The Grape Crusader

Trimbach Gewurztraminer will always be emblazoned in my mind as one of the wines that I will never forget.  I remember that I bought my first bottle of it for approximately $13 at the neighborhood Beverages and More superstore, mainly because I was intrigued by the name.  This was around 1999 when I first started drinking wine.  I remember how I was completely baffled, blown away and perplexed all at the same time at what I was drinking.

When I first read about gewurz, as it so affectionately called by some, I remember how it was described as a grape people will always either love or hate.  I of course loved it for all of its characteristic heady aromas, litchee fruit flavors and snappy dry finish.

Almost every year since then, I’ve tasted this wine and have always reminisced about my early drinking days while sipping the wine.  This vintage, the 2005 is no different than the1997 vintage I tried back then.  It’s just as exotic in flavor and aroma.  Of course it’s gone up in price since then, but its still under $20 and is a great go to wine for Indian, Vietnamese or Thai food.  This gewurz and a riesling are Trimabch’s house or entry level wines.  The domaine also makes a host of excellent, more expensive, cellar-worthy grand crus as well.

Winery: Chateau Respide-Medeville

Bottling: 2005 Bordeaux Blanc

Importer: Martine’s Wines

Region: France

Sub-Region: Graves, Bordeaux

Estimated Retail Price: $24

Purchase Details: Purchased from Arlequin Wine Merchant in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco for $24 plus tax.

Tasting Notes: What a wine!  I can see what the intrigue of white Bordeaux is now.  This is a wine that combines racy acidity, tingling minerality and lush creaminess better than no other wine.  They are typically a proportionate blend of semillon and sauvignon blanc, with the occasional smattering of muscadelle.  The two anchor varietals could not be more diametrically opposed and is the reason why you get such a cool wine.

The Respide had wonderful lemony, gooseberry, grassy and minerally aromas.  Really don’t want to say it, but a hint of cat pee as well – usually a good sign of true to type wines from this region as well as many sauv blancs and pinot grigio from the northeast region of Italy.

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We drank the 2005 Bouchard Savigny Les-Beaune a few days after we drank the 2005 Bouchard Monthelie, so we were looking forward to trying this Burgundy from a different commune.

This wine ended up being quite a contrast in style to the Monthelie.  While the Monthelie was soft, silky and velvety, the Savigny was a lot more firm, angular and muscular.  It took a long time for the wine to open up and actually was a lot more approachable on the second day.

The wine tasted of dark fruits like black cherries and plums and also had a tobacco like quality to it.  On the nose, I got a little bit of barnyard, funk and earth aromas.  Again, never an appealing choice of words to describe a wine, but nevertheless very spot on when you actually smell it.  The wine had some pretty rough tannins and gave it an almost chewy-like quality.  I think the bottle certainly needs a few more years in the cellar.

Again, I admit that my knowledge of Burgundy is a work in progress.  If you are unfamiliar with Burgundy, its raison d’etre and the rules that govern it, learn them and you will quickly understand why people are fascinated with this region.  The appellations and divisions that signify where each bottle comes from are so chaotic and confusing, but also so well organized and finely delineated, the information makes your head spin.  It’s this challenge to learn the information that is intriguing to me.

My suggestion to you if you want to start experiencing Burgundy, is to try wines from well-respected and reliable negociant houses like Bouchard, Louis Jadot and Joseph Drouhin.  I purchased this bottle on sale for about $20.  I believe regular retail prices for this come in at around $35.

Here are two more blogs to add to the blogroll:

Do Bianchi – “Food and wine historian, Italian translator and rock musician Jeremy Parzen P.h.d created his blog “Do Bianchi” to offer readers a humanist perspective into the world of Italian food and wine.”  This is really a great blog.  The author of the blog chronicles his food and wine adventures in places like Italy, France California and New York.  In other words, the world’s culinary epicenters, in my opinion.  Great pictures and good, entertaining writing.  What more could you ask for in a blog?

Inspiring Thirst – Kermit Lynch Wine Merchants Blog – Of course this now one of my favorite blogs, by virtue of the importer being one of my favorite wine personalities.  The blog for Kermit Lynch Wine Merchants is great for keeping up to date with the many wine and food events that Kermit Lynch is involved with, hosting or taking part in throughout the year.  There’s loads of detailed, insightful information on the wines that were tasted at the events by all the staff members.  There’s also announcements on special sales at the shop that “Inspiring Thirst” blog readers and Kermit Lynch e-newsletter subscribers have first dibs on.

Whew, been on a vacation of sorts.  Back feeling refreshed and revived.  I apologize for not having posted anything for the past 11 days!  Its pretty amazing how a 1 day break can easily turn in to 11 days in the blink of an eye.  We’ve been busy doing things that are necessary to facilitate moving from one state to another (Honolulu to San Francisco).  Were moving zip codes in a couple of months to be closer to the source, so expect to see more varied material pertaining to wine.  I’m excited.  I’ll keep everyone posted as we move along.  Thanks for your patience and more posts to follow as I dig in and start catching up.  For now, enjoy the 07 Neyers below.  Aloha.

Winery: Neyers Vineyards

Bottling: 2007 Old Lakeville Road Syrah

Region: California

Sub-Region: Sonoma

Estimated Retail Price: $30 – $35

Purchase Details: Purchased at Fujioka’s Wine Times for $29.99 plus tax.

Tasting Notes: If you recall, I reviewed the 2005 recently and gave it glowing remarks for its wonderful drinkability.  With that, I was excited to run out and buy the most recent release, the 2007 to see how it would be drinking.  I knew it was going to be a little premature to drink it now, since I already based on the style of the wine that it would need a little bit of time in the bottle, but I wanted to use this more as a test run to determine if I wanted to buy more bottles and sock it away in our cellar.

From the first whiff and sip, I knew this was going to be a good wine.  I could just feel it in my bones.  The color was an opaque, dark purple like a syrah should be.  On the nose, were berries and, spice and meat.  In the mouth, flavors of wild berries, black pepper, a little smoke and a long, clean finish and aftertaste.  This wine was mega tight and young as expected, but I was already beginning to extrapolate what I think this would taste like in a couple of years and I was getting excited.

The tannins were pretty fine grained and smooth, so drinking it early in its life wasn’t so bad.  I went out and recently purchased another bottle.  I think I should purchase one more.

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Sorry everyone, but no wine review for today.  I’m working on a a few of them as we speak.  I have a backlog again, which I’m trying to find a way to fix, but I can tell you that cutting back on consumption is not one of them.

What I do have are a couple of links to some interesting industry related articles.  Here they are:

Boxed Wine

I know many of you reading “boxed wine” are already wincing, but here’s an article on the rising interest in boxed wine.  Yes, I did say rising.  Check out the reasons why.

Greek Wine

There’s been a lot of coverage lately on the emergence of Greek wine, no not retsina, but actual quality wine.  Could this be the new hot wine region to look out for?

Thanks for visiting and we’ll get back to our regular programming tomorrow.

There are few white wines that need to “open up” or aerate in order to make it more drinkable.  I know white wines flavors evolve over the course of an evening, but as far as expression of fruit, you can usually catch it with a white wine immediately after opening it.  With this 2005 Domaine Weinbach Cuvee Theo Riesling, time and air were needed, in order for this wine to breath.

On the nose were some of the smells of petroleum, mineral and stone fruits.  In the mouth, wow!  There was a fair amount of concentration and intensity in the wine.

What a coincidence. I did pick up some hints of orange rind in the wine.

Because the wine was fairly tight, it took a little time for it to open up before I started to notice hints of pepper, mineral, some herb, stone and the rind of various citrus fruits.  It was an unusual flavor profile that took you in many different directions from dry, to racy to dry again and then austerity on the finish.  It’s hard to explain.  I was very confused, in a good way, throughout the evening drinking this wine.

I know that Alsatian whites can be some of the most long-lived white wines in both the sweet and dry departments, so I get the sense that this wine will come together and make a little more sense with a few more years in the bottle.

I would have loved to have this wine with some sausages and any other types of cured products that hail from the Alsace region.  I read somewhere, and I’m sorry I can’t cite my sources, that Alsace has the most Michelin three starred restaurants per capita in the world or Europe?  Maybe someone can get back to me if they know the facts.  That’s pretty impressive.

I purchased the wine at the local retailer on sale for about $20.  I know it normally retails for around $35-$40, so I scored once again.

Just to clarify, the wine is not clear, it's just an empty bottle.

The Flama Roja was an excellent white value we had from the Tarragona region of Spain.  I’ve seen only pictures of this beautiful area and can only dream about breathing in the fresh sea air from such a picturesque place.  I’d love to visit the region, but for now, sipping this wine is the closest I can get to an actual trip there.

This wine a nice surprise and more than just a “simple” pre-dinner white wine.  The nose was wonderfully aromatic and was akin to smelling potpourri made from white flowers.

In the mouth, the wine was bone dry and had a really nice, snappy finish.  Also on the palate were flavors of white peaches, stone and mineral.  The wine kind of reminded me of Argentinian Torrontes – very floral, not overly heady like a gewurztraminer or overripe viognier, and dry and snappy.  The wine was a blend of two grapes – 80% macabeo and 20% parellada.

For my fellow wine consumers on Oahu, my buddy who bought this for us paid approximately $13 for the wine at The R. Field Wine Co. on Beretania.  I felt that it was a solid value at that price point.  We sipped this with an appetizer of seared ahi belly on a bed of soba noodles, ponzu vinaigrette and cilantro.  It was as they say here in the islands, “broke da mouth!”

I can’t remember who the importer is and I can’t check the back of the bottle since I’ve already thrown it away.  I’ve searched the internet and can’t find any info on the wine.  Let me know if you have better success than me.

California Zinfandel is a wine you just never ever think of cellaring and aging, unless you’re talking about premium ones like Turley or Storybook Mountain.  Those wines have reputations of benefitting from a little hibernation time in the cellar.  Other than that, zinfandel’s appeal is when it’s drunk young, when its fruit is lively, fresh and rambunctious.

I was intrigued by the 03 Carol Shelton Monga Zinfandel on the menu at Vino Italian Tapas Restaurant in Hawaii because for one, it was relatively cheap considering restaurant prices (approximately $30).  Secondly, I was very familiar with the producer and knew that she made wines of quality.  When I met winemaker Carol Shelton in-person in our shop and tasted her wines for the first time, I had a feeling her zinfandels would have some potential to age pretty nicely.  This particular bottle did so very well.

On the nose I got smells of berries and leather.  In the mouth I tasted a lot of red and dark berries and cherries as well as a fair amount of spices like star anise and pepper.  The wine was still pretty juicy and mouth-filling even at this stage in its life, but I think this year would be the last year to drink it before the wine starts its sad descent.

The grapes come from the Lopez Vineyard in Cucamonga Valley.  The vineyard is set in a very dry part of the region, 70 miles inland from Los Angeles, and is really the only vineyard in sight.  Others have fallen victim to the urban sprawl, so this is really a remnant of the many vineyards that once existed in the area in the past.  True to old vine zinfandel, the vines were planted in 1918 and produce a minuscule 1/2 ton of fruit per acre.

Carol’s zinfandels are more than just prototypical jammy zinfandel fruit.  They’re complex, balanced and most importantly, delicious.  Seek them out.