Shiraz-Viognier (Barossa, Australia) 2003 - Yalumba

The syrah/shiraz varietal is one of my favorites. Whether grown in France or Australia, the grapes make killer wines with some real funky flavors and aroma (though I prefer Australia). Yalumba is known for making some pretty serious wines. Their Octavius is an unbelievable old vine shiraz -- though probably out of our league (i.e. price range).

This particular wine (apparently called "Baby Octavius") is a blend of 95% shiraz and 5% viognier, which is actually a white varietal. I really like this combination. Plum, honey, and vanilla are most prominent in the nose. It has a chewy and smooth feel on the palate. The viognier gives it a slight sweetness which accents the rich blackberry taste well. This wine is not very tannic, and I found that letting it breath longer than 20 minutes didn't do much for the flavors. It is ready to drink almost immediately.

I highly recommend this wine, and I am definitely excited about trying some others of this style. I know rawls recently bought d'Arenberg's shiraz-viognier blend (The Laughing Magpie), and I am waiting to see how he likes their version.

Gessami [Blend] (Penedes, Spain) - 2004

An absolutely fantastic white wine. Drinking it was a pleasure from the first sip to the last. Sometimes, you take the first sip of a wine, and immediately know that it is unlike anything you've had before; a whole new corner of the world of wine is suddenly opened to you. Drinking this wine was such an experience. I literally said "wow" after the first sip.

When I first tasted the wine, I knew there was something unique to it, but I couldn't place my finger on it. There were obvious and known flavors - it was full of ripe pears, apricots, pears, etc. - but underneath it all there was something distinct, familiar, and unnamable. I thought perhaps a fragrant spice like rosemary or thyme. As the wine opened up, the familiarity of the bouquet began to infuriate me. I simply could not place a name to the scents and flavors I was getting. Finally, in the last few sips, it clicked - flowers. The combination of fragrant flowers and rich, ripe tree fruits was something else.

This wine is a Muscat/Savignon Blanc blend (more on that below). With Muscat you normally think of a cloyingly sweet, syrupy wine. Not so with this. It had a dryness similar to an Albarino, though perhaps not as bracing. The body was medium-full, with a definite weight and thickness to it. The structure was great, full throughout but not one note. There were waves of flavor hitting different areas of your mouth in a cascade of flavor.

I don't truly "know" much about this wine other than what was given to me on the tiny card that came out with it (it was part of a 3 glass flight of Iberian wines that I had with my meal, and was the definite standout). Other than a small card which identified the wine and the grapes, I didn't learn the maker or the price. I've done some research on google and believe I have found the bottle in question. The producer appears to be called Gramona and the actual blend is 70% muscat and 30% sb (60% is muscat from Alexandria and 10% from Fontignac - don't ask me what the hell that means). Apparently, Gessami means jasmine though I can't confirm that was the floral notes I was smelling - I'm just not that good. Apparently, the big RP himself likes this wine but we don't quote experts on this site. So if you want to see what he had to say you'll have to make use of google [note - he did not detect jasmine].

Online retailers appear to be selling the wine for somewhere between $15-$20 a bottle. Go get it. Now.

Albarino (Rias Baixas, Spain) 2005 - Burgans

Albarino is a great wine - full of flavor, dry, crisp clean. I can't say enough about this grape. This wine was quite enjoyable, although perhaps a bit young. I say this because it is a bit too alcoholic, but still delectable. That's right, I said delectable.

The flavors I got were pear, green granny smith apple, and peaches. All very ripe. The wine has a very nice dryness, yet it doesn't take away from the fruity quality of the wine.

The crispness of the wine makes it great to pair with food. I had it with a mix of items - lebanese, thai, and some italian cheese. It went well with just about everything except perhaps the spiciest of the thai (panang). The garlicky lebanese dishes didn't overpower the wine at all, in fact it managed to cut through the food.

As this post is starting to drag, I will simply say that for those who haven't had Albarino before, this is a good one to start with.

Update: Earlier I said this was a bit young and too alcoholic. I may have been a bit premature:

"Albariño wines are particularly suited to seafood due to their bracing acidity (Jancis Robinson calls it "razor-sharp."). This grape's inherent tartness should be embraced in youth, for wines made from albariño do not age well, and the vibrant aromas begin to noticeably fade within months of bottling."

This wine truly is bracing/razor sharp (it does really help with the food). I stand by the notion that this is a bit more unbalanced than some of the other Albarinos I've enjoyed, but apparently that is not due to its youth.

Malbec (Mendoza, Argentina) 2004 - Susana Balbo

Quick Note - this is actually a blend: 90% Malbec, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon.

This wine to me is a quintessential Malbec - full of possibility, but ultimately just a shade disappointing. I enjoyed this wine, as well as Malbec generally, but, like so many I've had, it lacks the little extra that would put it over the top.

Overall, this is an extremely drinkable wine. Garnett in color. "Medium-full" bodied - not huge, but certainly no slouch. It was definitely not overpowering or overly-alcoholic. Moderately dry, but soft up front. The structure is everything that's great about Malbec. Ridiculously smooth - I mean silk. It's both a plus and a minus. For all its smoothness, it seems to lack the structural complexity that really makes a wind stand out in my mind.

Flavors - dark red/purple fruits (someday I'll be able to say which ones - I'm going to say raspberry/blackberry). The oaking is evident but not overpowering. As it opened up I got some cocoa and tobacco notes.

As always, the bouquet is something I struggle with. I tried some nasal spray which helped me decongest, but in the end I struggled sniffing this wine out. The bouquet was at once pungent and non-descript. Maybe it's the fact that I have no nose, but I just couldn't pick out any traits in particular. Rich, ripe, fruity - all are applicable and as far as I dare go.

All in all - a solid wine. Enjoyable but not remarkable. I think anyone who drinks it will enjoy it. I definitely want to keep perusing Malbecs in hopes that I find something to blow me away.

Wine Myths

A good article on the myths/received wisdom that surround wine and why many of them are simply untrue.

Syrah (Tuscany, Italy) 2001- Fontodi "Case Via"

Sitting here in Boston drinking a previous-night-opened bottle with su madre. I guess that would mean this wine has had more than enough time to breath. Not sure how that is going to affect the taste. I could probably tell you what it tasted like last night when it was first opened, but that was pretty late and was about the 7th and final bottle to be opened. So needless to say, I dont exactly clearly recall what it was like at the time. I guess you would call this round two.

Coloration of the wine is a very deep purple. The first scent I get when I shove my nose into the glass is damp, rotting forest. Not so sure whether that is the result of the extensive "breathing" it has endured, or whether thats what I should be smelling. There is also a good amount of strawberry and just a little vanilla. The taste of this syrah is terrific. Very rich. A hint of peach with a lot of what su madre calls "smoked cotton candy." excellent.

DC French Wine Society

So it turns out that there is a French Wine Society here that, in affiliation with the French Embassy, does numerous tastings of and classes on French wines. I am excited.

Sadly, I found out about it one day after they did their special Burgundy tasting class. But next Monday is a grand Burgundy tasting. 200 wines, including a special selection of wine under $35 for those of us who are cash strapped.

Memebership is $50, but it saves you about $30 on each event. That's a pretty ridiculous deal. They also allow you to sign up for 2 memberships for $80. I'm not sure, but I'm hoping that works like a guest pass so I can bring who I please. I'll let you know...

Their fall class schedule is here.

Touch are you in?

Mindless (Conformity, France) 2is4 - The Hobgoblin of Little Minds

Agreed on the naming convention. Henceforth there will be conformity in the titling of posts. (Although, really I think the search engine is smart enough that it will look for parts of strings).

On the Austrian Riesling whose name Marvs also cannot remember, I agree in full. It wsa an amazing bottle. I didn't get petrol, but that is an interesting description. I did however geta very refreshing, cleansing, astringent feel that Touch accurately likened to the feeling of eating key lime pie. Reeeefreshing. Also, there were some fruits - I noted apricot.

Riesling (Alsace, France) 2004 - Josmeyer "Le Dragon"

I really didn't want to start my first post with a white wine. So many people tend to look down upon, or pass over, whites when making their selections in a restaurant or in the store. Or they just order a white by the glass when eating fish. Nevertheless, my friend Bill has introduced me to some white wines that (to me) completely stand up to reds in their complexity and body. I now look for a certain few white varietals that I really enjoy drinking on their own. So I take back my opening statement and I am happy to start off with a varietal that I really used to hate.

You don't find many rieslings on wine lists that aren't typically sweet and almost "syrupy" tasting. I have been avoiding rieslings precisely because of that reason. But, recently I sampled a bottle of Austrian riesling that was not even in the same ballpark as what you would normally associate with the varietal. It was the dry, gritty, petrol taste of this particular riesling that renewed my interest. I don't remember the name or year, but it was damn good. Since then I have set out to find a similar tasting reislings, and discovered the Josmeyer.

The Josmeyer "Le Dragon" really had that same gritty petrol taste that I love, not to the same extent as the Austrian that I first tried, but a near approximation. The aroma of this Alsacian riesling was slightly orange-citrus, with a base note of oily petrol. The taste was again, gritty and dry with strong petrol flavors and a little apple.

Thus, I now know that both Austria and France (Alsace) produce some great dry rieslings in the style that I prefer. Will keep looking for others. And will definitely keep my other posts shorter.

Suggestion for titling your posts

In order to make this blog easily searchable and scannable, I would like to propose a title format for all of our posts. If you are blogging about a particular wine I think it would be good for us to follow a standard format. On the other hand, if you are blogging about something random, then by all means make your title random.

The format I suggest we use for each post about a specific bottle is as follows:

Primary Varietal(s) (Region, Country) Year- Name of Vineyard/Producer "Name of Wine (if applicable)"

So lets say, for example, you happen to have drank a bottle of, oh, I dont know, a 1997 Chateau Mouton Rothschild -- yeah probably not gonna happen very often with us-- here would be the format of the title:

Cabernet Sauvignon blend (Pauillac, France) 1997- Chateau Mouton Rothschild

Or say you happen to have grabbed a sweet discount on a bottle of 2005 d'Arenberg Lovegrass Shiraz from Arrowine or The Wine Source -- a more likely situation -- here would be the title:

Shiraz (McClaren Vale, Australia) 2005- d'Arenberg "The Lovegrass"

... just a suggestion