Archive for the Tasting Notes from the Underground Category

So we got this box of five wines for review from Tablas Creek Vineyard in late autumn, but one of them had been broken en route. Arrangements were made to have a replacement sent, so we put the other four down in the cellar from heck to rest up after their ride across country. When the replacement arrived, we put that one down to rest as well. We really took our time getting around to trying this latest batch, and instead, we started off with two that were left over from a previous shipment late last spring. (That was the one that included the two fine rosés we reported on at that time.) Don’t ask me how it happened that we never got around to trying them when they came, we just didn’t. Anyway, we finally made it through all SEVEN bottles more than two months after we received that box of five with one broken bottle, and I’m happy to report that everything was in order and that they were all of the kind of high quality that we’ve come to expect from one of our very favorite producers. Here are my impressions, listed in the order they were tasted.

2012 Tablas Creek Paso Robles Vermentino, 100% Vermentino, 12.5% Alc., $27 SRP: Clean, medium color; crisp and refreshing, with nice lime citrus, green apple and mineral intensity. Medium bodied and more, with excellent acids and good length. Vermentino is one of those quintessential seafood wines, and this is a beautiful match for Kim’s grilled Ahi tuna and pesto shrimp. (I’m intrigued by the recommendation to pair this with Cream of Grilled Asparagus Soup at the link above.) The grapes were whole cluster pressed, and fermented using native yeasts in stainless steel. 1300 Cases Produced. Find this wine
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It’s been a tough season so far for my Detroit Red Wings. Injuries have plagued the team, and they’ve had trouble scoring goals in the numbers we’ve become accustomed to over the past 20+ campaigns. As I write this entry, the Wings are fighting for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, an unthinkable situation just a few years ago. During one recent dry spell, when my red Rhône mojo just didn’t seem to be working, I decided to switch and see what some good Michigan Riesling could do for the boys. I’d been looking for the right opportunity to open this wine for several months, and I finally just said, “What the puck.” As it turns out, I made a good choice on two counts.

2011 Chateau Grand Traverse Old Mission Peninsula Riesling Lot 49, $12.7% alc., $19.97: Clean, medium color, with mineral-laced green apple and quince flavors and aromas and a rich core of Riesling fruit. Decidedly dry, but not bone dry; medium bodied, with ample acids and good length. I drank half the bottle that night, and finished it the next. On the second evening, the wine takes on a subtle note of apricot and just starts to hint at some petrol. This is drier than CGT’s Whole Cluster bottling, with more depth, intensity and aging potential. It’s a special single vineyard block bottling of Alsace Clone #49 Riesling from winery’s Bailiwick Vineyard, made in a “hands-off” manner. Find this wine

The good news is that, not only is this an excellent example of just how good Michigan Riesling gets, but the Wings won their game that night too!

Reporting from Day-twah,

geo t.

Good things do eventually make their way to the far flung bastions of civilization here in the outer provinces, and, happily, those include many of the offerings from Bonny Doon Vineyards. You can always count on Randall Grahm and crew to come up with something new and interesting, if not downright off-the-wall. We reported on a brilliant Sparkling Albariño last spring, and in this latest group we tried, we were intrigued to find a sparkling cider. That was followed up a few weeks later with another surprise, a mostly Bordeaux blend, composed predominantly of (gasp) Cabernet Sauvignon, never one of Grahm’s preferred varieties!

We also tried some of Doon’s more usual efforts, and as is almost always the case, we were mucho impressed. I’ll start this report with our impressions of the cider and “claret.”

2011 Bonny Doon Querry? Pear Apple Quince Cider, 58% pear, 33% apple, 9% quince, 6.9% alc., $14 SRP: Rich, golden color, with a fine, active bead and refreshing effervescence in the mouth. All three fruit components are all recognizable in the flavor profile, but there is a seamless quality to it as well. The percentage of pear in the blend makes this a little less pungent and intense than might probably be the case with a more apple-driven cider, but I like a good perry, so that’s fine by me. This one is tons of fun, and I’ve tried it twice now. Naturally fermented with indigenous yeast and secondarily fermented en bouteille à la méthode champenoise. Pears: Bartlett, Seckel; apples: Pink Pearl, Macintosh, Pippin, Crabs (variety unknown); Pineapple and other unnamed quince. Find this wine
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Last April, Kim and I drove up to Traverse City to attend the Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association Media Weekend. After checking into our hotel, we did what we do whenever we go to TC, and booked straight over to Left Foot Charley Winery and Tasting Room. It’s right in town, we don’t have to drive to either the Old Mission or Leelanau Peninsulas, and we know we’re going to taste some of the best wines in Michigan. As luck would have it on this occasion, owner/winemaker Bryan Ulbrich was in the house; he took us back into the production area, and gave us a taste of several tank and barrel samples. Everything was at least good (some parcels were meant for blending, rather that standing alone, so while not shining on their own, they would make important contributions to their intended greater whole), and then there were things like the then-yet-to-be-bottled 2012 LFC Pinot Blanc, which we could already tell was quite yummy. One of the most intriguing samples that Bryan poured us was a 2012 Sauvignon Blanc, one of the first from Michigan we’d ever tasted as far as I can remember, but as it turned out, by no means the first that has been produced. (I say as far as I can remember, because some years back, Kim and I sat on Joel Goldberg’s Michwine.com tasting panel, and I seem to vaguely recall that we tried one or two back then, but I have no notes to verify that.)

The next day, during the LPVA Media Loop Tour, we stopped into the tasting room of one of the newest Leelanau producers, Laurentide, and we got a taste of another Michigan Sauvignon, this one grown right there on French Road, and made by our friend Shannon Walters. That one was from the 2011 vintage, and it caught the attention of everyone in our group. So, the variety was making inroads in the Grand Traverse Bay region, not unlike the upstart plantings of Gruner Veltliner at Chateau Grand Traverse and Chateau Fontaine that we’ve reported on previously.
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Gang of Pour was created back in 1997 as an offshoot of our involvement in the internet wine community, on such forums as those operated by Wine Spectator, Robin Garr, Brad Harrington and others. Over the years, we got to know many people virtually through said forums, and got to meet many of them in person through “offlines,” tasting gatherings in various parts of the US and Canada. Several of the people we met have contributed to Gang of Pour over the years, and one gentleman who still does is “Florida Jim” Cowan. We first met Jim in person back in 2001, during a road trip to North Carolina, and have met up with him on several other occasions since. We found him to be every bit as charming and gracious as his online persona; here’s what I said about Jim when we welcomed him as a contributor to our pages in 2010.

It’s no exaggeration to describe “Florida” Jim Cowan as one of the most respected and admired commentators in the online wine community. A true gentleman, Jim is the consummate voice of reason, with a common sense view of all things wine-related that resonates strongly with his many friends and readers.

Jim is more than just a commentator, though; he caught the winemaking bug after working in the vineyards and wineries with Russell Bevan, of Bevan Cellars, and Steve Edmunds, of Edmund St. John, during the fall of both 2006 and 2007. He made his first wine in 2007 and has been making wine every year since then, establishing his Cowan Cellars with his wife, Diane Arthur. We first tasted one of Jim’s wines in 2009, and while it received mixed reception among the rednecks we drank it with, this taster was most impressed.

A few months ago, Kim and I decided that it was high time to see how Cowan Cellars was coming along, so we ordered up a case. Kim wanted to throw a dinner party featuring some of the wines, and I thought it would be fun to try the two Sauvignon Blancs, the Pinot Noir and the Syrah. In his own words, Jim makes “wines that accompany food well, which is very important because I also love the food that my lovely wife, Diane, prepares for our daily meals – usually vegetarian, and always light yet flavorful.” In that regard, Kim contacted Diane and set her menu based on some of her suggestions. We invited three of our best friends in the wine biz to join us, Rebecca Poling, Michelle DeHayes and Anne Keller Klump. We got things started with a very fine Left Coast sparkler that Rebecca brought over.
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Our good friend and colleague, Alan Kerr aka Canadian Zinfan, contacted me recently and asked if I would procure a bottle of the 2012 Chateau Grand Traverse Old Mission Peninsula Whole Cluster Riesling for him. It seems that he had tried one a few nights prior and was quite impressed with this fine representative of Michigan Riesling, especially at the Costco price of $10.99. I was pleased that Chef Kerr so enjoyed this little gem, as he has no shortage of fine Riesling available to him right in his proverbial back yard on the Niagara Peninsula, and, of course, we’ve been fans of all of Sean O’Keefe’s specialty projects for some years now.

I was happy to honor Alan’s request, and was reminded that we’ve had both the 2012 Whole Cluster and its predecessor in the last few months, and I needed to transcribe my notes and put them online. Both are listed as “medium dry” on the dry-to-sweet scale on the back label. Here are my impressions of each.
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Last week, Kim and I, along with our good friend Ken Hebenstreit, were most pleased to attend a Louis/Dressner tasting at the West Bloomfield Plum Market. We really like what Madeline Triffon MS has done with Plum’s wine program, and we’ve been big fans of the Louis/Dressner for many years. The event also gave us the opportunity to renew acquaintances with LD National Sales Manager Josefa Concannon. I was not really surprised to see that I have at one point or another reviewed every one of the wines being poured. As Josefa remarked, “Yup, these are all our best sellers here in this market.”

Every selection was excellent, but after tasting through them all, there was one that really stood out for us, and it was, perhaps surprisingly, a Chardonnay, different vintages of which I’ve reviewed on at least three previous occasions.
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It’s no secret that many of our favorite wines come from France’s Rhône valley; we enjoy them all year round, winter, spring, summer and fall. I’ve been compiling various notes on what we’ve been trying over the past few months in an effort to catch up on my reports, and these six jumped right out at me. They’re all really good; some are more ready to drink than others, and a couple of them really want some time. If you see any of them out there, my recommendation is to buy, buy, buy. ‘Nuff said; read on, McDuff. (Click images to enlarge.)

2010 Font-Sane Ventoux Vieilles Vignes, 70% Grenache, 30% Syrah, 13.5% alc., $12.99: We’ve enjoyed this fine producer’s Gigondas last June, and also back in 2010, and while this isn’t the first time we’ve had their Ventoux VV, it is the first time I’ve reviewed it. With clean, dark color, it offers up dog fur and earthy, leathery black fruit that sets the tone for the wine’s personality in both flavor and aroma in a way that I find appealing; it also has a slightly sunbaked quality to it that I like. Full bodied and structured for some years in the cellar, this is a solid, more-than-just-serviceable red. Give it some air and it pleases now; give it another three-to-five years in the cellar and it should be even better. Excellent QPR (quality-price-ratio) here. Find this wine

Imported by AHD Vintners, Ltd., Warren, MI
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It had been a few years since we last tried anything from our stash of Sean Thackrey Orion, so I decided it was time again, and found two opportunities to do so recently. It’s hard to find better California reds than Orion, and once in a while, you just have to mine some data points, right? It wasn’t a conscious decision to open the same two we tried that last time and see how they’d progressed; I just wanted to open something good, and these are the ones that jumped out at me down in “the cellar from hell.”

Kim and I decided to open the ’05 one night, just because we could; actually, there may have been a celebration of some kind involved. Whatever the case, it has definitely gone through some changes since 2011. (Click on images to enlarge.)

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As previously reported, Shannon aka Shawn Walters sent me home from my June road trip to Traverse City and Leland, Michigan, with a selection of wines that he’d made for various clients. Besides selections from Bowers Harbor and Chateau Fontaine, he also gifted me with selections from Boathouse Vineyards, Blustone Vineyards and Verterra Winery. We’re very familiar with Verterra, of course, but not so much with Boathouse and Blustone. The intrepid reader can follow the links to their respective websites and pretty much learn about as much as we know about them, but I promise, my next trip up to Leelanau, I will be knocking on their doors to get a better taste and a bigger picture of what these two promising producers are up to. (Click images to enlarge.)

All five of the wines tasted here give yet further testimony to the great strides that have been made in the Leelanau Peninsula with regard to wine growing and winemaking in the past several years, and Shannon (it’s hard not to call him Shawn, but Shannon is his given name, and he goes by that now) is at the very forefront of this movement. Here are my impressions of each.
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