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!

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

I keep going back to this wine. At the Wine & Spirits Top 100 Tasting, I did a trade with the reps at Loimer next to the Wiemer booth and got this bottle of Gruner Veltliner. I opened it before Thanksgiving to have with a roast chicken dinner, and it was a very nice wine, the best GruVe I've had. GruVe is usually an herbaceous, citrusy, crisp wine, but the nose and flavors can be muted sometimes. The Loimer is concentrated and has a nice tropical nose with citrus and herbs to boot. Since this wine is in a screwcap bottle, it can keep for a while. I've had a glass here and there for the last 2 weeks and it's good every time, very versatile with a lot of different dishes. I finished off the bottle the other night with some dungeness crabs that I had gotten at the grocery store for dinner (now in season, $6.99/lb!) and it was a perfect pairing!

Giving thanks to Leonetti

This Thanksgiving I got to try 2 bottles of 1996 Leonetti Cellars Walla Walla Cabernet Sauvignon. The corks were difficult to extract, so both bottles were decanted. The first was actually decanted with a significant amount of cork pieces, so we then filtered it through coffee filters (yes, it's the one in the coffee pot). The second bottle was a little easier to open so we decanted it without any floaters. I was so curious to try both wines and see if there was a difference, and there was! The non-filtered version was much brighter and fruitier. The filtered one lacked that vibrancy. I tried the filtered one first, and don't get me wrong, it was delicious. But then when I tried the non-filtered one it tasted even better. When I was working at Wiemer, Fred the winemaker taught me that everything you do to a wine robs it of some character - every racking, every filtering. This could have been one such example of the truth in his words. (But in a finished wine like this, there is always the chance of bottle variation, especially in wines that have aged.)

I like how Leonetti's labels say "Appellation American." Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomato Ridge

Recently I had an unfortunate wine experience. I went to a tasting with a few California wine lovers who know wine and spend a lot of money on wine. Gordon Getty was there - former owner of the Getty gas stations before he sold them to Texaco in the 80s. He now has his hands in a few wine labels, restaurants, resorts and the like. I was late to the tasting so by the time I got there everyone was pretty tipsy, but I served my wine (blind of course) and it tasted like tomatoes. Tomato sauce, really. Wine tasting of tomato sauce may indicate a wine fault known as reduction, which means there is the presence of volatile sulfur compounds. Specifically, dimethyl sulfide may be the culprit behind tomato aromas. These volatile sulfur compounds can manifest in the fermentation process, from the yeasts being stressed or from lack of nitrogen or oxygen. At low thresholds these compounds can be desirable, resulting in aromas of fruit, flowers or minerality, contributing to the varietal character of certain wines, like Sauvignon Blanc, but of course, sometimes they can be off-putting.

This tomato wine was Ridge Paso Robles 2002, a zinfandel-based blend. Lucky for me, I had planned a trip to Ridge Lytton Springs in the Russian River Valley the next day, so I brought the bottle and they gave me a replacement from the current vintage, 2009, no questions asked. I'm going to age it a bit before drinking it, maybe for 7 years so I can do a more accurate comparison.

At Ma Peche, the Mother of all Pairings

On a recent business trip to NYC (I now visit NYC and stay in hotels, very different from being a resident there) I had dinner at Ma Peche, part of the Momofuku restaurant empire. Intending to just have 1 glass of wine, we ended up doing a light 3-course meal with a different wine for each course. My choices were semi random, not being at all familiar with the restaurant and cuisine, but they all ended up working out perfectly. It was really fun to try a new place and sample the wine list this way. Here are the pairings we did:

First Course
Summer rolls - pork/shrimp/tofu, lettuce, daikon, peanut
Scallop - coffee, brown butter, lime
Wine: Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon blend, Jean Medeville et fils, Bordeaux, France

Second Course
Beef tartare - soy, scallion, mint
Lamb corn dog - mustard, lamb's lettuce, pickle
Wine: Syrah, Chateau Maris 'Natural Selection,' Minervois La Liviniere, Languedoc, France

Third Course
Cheese plate of Moses Sleeper (Jasper Hill, VT), Prairie Breeze (Milton Creamery, IA), Caveman Blue (Rogue Creamery, OR)
Wines*: Touriga National Blend Ruby Port, Quinta de Honor, Portugal
Tinta Negra Mole, Henriques & Henriques, 'Rainwater,' Madeira, Portugal
*Between these two, the pairings differed depending on the cheese, but overall we enjoyed the Madeira more.

I think only wine geeks really care about food and wine pairing, but I find it pretty exciting to find that perfect combination without trying too hard. Case in point, I guess :)

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

The Stars of Champagne @ SFWC

The stars aligned last night @ San Francisco Wine Center as we gathered with Mary Burnham, freelance food and wine writer and author of Food & Wine Magazine’s 2012 Guide to Wine. Mary taught us about the prized region of Champagne, France, and why the soil, grapes, and climate are so important in making Champagne. We learned about how Champagne is made, why the second fermentation is so important, and what effect the dead yeast cells, or lees, have on the taste of Champagne. During the tasting, we enjoyed a broad range of large house Champagnes and special grower Champagnes. Most of the large houses in Champagne buy grapes from different sources in the area and then blend for a consistent style every year. Grower Champagnes are made from producers who grow their own grapes and might sell some to the large houses and use some for their own production. These wines were really special, and everyone enjoyed the lineup. It was amazing to taste the different styles, compare vintage and non-vintage, and experience different vintages. Hats off to Brian for creating an exceptional tasting!

The wines:

1.            Pierre Peters Brut Cuvee Reserve Grand Cru 

2.            Laurent Perrier Brut 1996

3.            Hubert Paulet Brut Premier Cru 1999

4.            Chartogne-Taillet Brut VV 2002 

5.            Gaston Chiquet Brut Cart d’Or 2002 

6.            Vilmart Cuvee Grand Cellier d’Or 2005 

7.            Ayala Rose Majeur

8.            Krug Brut Rose 

The Krug Brut Rose was a very special bottle, and I am a sucker for pink bubbly so I loved it. My favorite though was the Chartogne-Taillet, which was toasty and creamy with great complexity and bright acidity. 

Thanks to Mary for a fantastic education in all things bubbly!

Gewurz and Go-Wiemer

A couple of weeks ago we went back up to the Finger Lakes to visit our friends at Wiemer Vineyard. As guests, we were given the royal treatment and put up on the 3rd floor of the winery barn, which doubles as Maressa's jewelry studio and a guest room. It was amazing to sleep in the winery, enveloped in that combination of smells that I love so much - wine, fermentation, wood. It was also really strange to wake up to Fred giving instructions to the German interns for the day's events. I felt like I was late for work and should be down there getting my assignment. Same time as last year, they are in the middle of bottling. It has been an amazing year so far at Wiemer, and many of the 2009 wines are already sold out. As happy I am for their success and for all those who are drinking those wines, this made me sad to hear since I was so involved in that vintage and it is almost gone now. But the 2010's hold a lot of promise too, and I got to try the Gewurztraminer, which was just released. The Gewurz was the hardest sort of the 2010 vintage because of the pesky grape berry moth that invaded the vineyards and pecked away at the grapes. We spent hours upon hours sorting these pink grapes, making sure none of the bad ones made it into the press.

The result: 2010 Gewurz is beautifully scented, concentrated and full on the palate, and downright delicious. Our hard work paid off!

We took a stroll through the vineyards and saw all the work that had been done over the spring. The tree lines were moved back to help control pests entering the vineyard, and unused land is being prepared for new plantings.

On the Magdalena Vineyard, the warmest Wiemer site, veraison has begun. This is when the color of the grapes starts to change from green to red or green to golden (for whites). It's an exciting time because it means the grapes are heading toward maturity and will soon be harvested. The bunches look really cool at this stage - this is Pinot Noir:

It is hard to believe harvest is coming and I won't be at Wiemer. But I know the able team is prepared for all the fruits of their labor. Thanks again to Team Wiemer for a great visit. Happy Harvest!

Passion Unleashed @ SFWC

Passion was unleashed yesterday at SFWC, with Jordan Mackay, James Beard-award winning author, leading our Passion for Pinot tasting class. Jordan explained the beauty and challenges of Pinot Noir as a grape and a wine, from its thin skin and light tannin to its complex flavors of berries, cherries, earth and spice. We learned about the differences Pinot can show when made in different parts of the world and why Burgundy is so coveted. Because of the long winemaking tradition in France, Burgundy is the standard for Pinot Noir. The notion of terroir is very important in Burgundy, where small vineyard plots have cult status. In a region where the only red grape allowed is Pinot Noir, the wines are distinguished by the area in which they were grown, sometimes down to a row in a vineyard, based on the soil and growing conditions of each place. Burgundy is a cold region, so getting grapes ripe can be challenging and yields can sometimes suffer, making Burgundy expensive and sometimes difficult to procure.  Stylistically, a Pinot Noir from South Africa can taste similar to a Pinot Noir from Burgundy, because of the characteristics of the grape, but the differences will be profound based on the soil and other environmental factors. It was a fascinating tour of Pinot Noir from around the world. Unfortunately one of the wines was corked, a Grand Cru Burgundy from 1999, but this ended up being a helpful exercise since many students had not smelled a corked wine before. We replaced the bottle with another, which ended up being the favorite of the tasting. It was a Premier Cru Burgundy from 1990 at its peak, meaning it was a pleasure to drink but it probably wouldn’t get any better with additional aging.

The wines:

1.  Paul Cluver Elgin Estate Pinot Noir 2008 – South Africa

2.  Matua Central Otago Estate Pinot Noir 2008 – New Zealand

3.  Domaine Jean & Giles Lafourge Auxey-Duresses La Chapelle 1er Cru 2005

4.  Domaine Taupenot-Merme Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru 1999 (corked and replaced with Domaine Jacques Prieur Volnay-Santenots 1er Cru 1990)

5.  Penner-Ash Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2009 – Oregon

6.  Sokol Blosser Big Tree Block Dundee Hills Pinot Noir 2008 – Oregon

7.  Walter Hansel South Slope Vineyard Russian River Valley Pinot Noir 2003

8.  Au Bon Climat Knox Alexander Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir 2008

Thanks to Jordan for a wonderful tour of Pinot Noir!