Gun Bun

New Year, new wine! This week I spent time in Sonoma exploring a few wineries that happened to be open, including a couple I've been wanting to try for a while. As one of the original producers of California Gewurztraminer, my knowledge of Gundlach Bundschu ended there. The oldest family-owned winery in CA (since 1858!) hand harvests and uses gentle techniques to make their wines.

2012 Chardonnay offered fresh citrus flavors and a creamy texture with minimal use of new oak. Since our wine collection was lacking in the Chardonnay department, we picked up a bottle.

2012 Pinot Noir boasted pretty rose petals on the nose with cocoa, black tea and espresso notes around mixed dark berries.

2011 Merlot, one of Gun Bun's most successful varietals, had pretty black fruit, good texture and a really nice finish. I can't resist a good Merlot - Sideways or not!

2012 Tempranillo was brambly and spicy with good tannin that will make it last a few years.

Thanks to Rosie for an informative and fun tasting at Gun Bun!

Welcome, Summer

To celebrate the Labor Day weekend and the true start of summer weather in San Francisco, I toasted at Ridge Monte Bello in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Ridge prides itself on vineyard specific wines made in pre-industrial methods, including no irrigation. With careful vineyard selection and steep hillside plantings, the vines have to work for their nutrients and water, resulting in complex wines with good acidity and balanced structures. I've been a big fan of Ridge since moving to California, and it was nice to get back up to Monte Bello.

Ridge Chardonnay is always a welcome way to start, since theirs is quite Burgundian in style, with freshness balanced by creaminess. This one came from the Jimsomare property further down the mountain. Minimal new oak makes this a very approachable and refreshing wine, not your typical heavy California chard.

While traditionally focused on blends, a couple years ago Ridge decided to do a series of Monte Bello components - single varietal wines from the grapes that make up their famous Bordeaux style Monte Bello wine, a varying blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. These wines also showcase the vineyards from which they came. The Perrone Merlot comes from the Perrone property on the mountain and uses the grapes from the upper tier specifically, which is attached to a natural spring for a water source. The 2010 Perrone Merlot has a beautiful nose of black tea and red fruit, approachable on the palate now but with enough tannin to age several more years. We contrasted this wine with the 2011 Estate Merlot, which includes fruit from the Torre property as well, which contributes dry, dusty tannins and herbaceous flavors.

Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon has tricked me before, and I'm always surprised how much I love this wine. While I find most young California Cabs to be too big, too jammy, too tannic, Ridge hits the mark exactly right, with an approachable, delicious wine with acidity and balance. The 2011 Estate Cab has a finer tannin structure that makes this wine very smooth, and the brambly, chocolate flavors cannot be beat. Even my sister, a Cab-hater, enjoyed this wine and bought a bottle.

Next we tried the Ridge 2011 Monte Bello, which did not have any Petit Verdot this vintage. The butterscotch nose and brambly fruit were delicious, and I can tell this will be a really enjoyable wine in several years once the tannins have had a chance to mellow.

On the Zin side of things, which mostly come from vineyards in Sonoma County, we enjoyed fruity Geyserville and East Bench and spicy Lytton Springs, plus their Paso Robles bottling from one of the oldest vineyards in that region, with beautiful strawberry characteristics and nice acidity.

Thanks to Aaron for a wonderful tasting during the busy Labor Day weekend!

The view over Silicon Valley

A Fiendishly Clever Tasting

Last weekend we gathered at Ridge for the final blogger's tasting of 2012, and many bloggers confessed they had been slacking on their blogging. I realized that I too haven't written much since the last Ridge Blogger's Tasting in September. I offer no excuses - all I can say is Thank You! to Ridge for continuing to inspire my wine writing.

The theme this time was Three Blind Mice: 3 flights of wine with 3 tastes per flight, blinded. The 3 wines in each flight had both common theme and distinct difference. All 3 flights had a common thread as well.

We began tasting. On the first flight I could swear I was tasting the same wine in 3 different glasses, but all were slightly different. Jeremy and I collaborated and concluded that it was the same base wine, but with varying levels of oak exposure. On one end the wine was lighter and easier to drink, but on the other end it was bigger and more tannic, like it had more time in oak and needed to settle down a bit (age). Our varietal guess was Merlot.

The second flight clearly showed an age progression, as the first wine was a paler red color with tinges of brick on the rim, while the second and third had brighter color and fruit on the nose. We guessed it was a Zinfandel blend going back to early 90s, then early 2000s, then a more recent vintage.

The third flight was most confusing, because the differences were so slight. We thought we were tasting Monte Bello at very small age intervals.

We were wrong... about everything.

Flight #1: Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 in 3 bottle formats: magnum, regular, and half-bottle. The perceived differences in oak that we tasted could be correlated to how wine ages in different size bottles. This is due to the ratio of air to wine, which is smaller in a magnum (it ages more slowly) and larger in a half-bottle (it ages more quickly). So the one that tasted more "oaked" was the Magnum, which is aging more slowly and still hasn't mellowed. Regarding Merlot vs Cab, in the past I have confused these two at Ridge - they almost tend to take on opposite characteristics.

Flight #2: The only thing we got right here was the difference in age, though we thought there were a lot more years in between. Again, Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, this time from 2004, 2005, 2006.

Flight #3: 3 bottles of 2007 Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. The ultimate trick! The same wine, same vintage, same size bottle. People talk about "bottle variation," how the same wine can taste different from one bottle to the next. This can be due to slight variations that may develop in the wine as it travels from the tank and through the bottling line. Wine is always changing, always evolving. But how big a difference there is can sometimes be all in your head. 

In conclusion: the mind plays tricks on us, especially when the host plays tricks on the tasters! 

Thanks again, Christopher, for a fun tasting and a great end to this year of wine.

Ratings at Ridge

At the most recent Ridge Vineyards Bloggers Tasting, the challenge presented to us was to order 5 recently rated Ridge wines from best to least-best (I don't want to say worst since Ridge does not make a bad wine). Before we began I asked the question, do we rate them in our order of preference, or how we think they were rated? The reason I asked this question is because rating wine is completely subjective - everyone has a different palate. Yes, a wine can be well-made but everyone may not like it. And yes, a wine may be badly made and plenty of people may still like it. Rating wine also calls into question several factors, including approach-ability, age-ability, and value for the money. Can you rate a wine that begs for a steak the same as one that can be sipped enjoyably on its own? Can you rate a wine that you think will be better in 5 years the same as you rate one that is ready to drink now? Would you rate a $125 bottle of wine the same as a $40 one? I'm obviously not sold on the rating system. Christopher's motivation was to conduct an experiment, to see whether there would be any consistency in our tasting group and if that would support the rating system.

There were 5 glasses of wine in front of us. I knew that Ridge had just released several 2009 and 2010 wines; I had seen some of the ratings on store shelves and knew that the 2009 Monte Bello scored 98 points. Would it be included in this tasting? Would I know which one it was? Christopher told us the 5 wines were all rated within a 10-point span.

I loaded up on cheese before starting and then some bread to cleanse my palate. I tasted through the 5 wines twice, without eating anything else, since I didn't want the nibbles to factor into my tasting. On the first run-through I thought they might all be Zinfandel blends from various vineyards. On the second run-through I started noticing more complexity and variety, and I was pretty sure I knew which one was Monte Bello and which might be a Zin-based blend like East Bench, Lytton Springs or Geyserville. I liked the Zin blend more - it was more approachable and enjoyable right now. I know Monte Bello is a great wine, but I also know it gets better with age and is not necessarily at its best on release. I ranked the Zin blend first, the Monte Bello second. I was wrong and I knew it. I made a point of it, even if no one got it but me.

Here are the wines we tasted, with the ratings from wine critic Antonio Galloni of Robert Parker's Wine Advocate:

Ridge 2009 Monte Bello, 98 pts
Ridge 2009 Klein Cabernet Sauvignon, 94 pts
Ridge 2009 Perrone Cabernet Franc, 92 pts
Ridge 2009 Estate Merlot, 90 pts
Ridge 2010 Geyserville, 88 pts

The wines in the order tasted.

Our rankings were all over the map. Half the bloggers put the Monte Bello in the top position. 1 person got the order completely right, and he won himself a bottle of 2009 Monte Bello (well done!).

My conclusion: I still believe that wine tasting is completely subjective and the rating system is flawed; there are too many variables and it's riddled with preconceived notions and biased expectations. (Critics do not taste the wines blind, so they are aware of the brand, its history, its style.) The rating system doesn't really serve my purposes, but it exists for the average consumer staring at a shelf full of wines or the budding connoisseur who wants to build a collection. For a winery, it's a stamp of credibility and may be used as a marketing tool.

As for Ridge, I enjoy all of their wines and I don't care what the ratings are, 98 or 88. Thanks again to Christopher for an enjoyable tasting on Monte Bello! 

For more on my fellow blogging tasters, check out A Ridge Blog: http://blog.ridgewine.com/2012/09/22/the-wbt-pre-game-show/ 

To filter or not to filter

One of the last steps in winemaking is usually filtering. When I worked at Wiemer, we used either the superfine cross flow filter or a pad filter for the wines made in smaller quantities. In winemaking you have to make some small sacrifices throughout the process. Each time you move the wine you risk exposing it to air, and inevitably each time you move it you risk losing a bit of its character, whether it be aroma, color, or flavor. Filtering is one of those steps that some winemakers would consider optional. The reason for filtering is to rid the wine of any bacteria or yeast that might remain in the wine and to ensure a “clean” wine before bottling. At Wiemer, where we made wines that often had some residual sugar left in them, filtering was necessary to ensure the yeast was completely removed from the wine. If any yeast remained, it could feed off the sugar and start another fermentation in the bottle, which at the very least might make the wine sparkle a bit, but at the worst it might cause the bottle to burst from the excess carbon dioxide and pressure.

Newton Vineyard in Napa was founded on the principle of unfiltered wines. Dr. Su Hua Newton, the first Asian female winemaker, began making unfiltered Chardonnay in the late 70s and then added the red Bordeaux varietals – Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec. Her husband, Peter Newton, had been the first to plant Merlot in Napa when he worked for Sterling Vineyards, and the Newtons were one of the first to plant Petit Verdot in Napa. Dr. Newton built a state of the art winery between 1977 and 1979, with gravity flow and 30 feet of underground tunnels in the hills of Spring Mountain. The Newton vineyards are the only ones on the southern side of Spring Mountain, whose steep slopes and volcanic soil contribute to small concentrated berries and softened tannins. The winemaking process involves hand picking only the ripe fruit, which means they skip over the unripe fruit and go back to it later, making multiple passes through the vineyard until all the fruit is picked. The various pickings are kept separate, vinified in oak barrels in separate, temperature-controlled rooms. Then, the wines undergo aggressive “battonage” every day for 6 months – this means that after the fermentation has been complete (after a couple weeks), a long baton is inserted into the barrel to agitate the lees (dead yeast cells) that have fallen to the bottom. This action contributes a certain flavor to the wine and is “naturally antibacterial,” helping to “clean” the wine so the impurities settle out to the bottom. It’s similar to the process of riddling for sparkling wine, where the lees from the second fermentation in the bottle are forced to the neck of the bottle by a partial turn each day for 3 weeks, acting like a squeegee along the inside of the bottle until they are eventually disgorged. After the 6-month battonage, the clean wine – 85% of the barrel - is pumped out (this part is not done by gravity) and the remaining 15% of wine and solids is discarded. That amounts to about 4 cases of wine lost from this process - a significant loss but one preferred to the potential loss of color and aroma from machine filtering. The wine is then bottled and labeled “unfiltered.”

Views from Newton Vineyard

So does unfiltered wine taste better? Can you tell the difference? Newton wine still looks clear and clean. I tasted 4 wines paired with small bites from the Domaine Chandon gardens in Napa and their onsite restaurant, Etoile (Newton Vineyard is now owned by LVMH, the parent company of Moet & Chandon).  The 2009 Unfiltered Chardonnay was creamy with butterscotch and crème brulee notes. It wasn’t overpowered by oak and it went deliciously well with a spoonful of English pea soup accompanied by dungeness crab and meyer lemon. The 2008 Unfiltered Merlot had bright red fruit, black pepper and other spices, nice acidity, and grippy tannins that would soften with a bit more age. It went fabulously with a bite of tea smoked duck. The 2009 Unfiltered Cabernet Sauvignon had great black fruit that almost tasted sweet and again nice acidity and tannin that would lend well to further aging. The last wine was their Bordeaux blend that they call “The Puzzle” because of the shape of the vineyard blocks that it is sourced from. The 2008 Puzzle is made of 42% Merlot, 36% Cab Sauv, 14% Cab Franc, 6% Petit Verdot, and 2% Malbec. It was silky, smooth and complex and went great with the heirloom beet salad.

The last bonus wine was a 2002 Unfiltered Merlot from a Magnum bottle, which holds the equivalent of 2 regular bottles and is a better format for aging wine because of the reduced exposure to oxygen. This wine was musky and floral with additional characteristics of beets and lead pencil. It had great balance and structure and was very smooth. After recently enjoying the Newton 1991 Unfiltered Merlot and now trying the current releases, it was awesome to taste a wine right in the middle.

Now back to the question, to filter or not to filter? I can’t say I would be able to tell the difference unless I had the same wine in filtered and unfiltered form side by side. Winemaking is a combination of art and science, and I tend to gravitate toward wines made with the least manipulation. And as a former winemaker, knowing how the wine is made makes me appreciate and enjoy it more.

Corkscrew trees and the garden atop the wine caves

Frances and Newton

Last week I finally made it to Frances, a popular restaurant that I've been hearing about for a year where you can never get in. It received 1 Michelin star in 2011 and is classic Californian, with a daily changing menu inspired by local ingredients and a casual setting. The reservation list is full for months, but they have a "bar" area in front with about 8 seats available on a first-come, first-served basis. I've tried to go in the past but with wait times over an hour I usually am too hungry to wait. This week though, to celebrate a special occasion on Wednesday, we tried again after calling and hearing that the wait for the bar wasn't too long. We got there and were first in line for 2 seats at the bar, a 30 minute wait. As we perused the wine menu, Jeremy had a thought that we should've brought a bottle from home. Corkage fee was only $15, and with a half hour to kill, why not go home and get a special bottle? So he went while I waited for the table. He got back 2 minutes after I was seated and presented a bottle of 1991 Newton Merlot - a bottle from his father's cellar. We had the 1990 a few weeks ago and it was really interesting, so I was excited to try this slightly younger vintage. The waiter decanted it for us, showed us the cork, which he managed to keep 75% in tact, and previewed by saying that while pouring it into the decanter it smelled amazing. We encouraged him to grab a glass and share some with us.

Amazing it was - rich and deep, with earthiness, leather, warm spice, and a bit of complicated fruit - not quite dried but still lively and bright. It went great with our meals (I had the Quail and Kale and Jeremy had beef) as well as the dessert - a decadent chocolate cake with bing cherries baked in and caramel sauce on top.

Frances and Newton - a match made in heaven!

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.

Ridge Lytton Springs

Recently I visited Ridge Lytton Springs, the Sonoma county location of Ridge where they grow their signature Zinfandel blends. The main vineyard was certified organic in 2011, and it is an Italian field planting, which means that it is a mix of grape varieties including Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Carignane, Mataro (Mourvedre), and Grenache. This is a common practice in Europe, with vineyards being planted like this and harvested together in a "field blend." At Ridge Lytton Springs, someone knows exactly which plant is what, so they know what quantity of which grape they are putting into the blended wine. Some of the vines on the Lytton Springs property are as old as 116 years - they are so old and their roots so deep that they reach the water table and don't need irrigation.  In general, Ridge vineyards are dry farmed and only young, new plantings are irrigated individually until they establish a deeper root system.

A note on labeling: In the United States, in order for a wine to bear the varietal name on the label (i.e., Zinfandel) it must contain 75% of that grape. The other 25% need not be named. At Ridge, nearly all of their wines are blended, and the vineyard name is usually the distinguishing factor on the label. Ridge's Sonoma county vineyards tend to be Zinfandel-based blends, while the Santa Cruz mountains properties south of San Francisco are dominated by Bordeaux-style blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc (including the famous Monte Bello that I have had the pleasure of tasting before).

Onto the Ridge bottlings: first, 2009 Ridge Lytton Springs. 71% Zin, 23% Petite Sirah, 6% Carignane; 14.5% alcohol by volume. It was gorgeously fruity upfront and then became spicy and earthy as it sat in the glass.  Then we tried the 2003 vintage - wow. Coffee, chocolate, warm spice, herbs. Extremely balanced - 76% Zin, 18% Petite Sirah, 6% Carignane. Could age another 10 years by most people's standards, 20 years for wine geeks. We got a bottle of the 2009 and plan to age it for at least 5 years, since the 2003 was so good after 7. We could try to age it for 20 but I don't see that happening.

Next we moved to the Geyserville vineyard, with 80 year old vines in a similar field blend but with more Carignane than Petite Sirah (17% vs 6%). The 2009 Ridge Geyserville had bright, dark red fruit and the acidity was slightly more balanced than the Lytton Springs. The 2003 vintage was more complex, with tobacco, spice, a hint of dried fruit, and a similar earthy- and herbal-ness.

A couple others we tried:
2007 Mazzoni Home Ranch - 58% Zin, 39% Carignane, 2% Petite Sirah. Similar fruit character but lighter, more spice and acidity - a great food wine, very European in style.
2010 East Bench Zinfandel - 100% Zin, from a younger vineyard. 15.1% alcohol by volume. Whoa, strawberries! Super fresh, ripe strawberries hit me immediately as I smelled and tasted it, then black pepper moved in to dry out the sweet attack. Very interesting wine.

We migrated to the barrel room at that point, where I was amazed by their stacking system and barrel processes. Every time I enter a barrel room I immediately start thinking about the logistics of the barrels - how are they stacked, how are they filled, how are they emptied? Who does this work? - since I was once in that position. At Ridge Lytton Springs, a series of ropes and pulleys hangs from the ceiling, from which the cellar workers hang to empty, clean, and fill the barrels, keeping them in their same formation, as many as 10 high. I don't quite understand how this works; I would love to see them in action. They must use pumps... but how do the barrels dry after they are washed? Wonder if I could schedule an appointment just to watch sometime. Anyway, regarding the oak barrels, Ridge uses only American oak, and only 20-25% new.

In the barrel room, there were a few special bottles open for a separate event going on, so we got to try some new wines either pending release or just released. The first was the 2009 Estate Merlot - a 100% single varietal bottling only previously made in 1974, 1976, and from 1991-1997.  It had a classic Merlot aroma with spice, leather, red fruit, and vanilla. 75% new oak was used. We then had the 2009 Klein Cabernet Sauvignon, which happened to be one of the wines from the component tasting at the last Ridge Blogger's Tasting that I attended at Monte Bello in December 2011. It's 100% Cab Sauv with classic black fruit, dark currant, juniper, eucalyptus and spice. Nine barrels were selected from the Klein vineyard to make this single varietal wine. Lastly we tried the 2009 Monte Bello, 72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot, and 6% Petit Verdot. It was more earthy and tannic than the previous two, with nice vanilla notes. We compared that with the 2006 Monte Bello, which was 68% Cab Sauv, 20% Merlot, 10% Petit Verdot, and 2% Cab Franc. It was very Bordeaux-like, with red fruit, leather, vanilla and warm spices. Extremely long length.

For dessert we had the 2007 Geyserville Essence, a sweet wine made from Zinfandel grapes. Lush bosenberry pie and raisins were balanced by that Ridge acidity.

I'm so glad I finally made it to Lytton Springs! Special thanks to Eliot for a wonderful tasting experience.

Darioush

Last weekend I made another visit to Darioush in the Napa Valley, this time for a sit-down "table-side" tasting. A flat panel tv in our corner of the tasting room showed a video of the field crew harvesting the grapes at night - common practice here in California where fall days can be too hot for harvesting. I think this is such a great process - the field crew works all night and then by 7am the day shift gets to work sorting the grapes and getting the juice into tanks. I'm sure in many parts of the world (warmer climates mostly) this type of shift work is done; in the Finger Lakes it didn't really make sense for us, especially since it could get pretty cold on those fall nights.

Greg, our server, was very knowledgable about the wines and the valley. Darioush wines are made from 90% estate grapes (from vineyards they own) and 10% from vineyards that are leased over multi-year agreements. Owning your own grapes or at least leasing them is important, because it allows you to have control in the vineyard, where wine is born. Knowing the land and the vines gives you a leg up when it comes time to make harvesting decisions. The wines tasted were not far from the lineup I had on my first visit there almost a year ago - Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Cab is their flagship wine and I had tasted the 2007 in March and loved it. This time I got to taste the 2006 next to the 2008 (2007 is sold out because it got great ratings and everyone went crazy for it). The 2006 was obviously smoother, with a silky texture and long finish, but the 2008 had tons more fruit and was much more exciting. The tannins were still gripping but you could imagine how a couple years in the cellar would really do this wine well.

Thanks again to Ryan and Greg for their impeccable service and attention! I highly recommend a visit to Darioush.

Ridge Blogger Tasting - Me vs. the Typewriter

Last weekend I attended the last Ridge Bloggers Tasting of 2011. We were given this picture hint as to the theme of the tasting:

I thought to myself, if we are going to go from live Twitter-fall to tasting notes on typewriters, this is going to be interesting. I arrived at Ridge Monte Bello on a Sunday afternoon in December to see 4 typewriters from Tasting Room Manager and Host Christopher Watkins' personal collections, plus the usual group of Bloggers on ipads and iphones, and of course, the live Twitter-fall. Our entry fee for the tasting was that everyone had to compose a tasting note on the typewriter. I had never used one before so I was excited. Here I am in action:

(Notice the gadget next to me - it's not an iPad but a Kindle Fire. Not to go off on a tangent, but the most shocking omission from the Fire's design is the lack of a notepad feature. So since my typewriter skills are sub par I took the bulk of my notes in an email composed to myself on the Fire.)

The reason for this theme was a throwback to the early Monte Bello Ridge property owners and the culmination of the Ridge we now know today. Ridge has just released the first vintages of these original-property-specific wines from three family properties that Ridge now owns (Torre, Perrone, and Klein), including the current Monte Bello site where we sat.

After an aperitif of Ridge Estate Chardonnay 2008, my favorite California Chardonnay, we began tasting the components.

First we had the 2009 Ridge Klein Cabernet Sauvignon. It was classic Monte Bello Cab with eucalyptus and mint, plus woodsy, herbal notes. The fruit was muted and the wine was silky smooth on the palate.

Next was the 2009 Ridge Torre Ranch Merlot. This wine seemed to be having an identity crisis of whether it was Merlot or Cab. It was closed on the nose but fruity and leathery on the palate, and much more tannic than the Cab. The fruit indicated Merlot but structurally it leaned more in the Cab direction.

Finally we tasted the 2009 Perrone Cabernet Franc, which was my favorite of the three. It was very rich, with deep fruit, fresh raspberry, warm spice and some herbal notes.

All the wines had great acidity and you could imagine how well they would play together.

Next we did an estate blend vertical from the years 2003, 2004, and 2005. These are Ridge wines from the Santa Cruz Mountains blended from the above-mentioned grape varietals in varying quantities from year to year.

The 2003 had a gorgeous nose of cinnamon, clove, a bit of cornbread and some vegetal characteristics. On the palate there was nice fruit and spice, but the tannins could use some further aging to soften.

The 2004 smelled a little funky and like creamed corn. On the palate it was herbal with firm tannins. Chris explained that for some unknown reason the wines produced in even vintage years tend to be a bit funkier than the odd vintage years.

The 2005 had a more floral nose and was brighter and fruitier than the previous two, but the tannins were very grippy and need some time to smooth out in the cellar.

For a treat, fellow blogger Allan brought a mystery wine for us to try. He mentioned it came from his cellar of Ridge treasures (which is vast and includes many member's-only releases). I guessed it was a Syrah-based wine, due to the smoky, chocolate, dark fruit characteristics that I found in the wine. It was delicious, but I was wrong - it was a 1994 single vineyard Zinfandel from the Monte Rosso property in Sonoma Valley that Ridge produced that one and only year.  There is only 1 case left in the Ridge Library, and Allan shared one of his two bottles with us. I am very thankful to have tasted this rare wine. Thanks again, Allan!

As always, a trip to Ridge Monte Bello is extremely rewarding and reinforces my love for wine and the industry. Ridge wines are always unique and interesting, and their potential for aging is remarkable. Thanks again to Christopher for hosting these fantastic events and inviting me.

For more posts and pictures from this event: 
A Ridge Blog
http://blog.ridgewine.com/2011/12/20/for-those-about-to-type-we-salute-you/

Come for the Wine

http://comeforthewine.blogspot.com/2011/12/ridge-monte-bello-blogger-tasting.html

Stay Rad Wine Blog

http://stayradwineblog.com/2011/12/11/pinky-strength-the-ridgevineyards-blogger-tasting/

Give Me Grapes

http://www.givemegrapes.com/2011/12/vintage-bloggers-wine-tasting.html

My past posts on 2011 Ridge Blogger Tastings:

First Bloggers Tasting:

http://iheartnywines.blogspot.com/2011/03/ridge-bloggers-tasting.html

Second Bloggers Tasting:

http://iheartnywines.blogspot.com/2011/06/ridge-bloggers-tasting-2-monte-bello.html

Wine PR

Last week at work some reps from PR Newswire hosted a wine reception to tell us more about their services. What a great idea, PR Newswire! Right up my alley. I learned more than I ever thought I knew about PR Newswire and tasted some nice wines as well. They brought a rep from The Wine Club, a great wine shop in SOMA near the San Francisco Wine Center, to tell us about the wines. He put together a little California vs. Spain tasting that was very interesting.

Whites:

Georis 2009 Sauvignon Blanc, Monterey/CA - This was an oaked SB and tasted more like a light California Chardonnay. Still lots of acidity and zest but very smooth from the oak. Blindfolded or not I could swear it was Chardonnay each time I sipped it. Shows how much winemaking can affect varietal character.

Pazo Senorans 2010 Albarino, Rias Baixas/Spain - Classic Albarino with bright herbal fruit and crisp acidity. Very pleasant.

Reds:

Tablas Creek Vineyard 2010 Patelin de Tablas, Syrah/Grenache/Mourvedre/Counoise blend, Paso Robles/CA - From our host's description I wanted to like this wine more than I actually did. I thought it was thin and harsh and tasted like cough medicine.

Celler Pinol 2008 Sa Natura, Carinena/Merlot/Cab Sauv/Syrah/Tempranillo blend, Priorat/Spain - This wine was rich, deep and big with lush dark fruit and firm tannin. I could see this aging well for several more years. For a big wine I often look to Priorat, but I do caution that the alcohol tends to be high in these wines.

Obviously and unsurprisingly, Spain won it for me.  Thank you to Blueshirt, PR Newswire, and The Wine Club!

Wine & Spirits' Grand Tasting

Last month my friend Oskar visited from the Finger Lakes and invited me to join him at the Wine & Spirits Top 100 Tasting, honoring the San Francisco-based magazine's chosen top 100 wineries of the year. Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard was honored for the 3rd year in a row, and I got to accompany Oskar as a representative of the winery. Going to industry tastings is always more fun with 2 people - you can share the responsibility of pouring the wine while having the chance to walk around and taste the other wines.

The best part was the Champagne and oysters section on the veranda of City View at METREON in downtown/SoMa San Francisco - great views and delicious indulgences. I tried Dom Perignon for the first time (it was ok; I've had better for cheaper) and sampled some other great names like Louis Roederer.

In the Riesling family, in addition to Wiemer's 2010 Gewurztraminer and 2009 Late Harvest Riesling, wines that I proudly helped produce, I enjoyed Joh. Jos. Prum's 2009 Mosel Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese (Germany), a similar style to our Late Harvest Riesling, and Loimer's 2009 Kamptal Reserve Langenlois Steinmassl Riesling and 2010 Kamptal Gruner Veltliner (Austria). I love this simple green label:

Again I sampled R. Lopez de Heredia's 1993 Rioja Reserva Vina Tondonia Blanco, the white Rioja I first had at San Francisco Wine Center over the summer; this is such an interesting wine. I also had their 2001 Rioja Reserva Vina Tondonia Tinto, the red version. Delicious Spanish wines.

Other notable reds included Leonetti Cellar's 2008 Walla Walla Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and 2009 Walla Walla Valley Merlot. I've had older Leonetti vintages and they have been divine, so it was nice to try the current releases and see what the wine is like in its youth. I also enjoyed Achaval-Ferrer's 2008 La Consulta Uco Valley Finca Altamira Malbec. I visited this winery during my trip to Mendoza last year but I hadn't tried this single vineyard Malbec.

I had fun bumping into Mary Burnham and Jordan Mackay, wine writers and instructors at SFWC wine school.

And as always, it was great pouring Wiemer to adoring fans from around the country.

Other coverage:
http://www.vinography.com/archives/2011/10/whats_your_best_wine_tasting_t.html

Ridge Bloggers Tasting

 My first week in San Francisco I was invited to a bloggers tasting at my favorite California winery, Ridge - I couldn't have been happier! On Friday I headed south to the Santa Cruz Mountains region. Once I got to Monte Bello Road in Cupertino the only place to go was up - 4.5 miles up the mountain where Ridge's Monte Bello tasting room sits along with the Monte Bello vineyard, ranging in elevation from 1300-2700 feet above sea level. Ridge is most known for it's Monte Bello blend, a Cabernet Sauvignon focused Bordeaux blend with varying amounts of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, and for its Zinfandel blends, which also feature Carignane and Petite Sirah. Ridge focuses on wines with a sense of place, so all their wines are single-vineyard wines. The vineyard locations are appropriate for the grapes grown, and they practice sustainable viticulture. Yields are low, natural yeasts are employed, and the wines undergo natural malolactic fermentation in American oak, for the most part.

I was excited by the tasting, since I had not yet been introduced to many wines in the Ridge lineup. My limited but fantastic experience with the wine included 1989 and 1990 Ridge Monte Bello. I was excited by the Monte Bello vertical, as well as the Zins and Syrahs. The wines were accompanied by cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery - a nice addition.

To get things started we first tried their estate Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, grown on the Monte Bello property. I'm not a Chardonnay lover and I tend to prefer white Burgundy over new world Chard, but the Ridge 2009 Estate Chardonnay surprised me. I had never thought I would enjoy so much a California Chardonnay. Ridge's had a mineral, tropical nose and a creamy mouthfeel but also an incredible lightness that I would never expect from an oaked California Chardonnay. The acidity, fruit, minerality and body were so balanced, and it had a smooth, citrusy finish that was almost Champagne-like. Makes sense, since Monte Bello enjoys limestone soil, which is a soil characteristic of Burgundy and Champagne but not so much California. I will go so far as to say this Chardonnay is the best I have ever had! The 2008 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon was also very enjoyable. It had a bright nose of blackberry, spice, and lead pencil that carried through to the palate with a medium body and a smooth, comfortable lightness. It seems to me the limestone soil and microclimate at Monte Bello really are the perfect conditions for these wines.

Next we compared the 1999 and 2009 Geyserville Zin blends. Geyserville is located up north in Sonoma County. I hadn't had Ridge Zin before (or any Zin for quite a while) so I was looking forward to this comparison. The 2009 will be released in April. It is 74% Zinfandel, 17% Carignane, and 6% Petite Sirah. It had licorice, spice and some meatiness on the nose. On the palate it had some dark berry and spice flavors that continued to the luscious finish. I thought the body and weight were really balanced, and I enjoyed my re-introduction to Zin with this wine. The 1999 (68% Zin, 16% Carignane, 16% P. Sirah) was a real treat - it had a more vegetal nose that kept evolving as it sat, with some dill, warm baking spice, and dried red fruit coming through. On the palate there was an interesting mix of eucalyptus and mint with that dried fruit and spice. It was a bit more rustic than its younger self but super interesting - I loved it. I could see how Geyserville would be rewarding both younger and older.

Following was the Monte Bello 10-year vertical. This time we started with the oldest. The 1985 was incredible and the oldest Ridge wine I have tasted. The nose was complex, with dried cherry, nutmeg, clove, and a bit of corn chowder coming through. On the palate it still had a surprising acidity and good grip from the tannins, which had smoothed out but were still firm. It still had a lot of fruit and spice coming through and did not taste like a 25-year old wine. The composition was 93% Cab and 7% Merlot, and the alcohol was 13.1%. This is important to note because a lot of California wines have very high alcohols (15%!), and people like this. I prefer a lower alcohol wine, and Monte Bello has always been around 12 - 13%.  The 1995 Monte Bello was very interesting, with more brooding, dark flavors. It was richer and had more weight, with dark black fruit, leather, and spice. This one could definitely age another 10 years. The 2005 Monte Bello was very fruit-forward with a pretty vanilla spice character and good grip. I liked the spicy finish. This too will age for 20 years!

The next treat was a comparison of 2 small production Syrahs from the Lytton Springs vineyard in Sonoma. We were lucky enough to have one of the last available bottles of the 2004, so I didn't want to like it too much. It was blended with 10% Viognier and 8% Grenache from 50-100 year old vines. It was beautiful, with blueberry, chocolate, and cinnamon notes. I hoped the 2006 would be just as good - I have been on a Syrah kick lately so I am looking for favorites. The 2006 was the winner - and it is not even out yet so I know there is more where this bottle came from. Warm spice, cocoa, and a touch of that meatiness that I love about Syrah, plus only 14.4% alcohol. I loved the smooth chocolateyness of it and I was happy to like it even more than the 2004. When this is released in April I will definitely be looking for it.

To finish, a fellow blogger had brought 2 mystery wines. I think most people expected them to be Ridge, but I tried to keep an open mind. I had just met these people so I didn't know how they liked to play. The first wine seemed at least 10 years old and had a funky nose of mushroom and sweat. Not attractive, I know. I thought it could be Italian - it seemed very old world. The next one also looked like it could be about 10 years old, but it smelled hugely different, almost fortified, with a confectionary nose of dried fruit and creme brulee. On the palate it had surprisingly grippy tannin and raspberry jam taste. I was stumped - and they both turned out to be Ridge Dry Creek Sangiovese from 1997 and 1998. I was right about their ages, and Sangiovese is a grape of Italian origin so I had that going for me. Ridge no longer makes Sangiovese; the vines had been pulled out.

A very interesting conclusion to a fantastic lineup of Ridge wines. I feel very lucky that I was able to participate in this tasting and meet so many other Ridge enthusiasts. I am looking forward to my next Ridge experience!

Check out these other blogs from fellow tasters:

www.givemegrapes.com
www.NorCalWine.com
http://bartonorchard.blogspot.com/
http://batonnage.net/

And Ridge's own blog:
http://blog.ridgewine.com/

Take a Napa

It's been raining since I got to San Francisco, which I really cannot complain about since New York just got another snowstorm. I thought maybe if I went up to Napa the weather would be better, but it was the same, rainy and gray with flooded vineyards. They get most of their rain in winter (and early spring apparently), and then the rest of the year will be sunny. Part of my quest for what's next involves sampling the region's wines. After all, how can I determine which winery I would want to work for if I haven't sampled their wines?

First I went to Darioush, which looks like a Persian palace. Impeccable customer service awaits as you view their stainless steel tanks overlaying a blue tile floor and press pad overlooking their estate vineyards. Despite the lavish decoration, you can still see a working winery. Here I learned that a lot of wineries in Napa harvest at night, when the grapes have cooled off from the intense sun. Darioush then sorts the grapes first thing in the morning, first the clusters as they go into the crusher/de-stemmer and then the individual berries as they come out. Their 2009 Viognier was floral and pretty, with good acidity. I was surprised by the alcohol - 14.8% - because I didn't really notice it. I really enjoyed their 2008 Russian River Pinot Noir, which had some great spice overlaying the cherry and tobacco notes. It had good body and structure but a comfortable lightness. The 2007 Merlot was very bright, with raspberry and baking spice flavors. The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon was the best of the tasting - remember that I normally don't like young Cabs, but I loved this one! It was so smooth, with delicious blueberry, currant, chocolate and spice, balanced by great acidity. This is their best seller and their largest production at the winery with 7,000-10,000 cases made per year. It goes for $80 a bottle!

At Signorello, their wines are nicely balanced and elegant. They spend a lot of time in the vineyard, keeping yields low, allowing a small amount of fruit to battle for nutrients. They have 42 acres and produce only 5500 cases. I'd probably want to cellar most of the reds for a few years. The 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon was my favorite, smooth with chewy cocoa and spice and nice acidity and tannin.

My last stop was Far Niente, where I toured the property, which includes an acre of underground caves where they store their wine in barrels. It is the perfect temperature and humidity for wine storage and aging. They only make two wines, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. We had 2 Cabs, one from 2000 and one from 2008. I liked the older one better, but the 2008 had some great fruit and spice, with good grip from the tannin; I could see how it would age well. They also have another label called Dolce, which is a sweet Sauternes-like dessert wine made from Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. This was a beautiful wine. They did a great wine and cheese pairing, which was a really nice way to finish the rainy day.

Chardonnay is Queen and Cabernet Sauvignon is King out here, so my education of these two wines continues...

Princess of Pinot - sparkling and still

Last weekend I visited the Carneros wine region of California, a wine region just north of San Francisco that covers the southern portions of both Sonoma and Napa. Carneros was designated an AVA (American Viticultural Area) because of its soil and climate. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir thrive there, so sparkling wine is a large focus of many wineries in the area.

We visited Acacia Vineyard first, where we tasted a bunch of their single-vineyard Pinot Noir. I liked their 2006 Beckstoffer-Las Amigas Vineyard bottling best, better than the current release of 2007. The Beckstoffer vineyard was very old and they actually pulled the vines out in 2008 because it was yielding so little fruit.

At Gloria Ferrer, a sparkling wine producer owned by Spanish sparkling wine producer Freixenet (you know that $10 Cava in the black bottle?), we had a tour of their facility and tasted some bubblies. My favorite was the 2002 Royal Cuvee, a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that aged for 5 years on the lees. This amount of aging resulted in really toasty flavors that I liked.

Domaine Carneros, owned by Taittinger, is a beautiful property that I first visited in 2004. They produce sparkling wine and Pinot Noir. First we had a tour and tasted some of their sparkling wines. The best bubbly of the bunch was their 2005 Le Rêve Blanc de Blancs, their premium bottling. We tasted a few of their current release Pinot Noir bottlings before meeting their Pinot Noir winemaker, TJ Evans, who then gave us the behind-the-scenes tour. We had some pre-sparkling tank samples and then 5 barrel samples of Pinot Noir - all different clones. In California they are very focused on clones and how they differ in terms of flavor and structure. Different lots are often blended with the proportions of the different clones in mind. At Wiemer, we grow Pinot Noir clones 115 and 777. I tried those at Domaine Carneros plus 3 others. It was interesting to taste the differences between the clones and also to compare their same clones to ours at Wiemer.

One of the cool things about visiting both these sparkling wine producers was seeing the machinery they use for riddling and disgorging. This is a gyropallete, which riddles 500 bottles at once in about 3 days. Remember how we were hand-riddling at Wiemer for 3 weeks?

North of Carneros, outside the city of Sonoma, we visited Buena Vista Winery and tasted some bigger reds - a highlight of the trip. Their 2006 Ramal Vineyard Pinot Noir Swan Selection was the best from the weekend. I also liked their Merlot, Syrah, and a couple of wines from the 2005 Atlas Peak collection - Cabernet Sauvignon and Claret (a Bordeaux blend). But I have to say that I only liked the Cab after our server sent it through the Vinturi aerator 3 times, which is supposed to be equivalent to a year of aging in the cellar or an hour in a decanter with each pass - this was after I told him I only like Cabs when they are old.  It is interesting that every winery sells the Vinturi. I wonder if it is because many of the wines in California are very fruit-forward and in-your-face, but some people like their wines a bit more demure, with a little more age on them.

I didn't know this at the time, but Buena Vista Winery got all of their plants from the Hermann J. Wiemer nursery. Everything comes full circle!

Blend, baby, Blend

This week we released a new wine: Field Cuvee 2007. This is a red blend that until now used to be called Estate Red.  Field Cuvee 2007 is dominated by Cabernet Franc and Merlot, followed by Lemberger, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Pinot Noir. Hermann originally planted some of these varieties for the nursery business to provide bud material for grafting. We vinify Cab Franc and Pinot Noir as single varietals. Depending on the vintage we'll also do a Merlot. But we'll always have a blend with these 5 grapes, and from now on it will be known as Field Cuvee. It's a medium-bodied red with a lot of bright fruit that is easy to drink and will go well with many foods from BBQ to pizza.

The Cuvee line of wines is our blended line, with a different label to distinguish it from the rest of our wines - which are single varietals that are named on the label. It was first unveiled last summer with Frost Cuvee 2008, a white blend of Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and Chardonnay.

Blends are nice because they can bring out the best of each variety. If you can't decide on one grape, blend, baby, blend!

Unrelated: Apparently John Travolta has bought a house on Keuka Lake, which is west of Seneca. I've called dibs on his tasting if he comes to the winery!

Argentina, Chile, Uruguay: My Wine Awards

I drank a lot of wine in South America! So I thought I'd wrap up the trip with a recap of my favorites. It can be tough for me to choose favorites since I believe wine-drinking is very circumstantial, but I tried my hardest to find my top picks. I've paid homage to the signature grapes of each country plus my other favorites in the major color categories. And I've rated my best food pairings and wine experiences in each country.

ARGENTINA
Fave Malbec: Colome Malbec Estate 2007
Fave Torrontes: Miraflor 2009
Fave other Red: Los Vencejos Aleteo 2006 (Tempranillo)
Fave Rose: Melipal Malbec Rose 2009
Fave Dessert wine: San Pedro de Yacochuya Late Harvest Torrontes 2007
Fave wine/food pairing: O. Fournier Urban Uco Sauvignon Blanc 2009 with steak tartar
Fave overall wine experience: Barrel sampling at Los Vencejos

CHILE
Fave Carmenere: J. Bouchon Carmenere Reserva Especial 2007
Fave other Red: Casa Marin Pinot Noir Lo Abarca Vineyard 2006
Fave Rose: J. Bouchon Cabernet Sauvignon Rose 2009
Fave White: Casa Marin Gewurztraminer 2009
Fave Dessert wine: Errazuriz Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc 2007
Fave wine/food pairing: Errazuriz Merlot 2007 with pastel de choclo
Fave overall wine experience: J. Bouchon Winery and Mingre Lodge excursion

URUGUAY
Fave Tannat: Bouza Tannat A6 2007
Fave other Red: Alto de la Ballena Merlot-CabFranc-Tannat 2006
Fave Rose: Alto de la Ballena CabFranc-Tannat Rose 2008
Fave White: Stagnari Chardonnay 2009
Fave wine/food pairing: Bouza Chardonnay 2008 with creamy spinach ravioli

Fave overall wine experience: Wine tasting and barrel sampling at Alto de la Ballena

Thanks for following my journey! If anyone ever tries any of the wines I tried please feel free to leave a comment with your impressions.

Oh, Fournier

Back in the province of Mendoza we visited the impressive property of Spanish implant O. Fournier, just down the road from Los Vencejos in La Consulta, Uco Valley. The ultra modern facility has 3 levels and is gravity-driven. The grapes are received on the 2nd level and sorted into large tanks that live on the 1st level. The 3rd level has the lab and tasting room, which is equipped with a dentist-style sink around the table for cleaner tastings. The huge cellar doubles as an art gallery, which seems to be a trend down here. There is also, of course, a restaurant. We had our best wine lunch yet at O. Fournier.

First course was some amazing steak tartar, the best I've ever had. The steak was chopped really small with scallions mixed in. This went really well with the Urban Uco Sauvignon Blanc 2009, which had smooth flavors of pineapple and lemon. Next was a delicious corn soup that complemented the Urban Uco Torrontes 2009, which had classic aromas/flavors of orange blossom and musk.

For our main courses Peter got veal ragout with potatoes and truffle oil and I had ginger lemon risotto. The veal was great with O. Fournier's Alpha Crux 2002, a blend of 60%Tempranillo, 35%Malbec and 5%Merlot, which was a heavy, oaky wine with dark fruit, vanilla, and meaty flavors. It got 93 points from Wine Spectator and sells for US$110 a bottle. It was a good wine, no doubt, but heavy.

The risotto was resilient, matching well with the Urban Uco line of wines: the aforementioned Sauvignon Blanc and Torrontes, as well as the Tempranillo 2007, which had really nice red berry fruit. It also went well with the B Crux 2003, a blend of 60%Tempranillo, 20%Malbec, 10%Merlot and 10%Syrah, which was unfiltered and had luscious flavors of red fruit, spice, and dark chocolate. It got 91 points from Wine Spectator and sells for US$55 a bottle. The B Crux was my favorite wine of the tasting.

For dessert, there were 2. First was a melon sorbet that made me wonder why I don't like honeydew more. It was so ripe and refreshing. Second was a somewhat bizarre coffee/chocolate ravioli with ice cream and orange jam. It went great with the Torrontes and the Alpha Crux, but the best part was the translation. In Spanish they called it "Pasta de cafe rellena de chocolate con helado de reduccion de leche y coulis de naranja," which in English was described as "Raviolis of coffee released of chocolate cream and milk reduction ice cream and orange coulis." We are still laughing about this! Released of chocolate...

A delicious, memorable lunch. We enjoyed all the wines and dishes. Felicitaciones, O. Fournier!

Jugo de Torrontes

In Chilecito, after that goat dinner and a recoop in the Automobile Club de Argentina (a hotel that I am convinced used to be either a school or a hospital), we visited the Riojana wine cooperative in town. During our tour we witnessed the massive dumping of Merlot grapes directly from a large truck into a large de-stemmer, as 2 guys stood in the truck with the grapes, pushing them into the machine with large pitchforks. It was quite a sight, and it may make you think twice about buying wine that comes in a jug or box...

There we tasted some interesting bubbly made from Torrontes - one dry, simple style and one more sweet one that better expressed the grape. But what we enjoyed most was a fresh, pure juice made from the Torrontes grape. Like peaches and honey with a flowery aroma, it tasted just like some Torrontes grapes we had sampled at a vineyard in Mendoza. Peter got 3 cartons of the juice and bought me this hat, which came in handy during the roadtrips that followed in the blazing sun of 40+ degree-celsius temperatures (that's over 100 degrees fahrenheit, every day!).

Wine in BsAs

We drank some great wine in Buenos Aires last week. Most notable was the 1998 Montchenot from Bodegas Lopez in Mendoza. It was a blend of Cab Sauv, Merlot and Malbec. The alcohol was only 12.5%, which is low for this area (and nice to see). This wine was beautiful and elegant. Because of the age it was well-developed and super smooth, with a pretty strawberry pie character. Peter knows this wine and he said it spends a long time in big vats and is not released for several years; it's a traditional Argentine, slightly oxidized style.

Another interesting wine was a Cab Franc from Angelica Zapata (a line from Bodega Catena Zapata). It was fresh and smooth with typical character - green pepper, red fruit - but we realized an even more perfect descriptor as we drank it: beets! As soon as I said it we knew it worked. I'm looking forward to finding this characteristic in future Cab Francs.

Finally we had the 2009 Miraflor Torrontes by Michel Rolland from the Salta region, where we will soon be going. We found it to be very elegant and showing good typicity of the grape. It was very fragrant with pronounced orange blossom. We loved it, and it made us look forward to our pending trip up there!