2003 BODEGAS OLIVARES ALTOS DE LA HOYA

Jim Ryals writes to note:

2003 BODEGAS OLIVARES ALTOS DE LA HOYA
A big wine, lush with fruit and coffee flavors. I was a little disappointed in this wine only because it held the promise of opening up and becoming even better, which it did not. However, for the price ($8.99 at Wine Exchange, $9.99 elsewhere) it is a real bargain.

LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK, WINES

Sandy and Barbara McIntosh sacrificed to provide this report on Long Island, N.Y. wines!

Twenty-five years ago an honest assessment of wines produced on Long Island would be that, while promising, they embodied the pungent taste and fragrance of potatoes. This is logical since the grapes are grown on former potato fields. Despite an unpromising start, the Long Island wine industry has matured from one small vineyard to 3,000 acres of vines and over thirty wineries that produce wine they boast are world-class.

There are two good reasons to wish the success of Long Island vineyards. The first has to do with climate. The island extends 120 miles into the Atlantic Ocean, which allows the grapes to grow in the mitigating maritime weather familiar to French wineries and, perhaps, to those in Sonoma County. The second has to do with the much-less sexy subject of real estate.

Long Island potatoes used to compete favorably with the Idaho variety. However, the forces that encourage supermarkets to feature one brand over another pushed out the Island’s spuds. Farmers were going into bankruptcy and looking to sell land that their families had worked for generations. The sale of land from one farmer to another commands a greatly reduced price than land sold to a housing developer. Thus, farms began to disappear, and the idyllic Hamptons became the crowded mish-mash of shouting, honking, pissed-off urbanites-on-holiday that it now is. Luckily, to stem this horror, the idea that good wine could be grown took hold. Vineyard land sells for a premium, but apparently produces enough income to support those who desire to make wine.

Having said that, I wish to report that, though a Long Islander, I haven’t kept up with the wines of the region for several years. Thus, at great personal expense and sacrifice on behalf of this blog, and following the knowledgeable recommendations of my friends at Pop’s Wines & Spirits in Island Park, I bought three bottles of what the management insisted was the state of the art of Long Island winemaking. (I was offered a choice of Rieslings, supposedly terrific, but turned them down because I dislike sweet wines.) Those I bought were the Pindar 1998 Mythology Meritage Red Table Wine, the 2000 Pindar Merlot Reserve, and the 2002 Chardonnay bottled by Macari.

And what did Barbara and I find, when we finally got the opportunity to try them? Really genuine surprises! After discovering that our new Thai/Chinese/Japanese fusion restaurant we’d been notified about through their menu in our post box had never opened, we cooked a couple filet mignons, some creamed spinach and some rosemary roasted potatoes we picked up in the local King’s supermarket—a rich but blank palate accompaniment for wines.

The Pindar Mythology is a complex Bordeaux blend from a vintage year of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec. It is deeply and wonderfully fruity. Is it worth $35.00? Well, perhaps $25.00. It is, in fact, a terrific wine. The kind you want to muse over.

The Pindar 2000 Merlot is a very good wine, with complex flavors of Black Cherry, Black Plum and spice. This is a good buy at about 20 bucks.

The Macari Chardonnay is also a notable Chardonnay, with a mellow, rather than sharp Chardonnay taste, as some other Long Island Chardonnays have exhibited.

Barbara and I were very happy with the subtlety and robustness of these wines—and, moreover, very proud that Long Island wines have finally allowed us to enjoy our potatoes in their natural form, rather than in our wine.

BORDEAUX RULES AT BARBECUE...UNTIL LONG VINEYARDS RAISES ITS LOVELY HEAD!

From DAVID:

THE RIDICULOUS AND THE SUBLIME

A few Saturdays ago a friend invited me to a backyard barbecue - Salmon - Grilled vegetables. Really good. The raison d'etre was that one of the guests decided to bring a '78 Chateau Palmer. I was asked to bring a good red. I did not want to bring a Bordeaux because I did not want to compete. So I decided to bring a 1991 Beringer Reserve cab -- different style, different venue, but high quality.

These were the wines:

1. Charles Shaw Sauvignon Blanc. (Yes, Two-Buck Chuck!!) I didn't bother.
2. 2003 Conundrum. Not bad, - different from any other vintage I ever tasted, but that's the idea.
3. 1978 Palmer - A wonderful, sophisticated, complex and elegant wine at it's peak. It won't go downhill tomorrow, but no need to wait.
4. 1991 Beringer Reserve - More full-bodied and one dimensional than the Palmer, but elegant. Not a "fruit bomb."

We agreed in retrospect that it was correct to have the Palmer first - because if it had been the other way around, the subtleties might have been missed after the more opulent Beringer. But no doubt, Bordeaux RULES.

4. For a finish, I brought a 2000 Long Vineyards Late Harvest Riesling - Possibly the wine of the evening - and the competition was clearly stiff. This is one Napa dessert wine wine that has the acidity to back up the fruit. The woman who brought the Palmer wouldn't let go of the bottle.

Cheers -DAVID

2002 MICHAEL THOMAS SYRAH

We tried a glass of this wine because our waiter today for lunch (at Hurley's Restaurant -- see prior post) happened to be the "Michael" in the artisan wine maker Michael Thomas. He and his partner make about 100 cases of wine. We first began talking about his background when I noticed the bandage around his left hand, which apparently occured during an accident as he was covering his bottles with hot wax. Anyway, it's always nice to see people live out their dreams in winemaking, and so decided to taste his syrah. The following wine tasting notes are from Tom:

2002 Michael Thomas Syrah. Nose of black plum, leather, ripe and roasted fruit, a nuance of oak. Medium body. In the mouth: black fruit, leather, good glycerin, nice finish, slightly bitter tannins. Light in mid palate. Enjoyable, but would be great if there was an extra layer of concentration and slightly sweeter tannings. Would rate it a "B-" which means that it's also over-priced at its $32 Retail price.

HURLEY'S RESTAURANT HOUSE CHARDONNAY

From Eileen:
I don't usually go around rating a restaurant's house wine. But the chardonnay at Hurley's Restaurant is arguably the best house chard I've ever tasted. Hints of pear, green apple, citrust, lemon....a light to medium body, slightly malo, and slightly green (acidity). Well-balanced despite a touch of biterness at the end of the finish. Excellent house chard at $5-$6 a glass (the former priced when having the "Vintner's Lunch" special). It was also served at the perfect temperature (the first time I ever recall saying that about any one's "house" wine).

This was my first visit to Hurley's Restaurant & Bar, 6518 Washington, in Yountville. They apparently have daily "Vintner's Lunch" specials which, at $15 a meal, is arguably the best fine bargain in Napa Valley. Today, that lunch was two-courses. You could choose between a first course of either a soup of Asian pear and curry or goat cheese-stuffed squash blossoms, and between a second course of a Mediterranean fish stew or steak with truffle-infused mashed potatoes and yellow and green beans. A BARGAIN.

MONTEVINA ZINFANDEL PORT

SANDY MCINTOSH writes in:

The Atlantic Beach Club is a private club on the ocean at Atlantic Beach, New York. Their wine tasting dinners are extremely popular and difficult to attend because the chef limits the number of diners each time to 50. After several attempts, we finally made it to a table last Thursday. Featured wines that night were from Montevina winery, which is located in Plymouth, in the Shenandoah Valley of Amador County, CA. Their wines on offer—the Nebbiolo Rosito, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, and Trinchero Merlot among them—were quite good, but not spectacular.

However, the wine that interested me most was their dessert wine, a Zinfandel Port. This one had aromas of black berry, chocolate and orange, and, thus, was quite unlike any European Port I’d ever tried. It is a fortified wine, a defining attribute of any Port, so I suppose they can call it Port, but that’s really a misnomer. Since I’m not much of a Port fan, I would have passed this one by at our local wine shop but might have tried a bottle had it been given a name more evocative of what it actually is: a dessert wine with depth and complexity, attractive on its own merits.

The port was paired well, by the way, with "Ebony and Ivory--New York Cheesecake and Chocolate Mousse covered in Chocolate Ganache." The rest of the menu included cracked lobster tail in a Remoulade sauce, Osso Bucco, swordfish, Mesculan salad with raspberries and Mandarin oranges with a raspberry orange vinaigrette.

*****

Good to hear from Sandy, also a stellar chef and poet who has written about wines in his poems, such as in this below from his new book The After-Death History of My Mother (Marsh Hawk Press, 2005):

According To My Mother (4)

My mother said: "I like this Paisano.
It's good, sour, like Hungarian wine."
I was after information. I refilled her glass to the brim.
"Why didn't you let me meet your relatives?"
I had been to Europe several times
but she'd always refused to tell me where they lived.
"You wouldn't have liked them. They were poor."

Halfway through the bottle I got the courage
to ask about her marriage to the mysterious man in Cincinnati.
"We were so young…" she began, and then nothing.

I refilled her glass. And then glass after glass.
In the end she started talking,
but by morning I'd forgotten it all.

"Say again what happened in Cincinnati," I begged.
She stared at me. "No," she answered.
"We were young and poor.
You wouldn't understand."

THE 2003 DUTCH HENRY ZINFANDEL

from Rutherford, Napa Valley grapes is, technically, not yet released. But we had a previoooo tasting over lunch at the winery, and it's worth getting. $38.00. Spicy and intense. Blueberry, spice and slightly toasted oak. Yum. Check out the Dutch Henry website and join their Wine Club for one of Napa Valley's greatest relative secrets.

FROM MY FIRST VISIT TO "SAN FRANCISCO'S ULTIMATE WINE BAR"

What a great idea! VinoVenue (686 Mission Street, San Franciso) has set up one of the most accommodating wine-tasting bars I've ever visited. You can get 1-oz. tastings of over a hundred wines from various tasting stations grouped around themes, whether it's the varietals themselves or "adventure" as more difficult-to-find-wines. If you like a wine, you can buy a fuller glass than the 1-oz. sip and/or a bottle right then and there. Which also means you can pick up a wine you know you like for dinner elsewhere (rather than navigating through that restaurant's wine list) or to bring to a party!

The location, while (I think) not generating as much traffic as, say, a bar on Fillmore could, is near SF Moma and Yerba Buena Center, which actually means that this is a nice way, too, to meet someone for wine drinks prior to cathcing shows at such venues.

Anyway, Tom and I have been meaning to visit here for a while and finally did. From our first visit, here are some brief thoughts -- these are all decent food wines (though wouldn't suggest bothering with the Le Bastide), notwithstanding some critical pickiness below:

2003 O'Brien "Seduction" Meritage, Napa Valley
$27. Good, with rich Napa fruit and good tannin. But a harsh finish.

2003 Francis Tannahill Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Oregon
$34. "Aromas of blackberry, violet, smoke and spice give way to a long rich finish," according to its placard's description. Agree -- except that it's lighter-bodied than what I would have desired.

2001 Fort Ross Reserve Pinot Noir, Sonoma
$__ (sorry; forgot to note price but probably not aboe $30s range). Good nose -- strawberry, nutmeg and clove. Similar flavors. Possesses the richness one hopes for from a Pinot noir. But it's a little forward and narrow and tart. Ultimately, good but without that desired "peacock's tail".

2003 Le Bastide de St. Vincent Cotes-du-Rhone
$___ (sorry again). Nice nose but not balanced. Light fruit (I wouldn't bother following up on this....)

2002 Larkmead Merlot Napa Valley
$40 ('twould be a better buy at $30, given price comparisons with others in that price range, e.g. Behrens & Hitchcock wines are fabulous below $40/bottle). Nose gets cherry, licorice, leather and fruit. Dark ruby color. Nicely intense -- recommend really swirling in glass or to decant first. (78% merlot, 12% cabernet, 6% cabernet frank and 4% petite verdot.)

2002 De Toren Fusion V Meritage, Stallenbach, South Africa
$35. A nicely unusual Meritage. Soft fruit. It might be a bit too earthy but not really in a bothersome way. (60% cab, 14% merlot, 14% malbec, 6% cab frank, 4% petite verdot.)

BY POPULAR REQUEST

among a particular wine-imbibing crowd, I am starting this blog to present reviews of selected tastings of wine. Some of these same yahoos, I mean, oenophiles will also insist on posting guest commentary as regards their wine-induced opinions. Most if not all posts are expected to be writ whilst author is imbibing or intoxicated -- let the wine and whining begin.