What was the spark that inspired me to start the Corkdork Blog? 

I come from a wine obsessed family. My late father amassed a small, but high quality cellar starting back in 1978 and so began the family tradition of wine talk at the table. For us, a special meal needed something special to drink, and even after having a modest cellar going, my father was always able to pull out something appropriate to rise to the occasion.

Once I was out on my own, I usually found I had Champagne tastes on a beer budget, and good wine was hard to find in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, where after pressing your nose to the window, squinting to read labels, the local wine merchant passed the bottle to you through bullet-proof glass. But then I moved to San Francisco. Here I gave myself a $3.00 a bottle limit and at that time, I was able to get crazy treasures for 3 bucks --Stag's Leap Petite Syrah and Ch. St. Jean Chardonnay, for instance.

I could find, by trail and error, something decent to go with dinner, but when I went out and faced a huge wine list, I found I could only fall back on the familiar or the splurge wines I knew growing up. Then I attended my first big tasting, ZAP, the annual mega-Zinfandel festival. It was 1997 and they were pouring the 1995 vintage for the most part, and barrel pours of the 1996s. This was the first time I had an opportunity to taste a single varietal, treated in a staggering array of ways, with distinct profiles of the classic regions. Every wine from every neighborhood seemed a little different and I found an affordable way to start collecting, learning about the mysteries of terroir, and training my palate. I could stray away from the "3-Rs" (Ridge, Ravenswood, and Rosenblum) and find little producers that created something different, something that smacked of thier little patch of the earth. 

And I made friends. I found I could make fast friends with winemakers. I was thrilled to have other people to share my wine talk with, other than my family. A bonus for my table-talk-fatigued spouse as well. My brother, my friends and I, would share our favorite finds from ZAP and share them by email and sync them to our first-gen Palm Pilots so we had our lists when we went shopping. 

Fast-forward to 2005 and the rise of the blogosphere. When I saw that you didn't need to have a Masters of Wine to write about wine, it dawned on me that a blog could be my special place to remember the bottles I love, the dishes I want to share, and a public place to put my favorites from big tastings like ZAP. 

So, tonight, I pulled out a nice little Zin. 

2006 Ottimino Zinfandel, Rancho Bello Vineyard

The Rancho Bello Vineyard is just north of the Green Valley AVA, which is near Sebastapol and Occidental. There, the grapes are both  ripened by sun and stressed from lack of water - a good combination for Zinfandel. On nose, it has tinges of nutmeg and cinnamon spices with boysenberry/blackberry fruits that rise from the glass, like a beautiful black fruit cobbler. It's a full-bodied wine and has all the ripeness of a Russian River Valley Zinfandel, without being stewed or prune-y. Winemaker William Knuttel has a great touch with Zin, which can be a crazy uneven ripening beast --so much so that Ottimino is devoted exclusively to Zinfandel. This wine is a steal and offers a clean, classic Zin experience for under $30 a bottle. Recommended. 

2008 was a tense year for growers in Napa. Low yields due to cold temps and shatter. But after the weather started cooperating, it allowed growers to get nice ripeness on the berries that were left. 

Winemaker, Cameron Parry at Chateau Montelena has started to work with bringing in smaller batches of fruit, starting with this vineyard. This new practice should help on uneven ripening years and bring a "small winery" feel to the wines. 

This is a young wine, to be sure, but it's drinking nicely now. What Cameron calls "barrel spice" is pretty forward now, but in 4 or 5 years this should integrate nicely. I like the burnt sugar overtones, mixed with red fruits. This is not a massive, chewy wine, which is one reason I like it. The body is not terribly dense and viscous. I get a touch of meaty tang from the small bit of Cab Franc in there, which I like. SRP is $49/ street prince is around $35.00 and that's a great price for a well made wine like this. 

This was a press sample.

It's for January and it's called "Spark". And it's being hosted by the Corkdork blog. 

Because the number of participants has been declining and the blogosphere is so crowded with other things commanding our attention, it's time to go back to what Sparked your interest in wine blogging in the first place. There was a wine you couldn't get out of your head and couldn't wait to share with the world, there was a grape that you started obsessing over, there were family times where a good bottle would be pulled...something there made you say to yourself that you wanted to blog about wine. And 6 years ago, when we started the first collaborative online tasting group, Wine Blogging Wednesdays, something captured your attention. 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. Write about it and post on January 18th. I will host and do the round-up. Please pass on the word and keep WBW going!

What better way to wind down a stressful work week than a glass of Porto and some chocolate? I know the work week ended on Friday, but my day job took over my life for the last 10 days and my work week ended on Sunday night. 

Everyone should have some NV Porto in their stash for just an occasion. You don't want to crack some crazy vintage Porto on a weeknight. You just want something delicious, fruity, and sweet, not some contemplative expression of years gone by. 

I opened this up and was impressed by the clean fruitiness, gushing with red cherries, blue fruits, and plums. It has a nice subtle spice to it from 5 years in cask and it's a perfect foil for my chocolate choice: Sharffen Berger Nibby. First, as my readers know, I can't eat nuts or peanuts, so these reserve chocolates, which are made in a separate facilty than the regular chocolate bars, are something even I can enjoy. The Nibby has little crunchies of cocoa beans in it, which are very dry so the sweetness of the Cockburn's Special Reserve Porto is the perfect foil. 

Now I can finally get some rest.  

People are always asking me for good value wines, and I have to admit, I get quite a few samples that fall into that category, but very few stand out. This is one I can recommend. At the SRP $9.99, it's a great thing to pair a burger or, in my case, a Monday night pork chop on the barbeque. This is a medium-weight blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, and Barbera that has more of the density and acidity of the Barbera than anything else. The pinch of Petite Sirah gives it a nice color and adds a dusty touch on the nose, which I like, and the fact it weighs in at 13.5% and has plenty of fruit without feeling over-ripe, seals the deal. Nice.

A while ago, I made some New York Strips with an Ancho Chili Sauce I made up, and wanted an interesting foil. As I picked though the cellar, I came across the lovely  Domaine Des Roches Neuves "Terres Chaudes" 2006 Samur Champigny from the master winemaker, Thierry Germain in the Loire. I knew it would be an earthy wonder and thought would be interesting to open a great California Cab Franc as well to contrast. I chose the 2007 Pride Mountain Cab Franc. 

Old school: Smells of blackberries and limestone. A dark inner core protudes through this wild, unfiltered wine. On the palate, it' s an explosion of dense, dark black fruits and has an intreguing herbal note, maybe even a pleasant hint of brettanomyces which gives it a wild field-fruit character. Acid is pronounced and gives it some nervous energy. Unfined and unfiltered, this one can't be confused with a California Cab Franc.

New School: The  2007 Pride Mountain Vineyards Cabernet Franc is suprsingly more spicy on the nose, with no sign of the bret or herbaceousness. On the nose, I do get classic Cab Franc with it's dark boysenberry core and cocoa. But, of course, with the requisite California touch of oak. On the palate, the oak smooths out the texture and adds body.  

2006 Damien Lorieux Bourgueil “Cuvée Tuffeaux”

Postscript to this evening: I opened another great Old School Cab Franc that deserves a mention. From one of the new voices in the Natural Wine movement in France, Damian Lorieux, comes his top Bourgueil which he calls "Tuffeaux". I opened up a 2006 last night and it was amazing. The wine is fermented in cement tanks with no touching wood, which adds texture while keeping the pure fruit flavors come through. This is not nearly as earthy or funky as the Domaine Des Roches Samur above from the same year. It is made with a feminine touch. This was one of those wines that I bought a few years ago and I needed to go back and see how much I paid for it.  Under $14.00? Just amazing.