Category Archives: red

Wine Blogging Wednesday #70: Celebrate with Spanish Sherry, Garnacha & Cava!

For over five years, each month wine bloggers gathered around a virtual fire to discuss a wine related theme or prompt. For a number of reasons, about a year ago Wine Blogging Wednesday waned and fell by the virtual wayside.

But some of us blew on the embers (by some tweets, blog posts, and other social media means), and lo and behold,  Lenn Thompson of the New York Cork Report got the fire going once again!

This month Wine Blogging Wednesday #70 comes to you from Ryan and Gabriella Opaz of the award winning blog catavino.net. Their prompt, not surprisingly from bloggers who specialize in wines from Iberia, is to blog about a Spanish wine today, Wednesday February 16 and to let them know about it!

They suggest we

Seek out Spanish wines that you’ve never had before! Get creative! Hunt for unique styles such as a Sherry, Cava, Fondillon or Mistella; an unheard of region like Arribes, Txakoli de Alava or Extremadura; or a unique native grape like Prieto Picudo or Treixadura

On Monday February 7, I  wrote about a Spanish Amontillado sherry for the Secret Sherry Society which I paired with Belgian chocolates and which was hard enough to find!  I found it equally difficult to find any obscure Spanish varietals that would allow me to an obvious way to get creative.

For this post, trying to find some unusual angle, I considered visiting a local wine bar, The Wine Rack, which sells Spanish wines made from familiar varietals  like cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay that taste familiar to American palates and are under $20. Owner Seana even offered to open any wines I wanted for me to taste (and write about!)

Instead, I went to the Ventura Wine Company, which, while lacking much of a selection of unusual Spanish varietals, did offer a few of one of my favorites.  I settled with choosing a varietal  I love grenache, or, as it’s known in Spain, garnacha, and tried two versions of it, a Vina Borgia Campo de Borja 2009 which retails between $6-10 and a Tres Picos Borsao 2008 which can be found from $15-20. Continue reading →

Part 2: Global #Zinfandel Day–AUS Glaymond & Paso Robles Bianchi

To celebrate Global #Zinfandel Day, I decided to open something special, something unusual–something from Australia to toast the 47th birthday of my Australian friend and fellow blogger Paul Squires who had a heart attack and died July 28, two days before my mother died of heart failure.

Paul was one of my strongest supporters as a blogger, as a writer, and as a poet. He was my online buddy with whom I could plot and scheme and strategize. We shared links and ideas and gave each other feedback on many elements of social media and writing.

So when I realized that Global #Zinfandel was his birthday, I knew I’d be drinking one of the two Australian zinfandels in the cellar my grandfather built, wines that Grateful Palate founder Dan Phillips selected for me at one of his warehouse sales.

It was a toss-up between Continue reading →

Part 1: Global #Zinfandel Day = Zin-tastic!

So how did I spend the 24 hours of Global #Zinfandel Day?

Reveling in Zin of course! I tasted 4 zins: The Big Green Box Old Vine Zin, Four Vines Old Vine Cuvee 2007, Glaymond Barossa Valley 2003, and Bianchi Zen Ranch 2007. This post discusses the first two wines, and in a second post I’ll write about Bianchi and Glaymond.

To celebrate Global #Zinfandel Day Friday Nov. 19,  I started in on zin on Thursday with a Four Vines 2007 Old Vine Cuvee which I picked up at The Ventura Wine Company for $11.

I admit, the Old Vine Zin Cuvee wasn’t the wine I wanted from Four Vines. Last year, I’d gone in to buy  another bottle of the Biker ($20 at VWC, $28 from the Winery) which Wine Spectator placed in the Top 100 of last year’s releases. The Biker was a fantastic example of zinfandel, Continue reading →

In The Big Green Box, Good Old Vine Zin!

Last weekend, for my son’s 7th birthday, we invited everyone he and we could think of to join us at Sycamore Cove State Beach campground for a camp out and birthday party.

So what wine did I bring to go along with bugs and hot dogs?

You might be surprised to discover I brought Pepperwood Grove Old Vine Zinfandel–a wine in a box.

Now before you turn up your nose, hear me out.

We do a LOT of camping. We go to Burning Man. We gather with friends for BBQs at the beach. We go off road for hours and hours on end to get to a remote campsite or hot spring. We are SERIOUS campers.

And I am serious about wine as well–even when I’m camping! After all, that’s when we really eat well and we have time to relax and enjoy ourselves, the view, the evening air…For proof, Continue reading →

Wine Blogging Wednesday #69: Did you hear me howling “mourvedre”?

This month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday, hosted by The Passionate Foodie, asks us to sniff out some “dog strangler” wine aka mourvedre.  So, for the 69th edition Wine Blogging Wednesday that’s what I did.

Actually I began my search for wines with mourvedre nearly two years ago when I first tasted a 2001 rbj theologicum which blends 50% of the mourvedre sinner with 50% of the saintly grenache.

I thought I’d died and gone to heaven and hell all at once.

Instead, I was on a search to find a wine I could barely pronounce, and which I could barely find. Fortuantely for me, the grateful Palate Warehouse used to be located only a few miles away and they would periodically  open their doors and let us in.

And that’s how I discovered a straight mourvedre–a rbj 2002 Mataro which I opened on a camping trip in the heart of the Sierras.

So when I discovered this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday featured possibly my favorite varietal, and certainly one that makes my favorite blends shine, I howled with delight.

And then howled some more–what wine to choose? Or more precisely, whose?

An obvious choice would be Twisted Oak. Their mourvedre with the macabre red skull emblazened across the bottle is stunningly good. And they do my favorite blend mourvedre, grenache and syrah aka “Potty Mouth” that I love–especially the 2003 which is still available in their library.

Another obvious choice is Randall Grahm’s Bonny Doon. It seems he recovered rhone varietals like grenache and mourvedre from obscurity in California. And his Cigar Volant is always noteworthy.

So after much agonizing and howling at the crescent moon, I went for a winery I discovered in December and which maybe I can help you discover too (although they have thousands of facebook fans so obviously some people know them already!)

The wine with more than 50% mourvedre that I chose for this edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday comes from Core Winery, run by Dave and Becky Corey, with financial backing and support from many family members.

And it’s Hard Core. Seriously Hard Core. A 2005 Hard Core made up of 60% mourvedre, 25% grenache, and 15% cabernet sauvignon.

Only 665 cases of this wine was produced, and it’s all gone except for what might be in people’s cellars–and a handful of splits which I found at the winery when we went by the other day.

We went to the Core winery as part of a wedding anniversary extravaganza (ok we went to Sycamore Hot Springs, Go Westy, Los Olivos for lunch and tasting at Carhartts and Carina) that started with dinner on our anniversary where I brought in a bottle of the 2006 Hard Core. While I prefer my syrah with mourvedre and grenache, my husband definitely prefers his syrah with a backbone of cab to it. Continue reading →

A quick dinner and an easy going red wine blend from Washington’s Two Hands

I just was NOT feeling inspired to fix dinner.  What to have? What’s easy? I just didn’t want to think about it.

Because lately I’ve been focused on tasting and writing about Washington varietals, I decided choose an inexpensive red blend from Washington that I found at the Ventura Wine Company for $6 and let the wine do the talking and tell me what to fix for our dinner.

The wine is a Vineyard 10 Red Wine from Columbia Crest and designated “Two Hands.” It has a traditional Bordeaux shaped bottle but I didn’t want to be influenced by what the bottle told me–I wanted the wine to suggest what I should have for dinner.

And the wine spoke loud and clear: it said “spaghetti and meatballs! pasta and red sauce!” It said “order a pizza! take it easy!” and I said “oh, yes, right away!” Continue reading →

Wine Blogging Weds #67: Some Red Wines for the White Wine Lover

For the March rendition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, host Joe Roberts, @1WineDude, prompts us to find a red wine for the white wine drinker. Immediately, my mind went to an Australian sparkling shiraz, like Paringa: fun, bubbly, inexpensive, yet tasty. But no, Joe says which STILL red wine would you choose.

Since I am competing in the WBC-or-Bust campaign to get one of 12 spots on the bus to travel around Washington wine regions before and after this year’s Wine Bloggers conference in Walla Walla, a Washington red seemed an obvious choice. And since the following day is a Washington merlot Twitter tasting, the varietal and the region seemed clear-cut–I could get more bang from my buck!

Since there isn’t a lot to choose from around here, I asked the Wine Guy at Trader Joes, (who also blogs) which wine he would recommend. He suggested the 2007 Red Diamond which he felt was an excellent choice of a red wine for a white wine drinker. Bonus, it’s a Washington merlot AND a great value he said.

So I knew a Red Diamond merlot would be one wine I’d be tasting. But what else, I wondered.

Which got me wondering about the prompt itself: who is this mythical white wine drinker? What white wines do they like? Why don’t they drink red wines?

In real life, given this challenge, I would base my recommendation on what I knew or learned about the person. Then, I would base my decision on what was the occasion and what food was being served.

What food screams red wine to me? What food really elevates the experience of the wine–and vice versa? Which food demands red wine? STEAK!

I immediately imagined the scenario of the red wine drinker and the white wine drinker at a steak house trying to agree on a bottle of wine and settling on wines by the glass. If that mythical white wine drinker sticks to his or her white wine allegiance, he or she is missing out.

What else to try for this challenge was determined by the generosity of Shane Gelinas of the Gelinas Wine Group. Yesterday I had the good fortune of attending an industry tasting of Gelinas wines as well as wines from the Truman Wine Company. When the tasting was over, I asked Shane if I could take some wine home with me–especially wines that I didn’t get a chance to taste (because I spend too much time talking with winemakers!!). He told me to take what interested me that was open so I picked up two reds (a Folkway Cab which I hadn’t had a chance to taste and was VERY anxious to, a 2006 Latria Spanish grenache carinene blend, a 2007 Groundwork grenache I adored, and I was offered two whites which I had tasted and liked a lot.

Now that I had for wines for WBW#67,  the question was: what should I pair them with for dinner?

No surprise here: I picked up a ribeye steak for myself, and a chicken breast for my spouse which we prepared with pesto and oyster mushrooms, plus mushroom risotto and green salad on the side. (He’s recovering from a traumatic bicycle accident where he broke his C2; only yesterday was he permitted by his doctor to take his neck brace off. His “chew” muscles are still getting strong enough for a steak, even a tender rib-eye!).

First off,  we (my friend Dave, my husband and myself) tasted the 2007 Red Diamond Merlot, under $10 out the door from Trader Joe’s. We didn’t like the nose when I first opened the bottle–a little strange and funky with an alcoholic chaser. In the glass, the color was nice with some depth. There was a surprising richness to the wine, almost syrah like, with plum and cherry, but no cola. It had a bright, clean finish, and for how much fruit character it showed, it was also nicely balanced.

This Red Diamond merlot wine would be a great choice for a white wine drinker. And if he or she didn’t like it, you’re not out a lot of money. We were very happy with this wine at this price.

Second up, we dove into a 2006 Latria Montsant red blend of 50% Garnacha and 50% Carinena. According to the bottle, Montsant is a region of northeast Spain in the province of Catalonia and these grapes are from a high elevation vineyard, about 1500′.

We really really liked this wine but agreed it would not be a go to wine for the typical American white wine drinker.

It was really pretty in the glass, and an overhwlming nose that made me want to swoon! David described it as “truffley.” The balance between fruit and spice and acids and tannins makes this a great wine for tapas or a meal of just about anything. However, we suspected that the minerality and tannins would put off most white wine drinkers–unless they like super minerally whites! This would be a good choice for a white wine drinker who prefers wines in a more European style while others would turn up their noses. We were surprised and impressed by its nice long finish. Great wine for only $12 at B & L; usually it’s around $15 which is still a marvelous value.

Third in line, we poured the Groundwork 2007 Grenache from Sans Liege. Jane and I loved this wine at Tuesday’s tasting and I loved it again today. It was excellent with my steak as well as my husband’s pesto mushroom chicken. It was beautiful all around–in the nose, the mouth, the soul. We all three loved this wine. The alcohol is a stunning 15.3%  but because it was so well balanced (and not at 70 degree room temp but about 60) it didn’t taste hot. It was very complex with floral, fruit and earth flavors including cherry, truffle, and caramel as well as spice; somewhat like a carnation.

It danced on our tongues–our enthusiasm alone would convince a white wine drinker to give it a whirl across the dance floor of a palate.

I assume this is not a cheap date but wow, is it great! This wine would make a grenache believer out of just about anyone.

DING DING DING! I just heard from Curt, winemaker at Groundwork that this wine retails for only $19! This is a screaming deal! FInd some, buy some, serve it to a white wine drinker and tell me how it goes! (Or just enjoy it yourself!)

Fourth and finally, we experienced Folkway’s Black Ridge Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. This is an absolutely beautiful wine in every way imaginable.

How could a white wine drinker not fall in love this wine–and with the person who shares it? As David put it, “You don’t need a Ph.D to figure out and enjoy this rom-com of a cabernet.”

Not to say that this wouldn’t satisfy a more sophisticated red wine drinker because it certainly would! With plenty of blackberry and cherry fruit lively acids bringing it into balance, and a long savory finish, this cabernet is a steal at $36. It was supple, satisfying, pleasing–euphoria in a glass, and a knockout with my steak.

At the tasting, I talked at length with one of the brothers, Lino Bozzano, who is producing this wine and I look forward to visiting their winery and writing more about them! BUt for now, this post is clocking in at over 1200 words so that, my friends, brings this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday to a triumphant close: three winners for the white one drinker, and four winners for red wine drinkers!