Archive for the Tasting Notes from the Underground Category

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I first tried the 2008 versions of these two Spanish reds from Verasol about a year ago. I liked those then, but when I tried to find out more about the producer, there was precious little information available on the Interweb. Not much has changed during the ensuing months, as this is still the only brief blurb I can find:

“Verasol searches up-and-coming regions around Spain to find old vines with native grapes. The wines are vinified by the well-known and highly respected winemaker Pedro Sarrion. All the wines are raised and aged in tank so the native varietals and the soil from the region can speak loudly. They represent great values.”

The wines are imported by the excellent José Pastor Selections, whose mission is an admirable one:

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In the spirit of the early days of Gang of Pour, we offer this report on yet another episode of wretched excess with our longtime partner-in-crime, Alan Kerr, aka Canadian Zinfan. Do we really go back to 1997 with this renegade Brit?! We do, and we have the reports to prove it! The occasion was the renewal of our seasonal Holiday Hijinx, and we were not without ample ammunition to enliven the festivities. Dinner consisted of lamb chops, fava beans and rapini, and the wines included two Rhone Rangers, a pair from Chateauneuf du Pape, and, in the finest Gang tradition, two Ridge Geezers. We got things started with an Ontario sparkler that Alan had gifted to us the previous year. Click images to enlarge.

2006 Hillebrand Estates Showcase Sparkling Riesling Niagara Peninsula VQA, 12% alc., $35.00 Can.: Clean, medium color, with a fine, very active bead and ample mousse; bone dry, showing excellent varietal typicity, all Granny Smith green apple, with chalky mineral undertones. Medium body plus, with good acidity and good length. A fine little sparkler from Niagara wine country. Find this wine
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From the Quick-but-by-no-means-Dirty Dept.:

2009 Cuvee des 3 Messes Basses Ventoux, 60% Grenache, 20% Cinsault, 20% Syrah, 14.5% alc., 1.5 L, $16.99: This hearty southern Rhône red from our good friends at J et R Selections/Wines of Distinction in Bloomfield Hills, MI is an out-and-out QPR All Star, delivering more pleasure than it seems one has the right to expect these days for so few dollars. Clean garnet in color, with modest aromatics that only hint at the rich dark plum and berry flavors shaded with some leather and underscored with a solid anchor or earth; subtle hints of violet and licorice add to the appeal. Full bodied, with structure to take it two years or so down the road, but I doubt that 10 cases would make it into 2013 at our house. This deserves serious consideration, nay, this will BE our house red for the coming several months. Find this wine

Reporting from Day-twah,

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The more wines we taste from our friends at Cornerstone Cellars in the Napa and Willamette Valleys, the more we admire the great work they continue to do. Consider, if you will, the six samples from the 2009 vintage that we tried recently. Each exhibits the consistent high quality that we’ve come to expect from this producer, and does so with what is for us, an engaging and appealing style. We began our survey by pouring glasses of the 2nd vintage of Cornerstone’s Pinot Noir, which proved to be a worthy successor to the 2008 model that we reviewed in September of 2010. (click images to enlarge)

2009 Cornerstone Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, 13.9% alc., $50.00: Clean ruby garnet color; black cherry aromatics shaded with earth and mushroom follow through nicely on the palate, with oak influence well in the background. Medium-to-medium full bodied, with good intensity of flavor, smooth texture and deceptive structure that should take it several years down the road. A wine of class, substance and appeal, this is some very nice Pinot Noir indeed. Sourced from five Willamette Valley AVAs; Eola Hills (37%), Yamhill-Carlton (21%), Chehalem Mountain (21%), Ribbon Ridge (13%) and Dundee Hills (8%). 14 months in French oak barrels, 60% of which were new. Find this wine

As previously reported, the Stepping Stone line strives to offer high quality at lower prices than wines with the Cornerstone label, and the following two selections succeed completely in that regard.

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We received a review sample of the 2009 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc a few months ago, and although we tried it after a week or so of letting it rest up from its cross-country journey, I’ve been rather slow in posting said review. It turns out that this isn’t a totally bad thing, because a few weeks ago, we were also sent a bottle of the ’09 Rouge to try, thereby allowing me to combine our impressions on both selections. If you’ve followed our rants and raves for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed that we’re big fans of Tablas Creek, and these two only serve to reinforce our admiration for this fine producer. Click images to enlarge.

The grapes for both the white and red Esprit de Beaucastel bottlings are grown on Tablas Creek’s 120-acre certified organic estate vineyard.

2009 Tablas Creek Vineyard Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc Paso Robles, 62% Roussanne, 26% Grenache Blanc, 12% Picpoul Blanc, 13.5% alc., $40.00 SRP: Clean medium straw to pale gold in color; expressive aromas of white tree fruit, especially peaches, with some apricot in support. Generous flavors echo with some underlying minerality. Full-bodied, rich, ripe and slightly oily, with excellent acids and length. As stated, this is quite approachable, but really, it would be a shame not to give it several years in the cellar to develop into all it can be, which is to say, a very fine white Rhone blend. Find this wine
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Alan Kerr (aka Canadian Zinfan) and this taster got it into our heads that it might be interesting, not to mention fun, to try a small group of Cabernet Franc bottlings from Michigan and Niagara for comparisons sake. It wasn’t hard for us to round up four, and we gathered one evening not long ago to see what they had to offer. We dismissed with formalities, other than my taking notes, and simply enjoyed them for what each had to offer; we didn’t score them or even pick a favorite. We got things started with a Michigan white. Click images to enlarge.

2002 Wyncroft Lake Michigan Shore Chardonnay Avonlea Vineyard, $35, 14.8% alc.: The years have not been kind to this wine since we first tasted it in 2006, if this bottle is any indication. Rich golden color; full bodied, with good acids and length, but the pineapple, pear and butterscotch flavors and aromas are overwhelmed by way too much oak (1/3 new, 1/3 one year and 1/3 two year old Allier). This was actually better in ’06, but the oak is so out of balance that we didn’t finish the bottle. Hopefully, this was an off bottle, as we’ve had other Wyncroft Chards of similar age that performed MUCH better than this one. Find this wine

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Recently, our friends at Vineyard Brands sent us samples from three Argentine producers whose wines they have introduced into the U.S. market. All eight of these proved to be some of the most enjoyable selections we’ve tried from South America in some time, and we would recommend any and all of them. Included here with our notes are links to pages giving background information on each of these wineries.  Click label images to enlarge.

Altos de San Isidro from the very northern Cafayate:

2011 Altos de San Isidro Torrontes Cafayate, 13.5% alc., $16 SRP: Clean medium color, with the typical orange blossom and honeysuckle nose, though perhaps not as effusive as with some models; still, it’s very pretty and follows through on the palate in a restrained manner, with a core of ripe red and green apple flavors and a note of mineral underneath it all. Medium-full bodied, rich and almost oily, not unlike Gewurztraminer in that regard; ripe, but not excessively so. Enough acidity to work well with food, and nice length on the finish; a pleasure to sip on while playing the old 12-string. 8 hour cold maceration and the cool temperature fermentation at 22° C.; no malolactic fermentation, no oak aging. Find this wine
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We happened upon these two delightful wines last Friday, whilst perusing the selection in a department I once managed in a previous lifetime. (It seems so long ago!) We’ve reported on them in the past, and indeed, I may have brought them into that department myself. Their presence seems to illustrate a problem that winemaker Steve Edmunds had in Michigan in that the last two distributors that carried his wines didn’t seem to know how to market them, and the buying public has been generally indifferent towards them here. (I put them in as many hands as I could, but I was just one simple country wine retailer…) Because of this, Edmunds doesn’t bother with our state anymore, which is a real shame, because his wines are wonderful. We enjoyed both of these with Kim’s birthday dinner, and they paired quite nicely with the no-hormone/antibiotic Delmonico steak and shrimp stir fry with fresh mushrooms and snow peas that we shared. It had been a little more than five years since we’d had the first selection.
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Our friends at Pernod Ricard sent us some things to try recently, and as we are always up to try new things, we gave them a go. (Actually, I’ve enjoyed Mumm Napa Brut Prestige on more than a few occasions, but it’s always a good thing to collect the latest data points, eh?)

While New Zealand’s Stoneleigh has been on my radar for at least a few years now, I’d only tasted their Sauvignon Blanc on one previous occasion, and didn’t take notes at that time. My general impression was favorable then, so I expected wines of good quality, and that’s what we found with these two.

2010 Stoneleigh Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, 13% alc.: Clean color, pale to medium straw; mineral, moss and gooseberry nose follows through on the palate, where the moss fades, the mineral steps forward and the tart gooseberry holds its ground. Medium body, good intensity and varietal character, and the requisite acids that should be expected from the variety, no matter where it’s produced. Nothing flashy here, just a straightforward Sauvignon that performs well with a variety of foods and as an aperitif. I like this at a price point anywhere between $9.97 and $13.99, but when it starts to creep above that ($17.99 at Wine.com ?!), I’ll pass. Find this wine
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Periodically, we dig into our stash of Sean Thackrey wines here at Adams, Heritier and Associates to find out how this or that is coming along. The latest items on our agenda were two vintages of Mr. Thackrey’s flagship bottling, Orion. These are wines that have a track record for cellaring a decade or more, but sometimes, you just have to pull the cork on one or two to see where they’re at in their evolution. These were the first Orions we’ve had since our visit with Sean back in May, 2010. Here’s our report on what we tasted.

2004 Sean Thackrey Orion California Native Red Wine, Rossi Vineyard, St. Helena, 14.4% alc. Find this wine
2005 Sean Thackrey Orion California Native Red Wine, Rossi Vineyard, St. Helena, 14.9% alc. Find this wine
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