WBW #73 “Spark” Round Up; WBW #74 “Sparkling” Announced

In response to Cork Dork’s prompt to write about a wine that connects to what sparked your interest in wine blogging, ten bloggers let him know in time to join in his round-up and a few more bloggers chimed in with posts after–better late than never!

Here’s the Wine Blogging Wednesday #73 “Spark” round up.

Here’s my response to the “Spark” prompt–I mentioned Ridge Zinfandel, Grateful Palate Shiraz, and Enoforum wines from Portugal with a review of Twisted Oaks Tempranillo,

Next up, keeping with the idea of “spark” write about value “sparkling” wine. Hosted by Wine Cast aka Tim Elliot, Wine Blogging Wednesday #74 participants will join the 2011 sparkling wine trend; in 2011 Americans consumed 20% more Champagne; like the recent popular Proseco, Moscato went from an unknown sparkler to one that has been produced and appreciated more (even in a Barefoot Bubbly version!).

In the past five years, I have discovered the pleasures of various sparkling wines with food, not just as a special occasion beverage or for a toast. And so it is with great pleasure that I look forward to participating in February’s Wine Blogging Wednesday. I’ve got a rose cremant in mind to pair with ham as well as trying that Barefoot Moscato, Chateau Ste Michelle’s 2005 Luxxe, and ?? with oysters and ?? After all, this is still my birthday month and I’ve got more celebrating to do!

If you too would like to join in, you are welcome! The prompt for Wine Blogging Wednesday #74 includes these instructions:

Just pick a sparkling wine from any appellation, made from any grape but make sure it sells for $25 or less a bottle (€20, £16). This should open up a lot of interesting selections, from Crémant de Bourgogne, to Cava, to California & New Mexico sparkling, sparkling Shiraz, to even well chosen grower Champagne. Just post your notes by February 15th and ping me @winecast on Twitter or email me with your link at winecast (at) gmail (dot) com.

Oh, and I’ve having a birthday subscription drive until the end of the month! Please subscribe in the box in the upper right hand corner! It’s easy to get Wine Predator in your inbox and join in the Wine Predator fun! I’ve got big plans for 2012 and I hope you will be along for the adventure!

Wine Blogging Weds #73: The Spark

Today, Wednesday, January 18 is the first installment in many, many months for Wine Blogging Wednesday, an online event started six years ago where wine bloggers virtually gather around a theme.  This time around the theme is “Spark”  which attempts to spark new interest and hopefully light a fire again for this formerly monthly wine blogging event that has fizzled and faltered over the past two years. The “Spark” theme urges wine bloggers to return to that which sparked their interest in wine blogging in the first place.

Host Corkdork  writes, “I know you’ve grown and your wine knowledge has expanded, but it’s time to revisit the kind of wines that sparked your desire to blog, retaste, and share. January’s challenge, “Spark”, is to re-visit the wine that first turned you on to the infinite wonder of the world of wine.”

If you want to participate, quick, post your “spark” story right away and let Corkdork know you’re got a spark to contribute to the fire.

When I think  about what sparked my interest in wine blogging, I come up with three stories and three wines.

First, I think of Ridge Zinfandel because in the early 80s, I worked at Ridge pouring wine during Saturday tastings up on Montebello Road. Hard to say which was a favorite–I loved them all and marveled at how different each one was. To this day, zin is possibly my favorite varietal; it goes so well with everything from turkey to ham to BBQ to grilled meats.

But that didn’t get me blogging.

Second, I think of all the wonderful Australian rhone blends Dan Phillips tasted and promoted through the Grateful Palate. It’s unfortunate that AUS shiraz has such a bad name these days due to unbalanced fruit bombs. The ones I bought with Dan’s personal guidance at my first warehouse sale as well as wines I selected with the help of his other employees were exceptional.

And it was Grateful Palate wines that got me blogging and led me to being a wine blogger.

More importantly to me as a wine blogger, because I was writing about Grateful Palate wines already and wanted to do more about them, I was recruited to work as a writer for them and given a case of wine to drink and write about. My first heady experience with samples! My June 2008 post about Chris Ringland’s 2006 Ebenezer Road Shiraz was one of my most popular and most read posts for years. Unfortunately, when the economy tanked, so did the job. But I was introduced to and encouraged to learn about wine blogging, which changed my world radically.

As a newly minted and unemployed wine blogger, I went to the first North American Wine Bloggers Conference in November 2008. There I discovered a whole world of wine blogging–and wine.

Which leads me to my next winery: Twisted Oak.

I met Jeff Stai at the first Wine Bloggers Conference and he generously opened up “The Spaniard” a Rioja style mostly tempranillo blend and his “River of Skulls” mourvedre. By that point in the conference, I had tasted a lot of wine but both of these stood out enough that I went to Calaveras County a year or so later to taste his wines–and I joined his wine club.

That’s how I ended up with the wine I opened tonight for this retrospective–a 2005 Twisted Oak Tempranillo from Calaveras County which I paired with a lamb chop stuffed with basil pesto, a baked potato, and cabbage. While the Spaniard will always be one of my favorite Twisted Oak wines, the Tempranillo is quite tasty and half the price ($24 instead of $49). The color is surprisingly deep, dark and dense for a medium bodied wine–it’s more black cherry than the deep purple of a petite sirah or a petite verdot. In the nose, at first it was quite closed but over the course of the meal and the evening, I found cigar box and spice, barn and leather, a little menthol, lavender, and vanilla. A very masculine wine, it’s rich and round, salt cured herbs of provence black olive briney and dark stone fruit of cherries and plums; plenty of acid and oak which was perfect to cut through and compliment the lamb chop.

Finally, I must mention the most life changing experience I have had as a wine blogger–attending the European Wine Bloggers Conference and traveling to Portugal as a guest of Enoforum Wines. If their wines were available in the US, that’s what I would have written about in this blog post. And since I’ve already written nearly 800 words for this blog post, I think I’ll leave it at that–plenty enough sparks to get me a blogging bonfire roaring!

SOPA, PIPA & Wine Blogging Weds #73 January 18: Where’s the Spark?

Tomorrow, Wednesday, January 18 is the first installment in many, many months for Wine Blogging Wednesday. An online event where wine bloggers have gathered around a theme for over six years, I always enjoy participating and while the number of bloggers may have waned, I still think Wine Blogging Wednesday offers value to bloggers and to wine consumers.

Appropriately themed “Spark,” the 73rd event attempts to spark new interest and hopefully light a fire again for this formerly monthly wine blogging event. The “Spark” theme urges wine bloggers to return to that which sparked their interest in wine blogging in the first place.

Host Corkdork  writes, “I know you’ve grown and your wine knowledge has expanded, but it’s time to revisit the kind of wines that sparked your desire to blog, retaste, and share. January’s challenge, “Spark”, is to re-visit the wine that first turned you on to the infinite wonder of the world of wine.”

Post your “spark” story on Weds. January 18; the host will follow-up with a round-up. Let Corkdork know you’re got a spark to contribute to the fire. And come back to read about mine!

Ironically, tomorrow many sites including heavy hitter Wikipedia are going “dark” to draw attention to the SOPA legislation.

According to Gizmodo,  “The momentum behind the anti-SOPA movement has been slow to build, but we’re finally at a saturation point. Wikipedia, BoingBoing, WordPress, TwitPic: they’ll all be dark on January 18th. An anti-SOPA rally has been planned for tomorrow afternoon in New York. The list of companies supporting SOPA is long but shrinking, thanks in no small part to the emails and phone calls they’ve received in the last few months.”

So what is SOPA? or PIPA? At first, it sounds like a good idea–it is supposed to protect content providers. But Gizmodo argues that “SOPA is an anti-piracy bill working its way through Congress that would grant content creators extraordinary power over the internet which would go almost comedically unchecked to the point of potentially creating an “Internet Blacklist” while exacting a huge cost from nearly every site you use daily and potentially disappearing your entire digital life while still managing to be both unnecessary and ineffective but stands a shockingly good chance of passing unless we do something about it.”

So call. Or email.

I am planning on joining in as well and staying off the internet tomorrow. Not sure what this might mean for Wine Blogging Wednesday–or my own participation!

Let It Snow: A Report & Slideshow from the Ventura Winter Wine Walk 2011

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Last night my family– with one of my son’s friends in tow– headed to downtown Ventura to see the Christmas tree, the snow, the music, and possibly run into winemaking friends and taste a wine or two at the second Ventura Winter Wine Walk.

The snow was fun and band was great–crazy to be dancing in the street with friends and Mayor Fulton (see slideshow) and snow flying around, landing in people’s hair, hats, and tongues, melting quickly. We even had our photo taken with Santa! (Isn’t the snow on the blog fun as it floats over the slideshow??)

The Ventura Wine Walk event, sold out over 1500 $42 tickets once again, packed the streets and the stores with people. Long lines of people waiting for wine and food extended through the stores and at times out into the streets. Danny Saldana of Anacapa says last year he served three times as many tastings as he was told to prepare for; this year, he was told to serve 500 tastings and at 730, his keg with 750 tastings ran out. People were NOT happy–but what was Danny to do? I heard that food and wine ran out many places close to the center of downtown by 7:30pm while locations on the outskirts, like Tuttis, had plenty of room, wine, and food.

At Palermo, Vino V winemaker Michael Meagher was still pouring his White Hawk syrah (which retails for $32 a bottle at the winery) but that could be because he gave 1-2 ounce pours and he was pouring his own wine. Jennifer, the manager at Palermo who is also a foodie and with her husband/roaster owns Beacon Coffee, says she learned a lot after last year’s event and specifically asked Michael to pour outside on the patio instead of filling the store with people lined up to taste wine and sample food.  He was told to bring 5 cases and since he only makes about 500 cases, that’s a significant investment of his time and his wine.

While Michael did sell a few bottles of wine, I heard a lot of people grumbling because he wasn’t a heavy pourer. But then again, by that point, most of the people were tipsy if not flat out intoxicated.For those who were interested, Michael took the time to tell them about the wine. I know at least one other person who felt that his syrah was probably one of the best wines being poured at the event!

Even though signs abounded that alcohol was not allowed outside the premises of the various participating establishments, most people were walking down the streets with half full glasses of wine throughout the event and after it was supposed to be over.

A little after 8pm, when the event was technically over and the pouring was to end, I saw one very attractive woman bent over throwing up in the El Jardin Courtyard and several other people looked like they were going to lose it too. We hustled to our car to get out of downtown before there were too many drunks on the road.

On a positive note, I was happy to see that event organizers provided participants with govino glasses branded with a local realty office as well as the event; they also had a sticker on them to show where a two ounce pour line should be.

So while this second year of the event is an unqualified success in the sense that it sold out and over 1500 people tasted a lot of wine and food and somebody made a TON of money (retailers paid to participate, wineries paid for the wine), is this the kind of event we want in Ventura?

And is this how we want people to taste and think about wine?

And now that I have this off my chest, I am off to the Cave to the annual Champagne tasting followed by a trip to Ojai to pick up our wine club wine and taste there too!

12/3: Rock Wall Wine Wonderland, Ventura Winter Wine Walk; 12/4 Cave Bubbles!

Next weekend winter wine wonders abound! 

If you’re in southern California, the first weekend in December is a good one to come to Ventura County for a wine and art adventure! Bay Area folks should buy tickets now to the Wine Wonderland at Rock Wall Winery in Alameda.

OJAI CA: If you’re an Ojai Vineyards Wine Club member, get started on Friday afternoon Dec. 3. From 2-6pm members can pick up their club shipment and enjoy an exclusive tasting event at the tasting room 109 S. Montgomery Street near the Ojai Arts Center. Ojai staff including winemakers and cellar rats will be on hand to answer questions and pour two special wines in addition to the regular tasting menu. This event will repeat Sunday December 11th from 2 to 6 pm. Please RSVP Tel. (805) 649 1674. Here’s Ojai’s Home page where you can Buy Their Wines.

VENTURA CA: FIRST FRIDAY Then head to Ventura where you can roam the streets during the monthly First Friday and check out the art. You might even join a SantaCon on bikes–meet at 530p on your bike in your Santa Suit at the Artists Union Gallery where California Street hits the sea; ride leaves about 6pm. Bring your own wine glass!

VENTURA: HOLIDAY STREET FAIR Saturday’s street fair starts at 11am. During this popular event, downtown Main Street is filled with vendors and music.

VENTURA: WINTER WINE WALK Saturday night at 6pm Ventura will light its holiday tree by the San Buenaventura Mission and celebrate with the second Ventura Winter Wine Walk. Holiday festivities include caroling by local church groups, Santa Claus ride into Downtown Ventura on a fire engine, and snow falling from about 645-8pm! The event is free and open to the public.  For more information, call 805.641.1090 or visit www.downtownventura.com.

Participants in the self-guided Winter Wine Walk from 4-8pm can sample fine wines and delicious appetizers: $42 gets 12 sample tickets. Learn more www.venturawinterwinewalk.com or by calling (805) 765-4294. NOTE: You have to check in before 6:30pm.

I was downtown last year for the Ventura Winter Wine Walk; you can read my impressions of it here. While I was personally disappointed in it overall, I am willing to give it another try this year.

Unless you like tasting wine in a plastic cup, I strongly recommend that you bring your own wine glasses to the Ventura Winter Wine Walk. Reidel has a fabulous stemless glass in a round cardboard carton or go for GOVINO–ergonomic, well shaped, high quality plastic wine glasses. You can buy them at Palermo the night of the event–$3 for one or $13 for 4.

Next year event organizers should give people event branded govino glasses.

VENTURA CA:  CAVE CHAMPAGNE TASTING On Sunday 12/4, from 1-4pm, for $35, 100 lucky people will taste various kinds of Champagne in the Cave in Ventura. The retail store will be open from 12-5pm and you may come in to purchase Champagne and any other wines during that time and enjoy special reduced prices even if you are not attending the Champagne Tasting!!!

ALAMEDA CA: ROCK WALL WINE WONDERLAND If you’re in the Bay Area the first weekend in December, you’ll want to head to Rock Wall Wine Company for the Wine Wonderland Open House Saturday December 3rd , 2011 1:00-5:00pm.

The entire Rock Wall Wine Company portfolio will be available to taste, including 7 new releases. I had a chance to meet the head of Rock Wall, Kent Rosenblum (yes THAT Rosenblum!) and his winemaker, daughter Shauna, at the PS I Love You Symposium July 2011. I look forward to writing more about them–as I learned sitting with them at lunch, they have a beautiful story and excellent wines!

This event also features a variety of wonderful selections from the very talented resident producers: Blacksmith Cellars, Carica Wines, Ehrenberg Cellars, John Robert Eppler Wines, Joseph Gary Cellars, Mercy and R&B Cellars–over 65 wines to taste!

In addition to the wine tasting, admission includes tasty bites, sweet treats, tours, live music and plenty of holiday cheer! The party goes from 1:00 to 5:00 pm and tickets are $30 per person through the Rock Wall tasting room, $35 per person presale online and $45 per person at the door the day of the event. This event is only open to those over 21 years of age. Age will be verified at admissions. For ticket and/or more information go to www.rockwallwines.com.

Holiday Wine Challenge Part 3: Ham & Zin!

I realize now that fixing a two traditional holiday Thanksgiving or Christmas meals –first a ham dinner then a turkey dinner– and tasting a bunch of wines with the food really was quite a challenge. If I was a stay at home wine blogger (and not teaching 75% time, working on a PhD, and being a mom!), I am sure I could have accomplished it before Thanksgiving! As it is, I made due with a steady stream of tweets and facebook posts to share what I was tasting and learning. And I know thanks to search engines, people will be finding these posts for years to come!

So wthis zin is great with ham or turkey for holiday meals like Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easterhat did I learn about ham and wine?

The big surprise was how well the ham dinner went with the 2007 Sonoma County St Francis Old Vines Zinfandel (under $20). I knew I would like this wine with turkey but on a whim I decided to open it. As I tasted through the line-up, I didn’t expect much of the zin. However, the chemical reaction between the ham and the zin was wonderfully tasty!

So much so that if I was to recommend one wine to bring, especially f you didn’t know what was going to be served, I’d go with a zinfandel because it works with ham, turkey, appetizers including blue cheese and crackers, as well as red meats like prime rib.

Zinfandel is a wonderful food wine and accessible to many people even if they are not regular wine drinkers. Read my discussion of the St Francis Zin with turkey here.

My second favorite for the ham from this line-up is the 2010 M. Chapoutier Bellaruche Cotes-du-Rhone. Personally, I really enjoy dry roses with ham (here’s a discussion of a dry rose from Bordeaux with ham).  There is something about the combo of the spice and sweetness and salitiness that makes this work so well. I also tried this the next morning with ham and eggs and a cranberry pecan scone and I would definitely recommend this wine for brunch or one of those breakfast for dinner kind of nights.

I also tried the 2010 Oak Mountain Winery Muscat from Temecula Valley CA $18 (winery price) because I had an open bottle. I liked this well enough with the ham. Here’s more about it in my post about the International Food Bloggers Conference dinner which is where I got it. I should have included a Riesling or Gewürztraminer in the tasting as these are typically great wines with ham. But there was already a lot of wine open!

The other two wines I tried were also good wines but not that exciting with ham:

2009 Louis Jadot  Beaujolais-Villages considered one of the best wines under $25!

While this wine wasn’t my favorite with the ham, it’s a great choice for appetizers. I love it with pate, cheese and crackers.

2009 Craggy Ridge Pinot Noir ($35-45) As I wrote when I reviewed it with turkey, this is a lovely, delightful complex pinot noir, full of earth and moss and violets and chocolate and tarragon, truly a wonderful Pinot Noir from New Zealand, lush, sensual. I wouldn’t bring this wine to a big holiday meal with tons of people– save it for when you can focus on it and savor it! I bet it would be better with a pork loin or chop than with salty ham.

What wine do you like to drink with ham?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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Holiday Wine Challenge Part 2: Turkey & Red Wine? Yes! Try These!

White Meat = White Wine

Pink Meat = Pink Wine

Red Meat = Red Wine

This is what many, if not most of us in the US grew up thinking  about when it came to matching wine with food (if we thought of wine at all!) This leads us to white wines with turkey, pink with ham, and red wines with prime rib for our holiday meals.

This short hand works well enough most of the time. But rules were made to be broken!

The trend over the past few years has been to pair turkey with pinot noir or beaujolais. (Rumor has it you ou can thank Oprah for this one!)

A lot of people weigh in with their opinions about what goes good with a holiday meal WITHOUT ACTUALLY TASTING THE WINE WITH THE FOOD! (Sorry the photo is NOT as good as the food–I ran out of patience too soon to get a good shot!!)

So I set out to try as many wines as I could with both a turkey dinner and a ham dinner. (I’m also going to have my husband cook a goose and a duck and maybe even a prime rib to try some wines to see what works best!)  You can read about the turkey dinner menu here and the white wines I tried with it. This was quite an undertaking! I tried to finish in time for those last minute Thanksgiving wine shoppers and of course there’s many a holiday meal to come!

2009 Louis Jadot  Beaujolais-Villages WORKS OK with turkey

According to a BIG ad in the LA Times, this is the wine you should bring to your holiday event–and it’s been named one of the best wines for under $25. Well, it might be all that and more, but I’m not so convinced that it goes with turkey. At least not with my palate. But with the pate from Trader Joe’s  that I snacked on while making dinner, I swear it’s my favorite pairing of the night! This is positively devilish in that it  was all I could do to keep from piling it on and washing it down with this wine.

2009 Craggy Ridge Pinot Noir ($35-45) WORKS OK with Turkey

Don’t get me wrong, this is a lovely, delightful complex pinot noir, full of earth and moss and violets and chocolate and tarragon. This is truly a wonderful wine that makes me curious to taste and contemplate but here’s the truth: it’s fine with the turkey. But this lush, sensual wine has more magic on its own. Don’t waste this wine on a Thanksgiving dinner. Save it for when you can focus on it and savor it! This tastes like a $40 pinot noir. (And not that anyone asked, but I love the wine and I hate the website. It’s hard to navigate and the font is so small it’s hard to read.) I almost wish I hadn’t opened it and saved it for tasting on another occasion.

Looking for an easy to find and under $10 pinot noir?  I’ve had the Smoking Loon Pinot Noir with roasted chicken and I bet it would do the trick with turkey too–but it wasn’t part of this tasting. You can find it in many grocery store on sale for $5!

2007 St Francis Old Vine Zinfandel Sonoma County $20 DEFINITELY WORKS with turkey! THE WINNER!!

This is classic old vines zin. Full of lusty dusty brambly blackberry and wild rose with a hint of anise, it reminds me of traveling on a country road to Grandmother’s house. The winery is named after St Francis of Assisi and they’re doing their best to care for the land and what lives there, just like their name sake. To be eligible for this wine, the vines have to be over 50 years old. Many are 100 years old! So in addition to bringing a good wine to grandmother’s house, you get to bring some good stories. It’s not too heavy, oaky or tannic but it has a nice richness and complexity which holds up with the dark meat and complements the white meat. It went well with all the sides but especially the salad!

While the St Francis is a great wine for the money, what if you’re on more of a budget? Recently I tasted the Smoking Loon Zinfandel ($5 on sale) with turkey burgers and while it doesn’t have the body or the finish of the St Francis, for the money, this would be a great choice–or bring it as a second bottle. (ALWAYS drink the best stuff first!)

2007 Twisted Oak Petit Sirah WORKS OK with turkey

Since I had a bottle of this open (I’d had it the other night with a perfectly grilled steak!) and since someone raved about PS with turkey, I gave it a try. I like the wine a lot but it didn’t do much for the dinner overall. I did like it better with the dark meat than the white meat.

I’ve also heard recommendations for grenache with turkey and as I like grenache with chicken I bet it would be good with turkey and the trimmings. If I was going to pull a Twisted Oak red wine from my stash for a holiday meal, I would be more likely to choose a grenache.

So can you enjoy red wine with turkey? YES! What’s the red wine that I’m going to bring to the next holiday meal?

ZINFANDEL!

Specifically, Saldo 2008 California Zinfandel. I bought this last year and loved it with turkey so I bought another one and put it away. Now’s the time to bring it out!

Which red wines do YOU enjoy with turkey?