Recent Drinks Of Note
Based on feedback from my survey — I will write about that soon — I’ve decided to change my “Weekly Wine Wrap-up” into a more irregular “Recent Drinks Of Note” with fewer items. The items left won’t all be good: If I’ve tasted a particularly unpleasant wine, I may mention it to steer you away.
As always, samples are marked with a *
Sparkling
I didn’t write tasting notes for the most memorable wine I drank in the last couple of weeks, the Roederer Brut Rosé Sparkling Wine ($25) from Anderson Valley. It’s a good sparkler, but what made this bottle so special was the setting: the empty dining room of the new house. We finally found a moment’s pause to celebrate this big, giant step we’ve taken. (But will we merge our libraries? That remains to be seen.)
White
Melissa and I had a string of corked white wines in the last couple of weeks. It got so bad that she called me on her way home one night and asked if I had put a corked wine in the refrigerator. Thankfully, that wasn’t an issue with the 2005 Les Jardins du Bouscassé “Le Jardin Philosophique” from the little-known Pacheran du Vic-Bilh Sec region in southwestern France. Too bad the name is so long that we’ll have paid the check by the time we finish ordering it in a restaurant, because this is the kind of white I like: searing acidity with a whoosh of rain-covered pavement. The “Philosophique” part of the name will hint to some that this wine was made biodynamically, a holistic attitude about growing vines that includes not only obvious agricultural cues such as phases of the moon but also more fringe beliefs such as magic potions buried in cow horns. (And speaking of our corked wines, one of them was from Clark Smith of wine technology company Vinovation, so I asked him why he doesn’t use screw caps. He answered.)
Red
Melissa and I love Vintage Berkeley. The owner, Peter, has a great palate — which is to say it lines up with mine — and he finds interesting and inexpensive bottles. The 2004 Mount St. Helena Charbono from Napa is a good, solid, food-friendly red wine: musty berries, pepper, mouthwatering acidity, and a nice body. I haven’t tried a lot of Charbono, which is the same as the all-but-extinct Savoie grape Corbeau, but it’s enjoyed a minor vogue at California wineries. I can’t remember the price, but it must have been under $15.
* I’ve been impressed by the (oops) wines. We tried their Cabernet Sauvignon with Carmenere (many “Merlot” vines in Argentina turned out to be Carmenere — oops), and it was a nice, relatively complex wine. Good blackberry aromas with just whiffs of smoke and mint expanded into a similar range of flavors. And its $12 price tag makes it affordable even to new homeowners.
* Do you remember when the Matrix II came out, and it got panned? Melissa and I went into it with such low expectations that we ended up not minding it. That’s how I felt when I found myself drinking a second glass of the Gallo Hearty Burgundy. This wine has nothing in common with real Burgundy, but it wasn’t horrible. I won’t say it was good, but there are worse wines to drink in this world.
Beer
* And you’ll see a piece from me about this in a couple of weeks, but I’m a big fan of the Russian River Brewing beers, particularly Sanctification and Temptation. These are tart beers, which some people don’t like, but if you can handle it, seek them out.
- Go To Jojo
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I was trying to solve a puzzle in the latest issue of The Enigma, the monthly publication of The National Puzzlers’ League, and I decided the answer might be one of the Coca-Cola brands. I haven’t memorized them, of course, so I looked them...
- 2004 Parducci "true Grit" Petite Sirah, Mendocino, California
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- Barrel Alternatives In Today's Chronicle
Last week, one of my students asked me about a practice he had heard of where winemakers add chips to wine instead of putting it in barrel. I replied, “I’m pretty sure that the Chronicle will run a lead story about that topic next week.”...
- Weekly Wine Wrap-up
A smattering of wine and beer notes from the last week or so. * denotes a sample. Remember there’s still time to sign up for my 8-week UC Berkeley Extension Wine Studies class: Fundamentals I. * 2005 Riboli Family Vineyard “San Simeon”...