House Red Hunt: Summer 2006
Melissa and I recently went on a hunt for a "house red," an inexpensive red wine that pairs well with a wide range of foods. A wine we can afford to buy in "bulk" and open for the most casual of dinners. (As a couple who amass German and Austrian wines, we don't need a house white).
Our audition process was straightforward: Go to a wine store where the staff knows their stuff, give them a price range and general parameters (fruit with nice earthiness, good acidity, medium tannins), let them choose a few different wines, and then taste them over the next few weeks. Pick a favorite and buy a number of bottles.
We have a handful of great wine stores here in the East Bay, but we used Vintage Berkeley for our house red quest. Owner Peter Eastlake seeks out low-priced wines (when I first discovered the North Berkeley store, he tried to keep every bottle under $20, but now the upper limit is $25), and his palate, like mine, tends towards the complex and interesting. We told him what we wanted, suggested a $10-$15 range, and within minutes had a basket weighed down with five or six reds.
Here are tasting notes for three of the wines (I don't know where the others are). Our favorite was the Nero d'Avola, but the new vintage had come in since our visit. Peter says it's still very good (maybe better), but he didn't want us to buy six bottles of something we hadn't tasted yet. Instead, we bought three bottles of the Nero d'Avola and three more house red candidates, just in case.
Tasting Notes
2003 Château Haut-Roudier, Bordeaux, France - A nice Bordeaux, sporting barnyard notes that mingle with aromas of green pepper, caramel, and cherry. Lots of interesting flavors on top of a good acidity and modest tannins, but the aromatic wine failed us on the short finish. It didn't stand up to the lamb shoulder I made, though in truth few wines would.
2004 Peggio Bidii Rosso, Sicilia, Italy - Our eventual winner. This bottle of Nero d'Avola had bright red fruit aromas and plummy, cherry flavors with a long vanilla-scented finish. Modest tannins contributed to the medium body, and a middling acidity kept the fruit flavors fresh but didn't quite lift the wine out of a certain flabbiness.
2004 Lavradores de Feitoria, Vinho Tinto, Douro, Portugal - Hot aromas didn't quite obscure the spicy aroma, and the robust cherry flavors didn't obscure the subtle chocolate note. The wine had a good acidity, but the potent heat on the nose disqualified this bottle.
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