my director and manager were there. Fortunately I learned that this wine tasting BOF is right in line with the spirit of this conference.

I consider myself a rather novice wine drinker. I read the descriptions of the taste of wine and wonder what they mean. I was having a conversation with another coworker before the BOF and he asked me about my interest in wines. I told him, I'm not looking to become a huge expert on wines, but I enjoy the experience of wine tasting. The artist in me simply enjoys exploring sensations and in this case taste and smell. What's fascinating to me about wine is that alot of it has to do with personal experience, the memory banks of flavor we tie into what we think/feel we are tasting.

We get to our first stop Wine From the Heart located right across from our hotel. It was just two of us from Berkeley. Then a couple of others stop by. We add the guy from Princeton just finishing a tasting there. I introduce myself as the designated walker. As we wait for others, people go back to pick up jackets and change shoes. Since we don't know everyone's names, we call one woman the "shoe changer". She left with 8 of us and by the time she came back there were 14 in all. Six of us were from Berkeley, the rest from small and large colleges. One from Princeton who was already there, another from a corner of Wisconsin, another from a small school in Connecticut, another from the Naval Academy in Maryland.

The woman tending the counter that day seemed worried about having enough wine as Tuesdays tend to be slow days. She calls up the owners to ask what else she should pour. The weekday tastings consist of 4 wines, while the weekend reserves are 6 wines plus cheese pairings.

From the weekend's tasting, I was really amazed at how the cheeses changed the flavor of drinking the wine even after eating the cheese. The creamy brie cutting the tartness of the chardonnay and emphasizing the butteriness. We tasted the Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, then she served us two not on the list that I don't remember. Both a bit forgettable.

Next, we took a short walk on the Monterey Bay Trail to the three tasting rooms literally two doors down from each other: Baywood, Clos La Chance, and Silver Mountain. While the group got started at Baywood, we scoped out the other two and warned them that we were coming.

Baywood had a lot of light, sweet white wines. The Symphony was particularly sweet. The wines would be good for a general crowd and particularly for people who don't normally drink wine. I’d say most Filipinos would like these wines as they tend to like that sweet flavored drink. Easy wines to drink, few tannins, smooth finishes, juice taste. Nice wines to bring to a party. Walking into the tasting room the air had a sweet juice smell, like Welches. I also tried the Tempranillo, a Spanish variety I wasn't familiar with. It had, I guess, what they call an earthy nose. Most of the wines were not really my taste, so I passed on buying, though several others did buy bottles.

Next stop was Clos La Chance. I really liked this place and they served wines that were in my taste range: stronger white wines, and light to medium reds. I really had a hard time picking one bottle. Though I bought the Cabernet, I really wouldn't have minded buying the Merlot, Sirah, Grenache or Zinfandel. There wasn't much I didn't like from here.

The last time I had done a barrel tasting was at the wine festival in Amador county. I wasn't sure what people tasted for. Considering the barrel tastings I had were really awful, I wondered how wine makers ever predicted the direction of their wines. But the 2004 Clos La Chance Zinfandel with only 12 months in the French oak was amazing, with wonderful spice and fruit flavor. I asked if they sold futures, but they didn't.

Time was running by fast and it didn't look like we could make the Taste of Monterey tasting room. In hindsight, maybe we should have started there and walked back, but it left something for others to the next day.

Last stop was Silver Mountain. What was interesting here was that their Chardonnay, which they poured several consecutive years of, was a distinctly different wine from year to year. The 1999 was more crisp, fruity and tart while the 2000 which I bought was a smooth, creamy, vanilla finish. Their 2000 Zinfandel was dark and sweet almost like a port.

By this time the whole group was giggling and laughing, sharing wine notes. Most everyone took home a bottle of something. We took pictures and promised to try this again at the next conference. The woman from British Columbia was asked to be the next designated walker. Others discussed various ways they were going to pack their bottles on the plane rides home. The woman from Wisconsin said she checked in a couple of bottles of wine once and when she opened the box she found the TSA inspector’s tag and one of the bottles missing. Her complaints to TSA went no where, so now she checks in everything else and hand carries the wine. I learned you can’t ship wine to Massachusetts but you can bring it in your luggage for personal consumption. I’m not sure what the history to that is, but it seems odd since it’s not like Massachusetts has a huge local wine industry that would be threatened by shipments.

While the wines in Amador County left a lot to be desired, except for a couple of jewels, I was really impressed by the wines I tried from the Monterey vintners. The nice part too about drinking so many wines in succession it really develops one’s palette of comparing one wine to another.

Conferences are interesting events. You meet people once a year for a few days. Everyone is fairly pleasant because well they’re not at work and at such a great location. By the time you leave, you still like them because it’s not like you have to deal with them on a daily basis. The BOF brought together people that I would not have normally met and also let me learn more about people I already knew. Plus drinking wine is way more fun when you can do it in a group.

Monday, November 07, 2005

MONTEREY WINES

Michelle does a tasting report on Monterey wines that, yah, she should have posted here, so we link to it instead. She ultimately recommends Mission Trail Vineyards 2001 Reserve cabernet.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

A CALIFORNIA CABERNET TASTING

DAVID WRITES IN:

CALIFORNIA CABERNET TASTING
NAPA VALLEY, MOSTLY 2001, MOSTLY SPRING MOUNTAIN
NOVEMBER 2, 2005


I was asked to select eight California cabs for a blind tasting. I chose the following. The purchase prices are indicated, as is whether purchased from wineries.

1. BV Rutherford 2001 ($18.99)
2. BV Rutherford 1994 ($12.99)
3. Beringer Knights Valley 2001 ($17.99)

I chose these three as examples of reliable, moderately priced standbys, with the older BV to see how such a wine ages.

4. Marston Family Vineyard 2001 ($65.00) (Winery
5. Smith-Madrone 2001 ($35.00) (Winery)
6. Pride Mountain Vineyards 2000 ($54.00) (Winery)
7. Summit Lake Emily Kestrel 2000 ($40) (Winery)
8. Robert Keenan 25th Anniversary Cabernet 2001 ($27.99)

The rest were all Spring Mountain estate grown wines, with the exception of the Keenan, a blend of Spring Mountain and other fruit, and the Summit Lake, which is from Howell Mountain, and which, unfortunately, turned out to be corked. All wines were 100% cabernet. The wines were tasted blind: I opened them, someone else bagged them, then another person decanted into numbered bottles.

This turned out to be an extremely challenging tasting. Except for the corked bottle, all were in excellent condition. There was no obvious loser in the bunch. All good wines. But there was no obvious standout either. All were huge. All kept evolving in the glass, first showing huge fruit, then tannin, then fruit, again; some starting out harsh, then smoothing out. As the wines changed, one’s opinion changed as well. Some were easy to drink now, some not. All but one clearly would benefit from additional aging. Some needed lots more time! (The one that did not need to age and which began to fade after awhile turned out to be the ’94 BV, as might have been expected.)

When it came time for each person to rate the wines in order of preference, it was clear that there was no obvious front-runner.

The results: The Beringer and the Keenan were tied for first place, with 22 points each; the runner up was the Pride, with 23 points. (My personal preference: Beringer, Pride, Keenan.) In 4th place came Marston –definitely a blockbuster in need of much more bottle age - was 4th, with 25 points. The ’01 BV, ’94 BV, and the Smith-Madrone ranked 5th, 6th, and 7th, respectively.

I thought the Beringer, though as big as the others, was the most balanced of all. The Keenan offered the most variety of flavors and textures. At times, it seemed almost zin-like. Of course, we were surprosed at the Beringer's incredible showing, especially in light of the prestigious company it was keeping. (The wines, not the tasters!) One person seemed upset and wondered what kind of trickery or manipulation was done to get such a mass-produced wine to be so good. The answer: Who cares. Whatever they did, it worked. And as it is readily available for $20 or less, it’s a real bargain.