Notes From The Cellar

☆ This Is Now An Archive

Steve — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:05:45 +0000

It Was Fun While It Lasted

There will no longer be new reviews posted here. Notes From The Cellar will remain in this form, as an archive. Thank you to everyone who ever stopped by, and liked what they saw.

—Steve

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☆ Do I Hate Wine Blogging, or Do I Just Hate Myself?

Steve — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:40:53 +0000

Blechh

Yes, I’m using hyperbole here to make a point. I don’t actually hate myself. I’m a pretty fucking cool guy, actually. Ask anyone. Except Carl. That guy has never liked me, and I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why. He’s just a dickbag.

So, I haven’t published a review of a wine here since September 23rd (68 days ago, if my math is right), and I haven’t written anything interesting that isn’t a review of a wine since June 29th, if ever. Am I a failure?

No, I don’t think so. Well, yes, actually, I am in some ways. But not in this way and not for this reason. I’m not a failure, I’m bored. And I thought for a while that I was bored because wine blogging is boring.

I’ll be totally honest. For a while now, I’ve considered ditching this thing altogether. Not actually nuking it, or anything. I’d leave it up for posterity, or whatever. But “officially” retiring from the “profession” that never earned me a “dollar” or got me any attention outside a small band of incredibly dedicated— and, might I say, inexplicably into me— wine peeps. But what kept me from doing that? The off chance that someone would send me yet another shitty (but free!) bottle of wine.

My wife and I like to cook with it.

But that sucks. That’s a shitty reason to keep doing this. So, I was forced to examine what might be going on. Why am I bored? Is it true, what I think? Is wine blogging, at its heart, a boring, lackluster pursuit?

I don’t think so. But the way I’ve been doing it, I’m surprised none of you (if there is anyone reading this, of course…) took me into the back forty and Ol’ Yellered me months ago.

Reviews, reviews, reviews. Of Italian wine you’ve never heard of, and can’t get ahold of, or of Livermore stuff I stumble upon, or of free plonk dropped at my doorstep.

OK, not all the free shit was actually shit, but a lot of it certainly was. Most of it.

Grades? Points? Badges? No indicator of joy or sorrow other than the overwrought wording spewed out onto the screen? Does it matter? Perhaps, I should simply change up my system. Thumbs up/down? One-to-five stars/glasses/bottles/winery PR flacks? Something Hardy Wallace-esque, with a randomness that his lighthearted good-naturedness brought across as joy, while my suburban cynicism would suck all the fun out of? Suck all of the fun out? Of? Ending the sentence with a preposition… there I go again…

Or, do I ditch the idea of writing reviews at all? Then what to write about? How social media in the wine world is awesome/sucks/is a blessing/curse/harbinger of utopia/doom? Touring the handful of local wineries I can get to on my meager resources? Pretending like my closest AVA, the Livermore Valley, is just as important as the big dog regions, and dedicate all writing solely to it and the few-dozen wines worth drinking from there?

Should I spend my time pissing people off like the HoseMaster of Wine used to do before he started writing wines up for Lot18.com? Should I focus on making fun, but ultimately ridiculously silly pop culture mashups like those TV Show pairings I did a year ago?

I don’t know. I know I’m bored, though. I had intended to sit down here and review a 2008 Ruché from Piemonte before staring blankly at the empty screen and saying “fuck it,” and shutting everything down.

I popped the blog admin back open, and penned this instead.

You’re welcome?

☆ Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things

Steve — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:13:17 +0000

A Mea Culpa

In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been creating much. I haven’t been writing, I haven’t been tweeting about wine, I haven’t been developing new, exciting anythings. I haven’t been creating.

I haven’t been creating, partly because I haven’t been inspired. I haven’t been drinking much wine lately.

There are a lot of reasons for that. A tighter budget. A diet (I’ve lost 45 pounds since February). A lack of interest due, frankly, to boredom. That all changed yesterday.

You see that over there? Those are pinot noir grapes. I’m not sure when— before yesterday— the last time I’d had pinot noir was.

Cabernet sauv, chardonnay, Italian varieties up the wazoo (including something new I liked: vermentino), pinot blanc and pinot gris, but not pinot noir.

Have I ever told you folks the story of how/why I started really liking wine? The whole “what bottle got you started” story?

In 2005, I started dating my wife. A month after we started dating, for Valentine’s Day, I took her to Disneyland, because I am a geek like that, and so is she. On Valentine’s evening, we had dinner at Granville’s Steakhouse at the Disneyland Hotel.

Now, my wife doesn’t drink wine. She’s got a nasty alcohol allergy, and so doesn’t drink at all. But still, I wanted to impress her. For some reason, I thought ordering a nice bottle of wine would do that.

I had neither the money to afford— nor the desire to get drunk on— a single bottle all to myself. But the restaurant offered half-bottles. I basically picked at random from the list of half-bottles, and settled on a 2002 Saintsbury Pinot Noir from Carneros.

It was delicious. I’d spent the previous 5 years or so swilling Two Buck Chuck and supermarket merlot straight from the bottle. But this, this was wine! She even had some, and liked it too. I, on the other hand, was completely taken over by pinot.

At any rate, I reveal all that to say this: yesterday, I participated in judging the Pinot Noir Shootout, a production of Barbara Drady’s Affairs of the Vine. This year and last, I’d helped Barbara by being a judge for the Cabernet Shootout, but this was my first time sitting down to taste 32 pinots in four hours.

Pinot from all over. There was even a Spatburgunder. The flavor profiles were just everywhere. Fruit, cocoa, coffee, smoke, orange peel, marshmallow, toasted caramel, vanilla, mushroom and earth. All over.

It was truly something. It reminded me just how much I love pinot. And it gave me a few wines I am actually excited to write about again.

Which was really the point of all this. To say I’m back. Now, I accept that this isn’t as good as just being back, and writing about the wine. But I’ve written just two reviews since early July, so I figured I’d start by waving my hands a bit and reminding y’all that I am, indeed, still here.

Still here, and still in love with pinot noir.

☆ 2009 Donkey & Goat Four Thirteen

Steve — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:00:55 +0000

Wineries? In Berkeley?!

Let’s not get carried away.

Obviously, the wine I’m telling you about today is not from grapes grown in Berkeley, California. While I have not scoured the streets, alleyways, and head shops of the home not only of the great University of California Golden Bears football team, but also of aging hippies, I do know I have never found a vineyard in Berkeley.

And I know for sure, that wine grapes are not what’s growing in People’s Park.

That having been said, there are wineries in Berkeley. Oakland and San Francisco, as well. Small-batch, family-owned boutique wineries in Northern California have begun setting up shop in the Bay Area’s urban centers, and not just the fertile valleys of Napa and Sonoma counties.

Because they do not grow their own grapes (at least not on the estate!) but instead buy them from grapegrowers all over the state, what chance these winemakers have to set themselves apart is often in the blending.

Which is why I was so excited to taste this, a Chateauneuf-du-Pape-style red blend from one of Berkeley’s best-named wineries, A Donkey & Goat Winery.

Seriously. Nailed the name.

So, what do we have here in Donkey & Goat’s 2009 Four Thirteen blend? 46% syrah, 33% grenache, 18% mourvedre, and 3% counoise, all from El Dorado County in the Sierra Foothills. Details and digits aside, we also have a very tasty wine.

The first thing you want to do after you pour yourself a glass of the Four Thirteen is take look. The wine is stunning. Blood red at the core— really vibrant— with ruby edges that are only slightly lighter.

On the nose, the heat shows off just a bit— never a good thing, but here, not enough to kill off the nose’s strong points. Blackberry, black pepper, leather, and notes of dark caramel. Rich, strong, weighty, meaty, and hefty. This wine is like Gerard Depardieu: it’s got a nose with gravitas.

The wine is medium bodied, and the finish is passable but could be longer. The nose is so awesomely bombastic that the palate could be a bit of letdown, were it not so damn tasty. Black fruits, earth and leather, and a hint of cassis round out this wine’s palate. I do wish it packed the punch hinted at by the nose, but I’m not going to complain.

Wine this good just doesn’t come around all that often. And in my experience, it never comes from Berkeley.

Bravo, Donkey & Goat. Bravo.

Price Point: $30

☆ 2008 Willamette Valley Vineyards Riesling

Steve — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:20:52 +0000

Sweet Oregonian Converts My Bitter Palate

I used to hate “sweet” wines.

I put “sweet” in quotation marks for a reason. I don’t mean to refer to dessert wines– in fact, Tawny Porto has long been something I have treasured.

No, I mean your Gewurztraminers, late harvest wines in general, and of course, most Rieslings that did not bear the “Dry” adjective stamped right on the label.

But, apparently, tastes change.

Many moons ago, I made a stink on Twitter by saying something along the lines of “Burgundy still kills it with pinot noir.” Not exactly a controversial statement, or so I thought. California– and more so, Oregon– wineries responded to me staking a claim to the pinot noir crown.

And Willamette Valley Vineyards decided to put their money where there mouth is. Or, perhaps more specifically, but certainly less poetically: to put their wine where my mouth is.

They sent along a couple selections of their pinot, suggesting I put their offerings through the Pepsi Challenge with the finest Burgs I can get my hands on. And I will. But as of this writing, I can’t really afford anything from Burgundy one would consider particularly “fine,” and so the eventual Oregon-vs.-France-by-way-of-my-little-condo-in-Walnut-Creek,-California Battle Royale de Pinot will have to wait.

In the meantime, WVV also decided to hand off a bottle or two of white. One of which, was this: their 2008 Riesling.

Notice it does not say 2008 Dry Riesling.

The label admonishes that “prime drinking time” is 2009-2011, and so, not wanting to let a good thing go bad, I popped the cork and took this wine for a spin just recently. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I figured it was now or never.

I’m glad it was now.

I’m still not sure I like “sweet” wines. But I know something I do like: balance. And this wine has it in abundance. There is sweetness here, enough of it to notice, but not enough of it to drown out other flavors (my normal complaint regarding excess RS). More than that, there is acidity up the wazoo. Plenty of acid, some weighty residual sugar, and a pleasant, crisp flavor profile all welcomed me when I first put glass to lips.

This isn’t a gush, though; there are issues I have here. The nose kicks off with a kind of unfortunate rubbery smell. Kind of a tire-meets-wet-road thing. It’s not huge, but it was impossible not to notice. The nose also plays around with more of what’s to come, tossing you a ripe, juicy green apple along with its more industrial component.

On the palate, luckily, any hint of the nose’s rubber is gone, out of town, non grata. Not there. A bit one-note, the wine pretty much sits around the green apple arena of flavors, but it is very crisp and refreshing.

The mouthfeel is a bit viscous, what I would call “medium-full” bodied. That sweetness is here, and attacks the front of your palate, the tip of your tongue and all those salivary glands you have up front there (trust me, there’s quite a few). As the wine passes through your mouth, just when you think you can’t take any more sweetness, the back nine are given a nice kick of acidity, almost enough to get you in the lymph nodes like A1 Steak Sauce.

The overall experience, then, is a pleasurable one: you’re left with a more lingering memory of the acidity than of the sweetness, and the whole time you’re tasting the most exhilaratingly crisp Granny Smith apple.

Tart, sweet, acidic, crisp, with a full-bodied feel. If you like your wines like you like your French cinema– complex, contradictory, packed with imagery, with just a hint of something that smells funny– you really ought to give the 2008 Willamette Valley Vineyards Riesling a shot. I’m glad I did.

2008 Willamette Valley Vineyards Riesling

☆ 2007 Ravenswood Barricia Single Vineyard Zinfandel

Steve — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:00:48 +0000

Single-Vineyard Zin Brings The Ruckus

I’ve had quite the personal history with Ravenswood. Their Vintners Blend Merlot was one of the first wines I ever drank regularly. It was quite good for its price¹ and it was easy to find.

I have since had some hit-or-miss times with Ravenswood. I’ve come to find that while the “approachability” of their Vintners Blend wines was perfect for me at 21 years old, I need something with a little more personality these days.

Enter the Ravesnwood Single Vineyard Zinfandels. There are quite a few of them, and I have actually had several. This one, the Barricia, is a big dog zin. No joke. It spends 20 months in 100% French oak, clocks in at 14.5% ABV, and is actually 76% zinfandel and 24% petite sirah.

The wine is a dark purple in the core of the glass, lightening to a bit of a garnet red on the edges. On the nose is some blackberry and dark cherry, but also a touch more heat than I like to see.²

The 2007 Ravenswood Barricia is medium bodied, with a long finish. The alcohol comes through, but not too hot. The wine is robust and full-flavored, with a touch of dark fruit, but more obviously, a smoky, meaty element.

The flavor profile would go excellently with grilled meats, but the relatively heavy body, long finish, and higher alcohol make it hard to recommend as a summer barbecuing wine. Still, robust, tasty, and all up in your face: if this is what you look for in a zinfandel, then look no further.

Price Point: $35

Footnotes

Or, at least, so I thought. My palate, as underwhelming as it may be now, was downright infantile back then.
Smell.

☆ 2010 Bonny Doon Vineyard Vin Gris de Cigare

Steve — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 15:00:44 +0000

More Than Just a Summer Sipper

Today’s the 4th of July, and if you live outside the United States, perhaps that means nothing more to you than a date and a month. But for those of us who live in the USA, today is, of course, Independence Day.

And, for those of us who spent a grip of years in college studying Political Science,¹ this is a particularly excellent holiday.

The proper way to celebrate gaining independence from British rule, and perhaps even more importantly, crafting a document like the Declaration of Independence² can be summed up in three letters:

B. B. Q.

Hopefully you are grilling the flesh of something dead today. If you’re a vegetarian, vegan, or other herbivorous type, then grill up some delicious fresh veggies. But break out the barbeque, sit out in the sun, maybe take in some baseball³ or just lounge at the park or by the pool. Catch some fireworks tonight.

But whatever you do, you’ll probably be drinking.⁴ Now, it might seem like a no-brainer that beer is not only a better choice for barbeques or other outside activities, but also a better choice for America FUCK YEAH Day. But to that, I say “pish-tosh.” Wine can be just what the doctor ordered on a hot day.

Take this wine, for instance. Seriously, have a sip. You didn’t think you like pink wine, did you? You do. Everyone does. Some people just don’t know it yet.

The 2010 Bonny Doon Vin Gris de Cigare is (like most Bonny Doon wine) a blend of Rhône varieties, predominantly grenache,⁵ and clocks in at a very reasonable 12.8% ABV.

In the glass, the Vin Gris is a salmony-peach color. Very pretty, and not as pink as what I think most people imagine when they picture a rosé in their mind. On the nose are wonderfully-fragrant notes of peach and apricot, and a whiff of strawberry.

On the palate, the wine has a light body and a medium-length finish. Notes of peach and strawberry mingle with very faint hints of bread or toast, and the wine is ever-so-slightly frizzante.⁶

It’s delicious. And perfect to break out for your summer barbecues. Highly recommended.

Price Point: $12-$16

Footnotes

Yup.
That took balls.
Despite the popularity of NFL and NASCAR, I would remind my readers that baseball is still America’s Pastime™
Please drink responsibly.
Roussanne, grenache blanc, and mourvèdre are also part of the par-tay.
Meaning it’s a bit bubbly. But not actually bubbly, of course.

☆ 2009 Intelligent Design Cuvée Blanc

Steve — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:00:14 +0000

Minerals and Acid: White Wine’s Best

I think it’s incredibly important for every wine drinker, of every level of experience and knowledge, to learn what they like. I can tell you all about what I taste in a wine, I can talk about the balance, the acid and the sugar, the alcohol and the tannin, and on and on. But, as Jim Morris of Michel-Schlumberger once told my wife Heather and me, while we sat and sipped his winery’s stellar pinot blanc, “There are two kinds of wine in this world: yummy wine and yucky wine. Drink the yummy wine.”

Jim’s right, of course. While it’s a simplified view of wine that doesn’t make for compelling wine writing, the long and short of wine is enjoyment. Do you (or I, or anyone else) enjoy the wine you (or I, or that other person) are drinking?

It takes time to learn what you like, of course. There are plenty of people out there just drinking wine willy-nilly, making no mind of what it is about a specific wine they like. Is it the fruit? The acid? The alcohol? The astringent texture? The long finish? Is there nothing in particular that they do like, they just find the wine inoffensive?

Ambivalence is the most sinister emotion of the heart. Its darkenss sneaks up on us, takes us unaware, and makes us feel, well, nothing. And nothing is worse than nothing.

I say all this to bring up the following point: I know what I like. And when it comes to white wine, I know I like minerality, and chalk. I like acid, and crisp, clean flavor notes.

Luckily for me, this wine delivers on all those points.

The 2009 Intelligent Design Cuveé Blanc from Wesley Ashley Wines is a Central Coast blend of 50% viognier, 30% rousanne, and 20% grenache blanc.

The Rhône varietal blend expertly balances a not-insignificant 14.1% alcohol by volume. In the glass, it’s a lemony straw yellow, with the faintest hint of green. On the nose is a wonderful mix of fruit (apple and lemon), a custardy element, and some grassy, floral elements. My wife commented that the wine “almost smelled like beer,” and I think there is an herby, hoppy element to the floral notes on the nose.

The wine is light bodied, crisp and clean. Not much fruit on the palate, but great acid and some nice grassy notes. The finish is long, with tight, crisp mineral and chalk notes. There’s even this slight skinless almond note on the finish, really cool and different.

This wine is excellent. It’s really awesome, and more than that, it’s right up my alley. If you’re a big oaky-buttery chardonnay person when it comes to white wine, maybe this won’t be up yours.

But if your taste buds tingle and your mouth waters at the sounds of “mineral,” “chalk,” and “acid” when it comes to your white wine… well, what are you waiting for? Intelligent Design is the natural selection for your obviously-evolved palate.

Price Point: $34

☆ Pairing Wine With 1990s Sitcoms: Married… With Children

Steve — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:00:54 +0000

Married… With Children

Love and marriage,
Love and marriage,
Go together like a horse and carriage…

Has Frank Sinatra ever been used in a more ironic way?

From L to R: Marcy D'Arcy, Bud Bundy, Peggy Bundy, Al Bundy, Lucky Bundy, Kelly Bundy, Jefferson D'Arcy

I loved this show. Al Bundy was a hero of mine, but not in the traditional way we think of heroes. He was everything—literally, everything—I did not want to be. He hated his job. He barely put up with his wife. No one respected him, least of all his family. He was perhaps television’s greatest all-time cautionary tale.

And I loved him for it.

Sure, there were times when the Bundys put aside their nigh-sociopathic vitriol for not just one another, but for people as a whole, and came together as a family. Chants of “Whoooooooaa BUNDY!” were rare but certainly not unheard of. Peg certainly was in love with Al, even against her own better judgment most of the time. And the kids, Kelly and Bud, were reminded on occasion that their parents loved them, and that they required their assistance to live.

Yes, even you, Grandmaster B.

The show followed the trials and tribulations of the mythical Bundy family. Al and Peggy, and their kids, Kelly and Bud. The Bundys live in suburban Chicago, and are pretty much loathed by everyone. Al sells women’s shoes at the local mall, and hates it. He still lives in the past, when as the star running back for Polk High, he scored four touchdowns in one game: the 1966 city championship against rival Johnson High.

He will remind anyone of this fact, any time. It’s quite literally all he’s got left. The show opened with the famous dulcet tones of one Frank Sinatra:

So what wine could possibly go with this show? I doubt Al Bundy ever drank a single sip of wine in his life.

But Peg probably drank a lot of boxed wine.

Doesn’t matter the type, barely matters what it tastes like. It’s plonk, but it’s cheap and it’s plentiful and it takes longer to run out of it, which necessitates a trip to the store. This is akin to work, and is therefore something Peggy Bundy abhors.

So that’s the pairing: boxed wine. Don’t care which, because I bet Peg Bundy didn’t care, either.

Some boxed wines I can heartily recommend… avoiding:

NV Pepperwood Grove Big Green Box California Charddonay (sub-70/100)
2008 Wine Cub Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz (sub-70/100)

☆ 2006 Luigi Pira Barolo

Steve — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:00:29 +0000

Barolo Never Seems To Let Me Down

One of my favorite wines in the world is Barolo. This northern Italian DOCG wine is 100% nebbiolo by dictate. It’s dark, it’s powerful, it goes well with Airwolf.

The Barolos I’ve talked about in the past, the 2004 Ceretto and the 2005 Renato Corino are better than this wine. But that’s all relative. There’s no plonk here, nothing for anyone to be ashamed of. The mark is just missed barely by the 2006 Pira.

The 2006 Luigi Pira Barolo (not to be mistaken for its big brother, the Luigi Pira Barolo Marenca) is a very pretty ruby red in the glass, with significant clearing to the edges, common among Barolo due to the DOCG-mandated 3 years (2 in oak, 1 in bottle) minimum aging.

On the nose is an almost-rubbery earth note. Seems like the alcohol is a bit out of balance and showing off here. There is a hint of moss here, and some—but not much—red fruit. On the palate the dark fruit of Barolo appears and greets you heartily. Blackberry, raspberry, kirsch and black cherry. The wine is medium bodied, and the finish is mid-level as well. The tannins are tight (tight tight tight) and the wine really feels like it needs more time.

Perhaps it’s simply a bit too young, but I was a touch disappointed by this Barolo. That having been said, it’s still delicious, bold wine. I love Barolo, and I can still recommend this one. I can also recommend, however, if you do pick it up: lay it down for two, maybe three years. Should drink marvelously around 2014.

Price Point: $30-$40