Buff Brew

Being a wine lover, I have an affinity for alcohol in general. I enjoy beer and cocktails, and relaxing with an adult beverage after a long day is almost a requirement in my daily life.  So I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight a friend's new brewery in Houston, TX - Buffalo Bayou Brewing Company - which he started about a year ago. Rassul makes micro-brewed craft beer for the Houston market, and he's currently got kegs in over 60 bars and restaurants! Not bad for a fledgling beer business. 

I had a chance to visit the facility (which is not yet open to the public) on a recent business trip to Houston, sampling a few very unique and delicious beers. The first was called 1836, for the year that Houston was settled along the banks of the Buffalo Bayou, a waterway running through Houston. It's a rich "copper" ale with really nice malty notes. Second was a hibiscus "wit bier," which had a faint pink tinge from the flowers and a subtle floral quality to complement the citrusy notes in this light, refreshing beer, pictured above. Last was a gingerbread stout, which was dark, thick and creamy with a warm baking-spice quality. It's got twice the alcohol of Guinness, which brings it to around 8%.

I liked seeing the brewery equipment (pad filter above is quite similar to one we used at Wiemer) and hearing about how they're experimenting with flavors and barrels. Rassul acquired some French oak barrels and is thinking of doing a batch with oak aging. The great thing about beer is you can brew it anytime - you don't have to wait for a vintage like with wine. And you can add all sorts of flavors and essences to the batch to make a unique brew every time.

Currently Rassul kegs all of his beer and only makes bottles for sampling. He's looking to keep it local and remain a craft brewery for fellow Houstoners to enjoy.

Cheers to the Buffalo!

Bubble Lounge, SF

Right down the street from my office on Montgomery Street is The Bubble Lounge. I'd been to the New York location so I was primed to like this one. The focus is, of course, on sparkling wines, so what's not to like? Unsurprisingly, the SF location is bigger, and I could envision having a private party there. I didn't hesitate for a second in choosing the Champagne flight, since Champagne is one of my most favorite beverages. Pink or white, it puts a smile on my face every time. Recall that Champagne must actually be grown in the Champagne region of France, and it can only be made from 3 grapes - Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. While many places around the world make sparkling wine in a similar method as Champagne, there is nothing quite like the original Champagne, and this is an example of terroir's influence on wine. The soil, the grapes, the climate - all have an effect on wine and contribute to regional differences in wine. The winemaking conditions also have an effect, and Champagne is known for its limestone caves where the wine is made and aged in naturally cool conditions.

From left to right: Henri Billiot Brut Reserve, Laurent Perrier Brut Rose, 

Gaston Chicquet Blanc de Blancs

The Henri Billiot is a traditional Champagne blend; the Rose is mostly Pinot Noir with a touch of Chardonnay, and the Blanc de Blancs is 100% Chardonnay, as the name requires. While I love the color and red fruit character of Rose, and I enjoy the minerality and citrus of Blanc de Blanc, the Henri Billiot won in my book for the ultimate balance, creaminess, and complexity of blended Champagne.

Wine Blog Awards... Nominations Open

Nominations are now being accepted for the Wine Blog Awards. If you've enjoyed accompanying me on my wine adventures over the last 3 years through this blog, please nominate Wine Maven in Training! You can even nominate a specific post if you have a favorite.


The goal of the Wine Blog Awards is to honor and celebrate the best in wine blogging; encourage the wine blogging community to continue marching to relevance and success in the area of wine education and reporting; and to draw attention to the wine blogging community.


More info: http://wineblogawards.org/
Nominate: http://wineblogawards.org/submit-your-favorite/
Current submissions: http://wineblogawards.org/submit-blogs/

Sonoma Slumber

We've had a couple more notable wines from the Indiana basement collection - these two both from Sonoma County.

Kalin Cellars 1993 Chardonnay, Sonoma County, CA

You could tell right away from the color that it would be oxidized, but it was interesting and pleasant nonetheless. Sherry nose with nutty, caramel, fig notes. Some residual oak on the palate, which led me to believe this was a super oaky wine in its youth - typical of '90s style California Chardonnay. It still had a nice acidity which is probably what helped it stay so long. We had it with sushi and it paired pretty well.

Hacienda 1986 Cabernet Sauvignon, Sonoma County, CA

This was the first wine from the basement collection whose cork came out in 1 piece! And, this wine was a beauty, once it opened up. Still a lot of fruit and complexity, silky tannin, nice acidity. 

Currently when I think of Sonoma County I think of Pinot from the Russian River Valley or Zin from Ridge, but there are a lot more treasures to be found up north in Sonoma, a diverse wine region as wide as it is long, with many different microclimates and a lot of variety. 

Why We Love(d) the 90's

A few weeks ago I visited Indiana with my boyfriend and we raided his dad's wine cellar. His dad had managed to get himself on a bunch of coveted wine lists in the 80s and 90s and still has a lot to show for it. Now a diabetic, he doesn't drink wine as much as he used to, so he said we could put together a couple cases and bring them back to California with us. I've been lucky enough to sample some of these cellar treasures, including Ridge from the 80s and Leonetti from the 90s. It is always a gamble with older wines - you never know how they will keep. This basement wine cellar that we raided is not actually a wine cellar at all - it's a boiler room. So every time we open one of these bottles, the cork crumbles, we dismantle it in pieces, push in what we can't get out, and usually end up decanting and sometimes passing the wine through a coffee filter (into a coffee pot if we've run out of decanters). The wine may be oxidized, it may have lost all its fruit. Or it may be amazing, complex, funky, silky, and downright delicious. Here are a few winners from the latest collection:

 Leonetti Cellars 1992 Select Walla Walla Valley, Washington

The components of this wine are unknown, but I suspected it was a Merlot/Cab Sauv blend. It was gorgeous, fruity, spicy and chewy, with no oxidation and a beautiful richness.

Newton 1990 Merlot Napa Valley, California

This wine wasn't as clean as the previous but still had a lot of fruit and spice to go with the funk.

Chateau Phelan Segur 1990 Saint-Estephe, Bordeaux, France

This 1990 Bordeaux, which is dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend, still had a lot of fruit, plus richness and complexity that is so typically Bordeaux. I've learned through my tasting and study that really good Bordeaux needs at least 10 years to be drinkable, at least to my liking (the tannin needs time to calm down) and this was a perfect example. Blackberry, leather, barnyard, and dried fruit mingled with a surprising acidity (that calmed down after being open for a day) and tannin that suggested we could have waited a bit longer to open it, but not too much longer. 

A. Rafanelli 1991 Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County, California

I tried this wine after it being open for a day, and it was pretty oxidized, but it still had a bit of fruit and spice and was drinkable. Jeremy said it was much better the first day.

Both of these last two bottles had been leaking, which was why we decided to open them. You can see how the bottle tops are kind of moldy and icky. 

All of these wines threw a lot of sediment, as can be expected in older wines, and the 1990 Bordeaux also left tartrate crystals behind, which is from the acidity precipitating out. 

We were just saying that we should probably get some cheap Tuesday night wine to drink so we are not opening interesting and potentially amazing 20-year old bottles on a whim, but really, we are opening the bottles from Indiana assuming they are bad from the storage conditions, but hoping they will surprise us. So far so good! Thanks again, Jeff.