Archive for the Tasting Notes from the Underground Category

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For being the 500th person to “Like” Gang of Pour on our Facebook page this summer, our friend Stacey Lind won a casual dinner with Adams/Heritier and Associates at Gang Central. So, armed with some delicious home made apple dumplings with maple sauce and accompanied by her husband Jim, Stacy braved the cross-town traffic recently to join Kim, this taster and our longtime partners in crime Martha and Gary Shea for an evening of food, wine and stimulating conversation.  We got things started with some nice rosé.

2009 Domaine du Pellehaut Côtes de Gascogne Harmonie de Gascone Rosé, 12.5% alc., $8.99: Raspberry pink color, with ripe raspberry, strawberry, rainwater and mineral flavors and aromas; medium bodied, smooth in texture, with good acids and length.  Riper than many southern French rosés, but not unduly so, and a worthy successor to the previous model that we liked so well. Find this wine

Imported by J & J Importers, Ltd., Bloomfield Hills, MI

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Rosés aren’t just warm weather quaffers for Adams-Heritier and Associates, we drink and enjoy them all year around. For instance, these five little pinkies provided some good-to-excellent swigging lately as the air turned rather Autumnal.

2009 Yellow + Blue Spain Rosé Alicante, 1 L Tetre Pac, $9.99: Raspberry pink color; Kim calls this wine “dangerous,” because it’s so quaffable. Rich, ripe and almost pungent, but rather earthy at the same time, which helps balance things out for me. Intense dusty black cherry, strawberry and raspberry flavors and aromas, medium-full bodied, with some structure and tannins to it. This will probably hold and develop for a few years. Almost, but not quite, too intense for the kind of rosé that I prefer, this stays just this side of over-the-top and offers good value for the price, and the tetra pac makes it versatile in that you can take it where glass isn’t practical. Find this wine

Imported by J. SOIF, INC., Chester Springs, Pennsylvania

We were pleasantly surprised at how good the following wine is when we first tried it at the Michigan Food and Wine Showcase last spring, so we’ve been picking up more since and our opinion hasn’t changed one bit.

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South American entrepreneur Ricardo Claro, winemaker Stefano Gandolini and viticulturist Edgardo del Popolo continue to turn out very good to excellent wines at the Doña Paula Estate in Argentina’s Mendoza region, and their second label Los Cardos is also a solid performer in the value-oriented category. Doña Paula owns 1,878 acres of vineyards and the state-of-the-art winery facility is capable of producing over 1 million liters a year. Our friends at Vineyard Brands sent us 6 of their latest efforts to try, and here are our impressions of what we tasted.

2010 Doña Paula Mendoza Sauvignon Blanc Los Cardos, 12% alc., $8.99-9.99: Medium straw color, with a good dose of boxwood/cat spray dominating the flavors and aromas, along with some underlying minerality; medium bodied, with ample acids and a slightly bitter finish. A solid everyday Sauvignon that would be even better with a little more depth of fruit. I’m pretty sure that this is the first wine from the 2010 vintage that we’ve had. Find this wine

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We got our first taste of wines from Cornerstone Cellars‘ second label, the mid-range priced Stepping Stone brand, last October, and we liked what was in those two bottles. So, when I got an email a few weeks ago from Cornerstone General Manager Craig Camp telling me that five new releases were on their way to us for review, I perked up and took notice, looking forward to seeing what these would have to offer. As previously reported, pretty much everything these folks turn out has been first rate, and for the most part, the new batch lives up to that standard. Here are our impressions:

2009 Stepping Stone Napa Sauvignon Blanc Cuveé Musqué, 13.9% alc., $16.00: Clean, somewhat intense medium straw color, with creamy grapefruit flavors and aromas shaded with herbaceous, grassy undertones; medium-to-medium-full bodied, with good acidity and length.  A nice expression of this distinctive sub-variety. Find this wine

2009 Stepping Stone Lake County-Red Hills Corallina Rosé, Grenache/Syrah, 13.9% alc., $16.00: Strawberry pink color; rich and fairly ripe, with strawberry and raspberry flavors and aromas, some subtle mineral underneath and just a hint of wood from the 132 gallon mature puncheons.  Medium bodied and then some, with ample acids and good length.  A little more fruit forward than many of it’s southern French cousins, and perfectly enjoyable, this offers good value for the price and is welcome at our table any time.  A blend of Grenache and Syrah from a vineyard at an elevation of 3000 feet in the Red Hills appellation of Lake County. Find this wine

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Jim Lester - (file photo)

Two of our very favorite people stopped in to visit last week, and as is so often the case when we get together, corks were popped and glasses of good wine were poured and enjoyed with some excellent food. Jim Lester was in town showing his latest Wyncroft wines to prospective buyers, and after he was finished with his day, he brought them over to taste with us as well.

Claudia Tyagi - (file photo)

We were joined by Master Sommelier Claudia Tyagi, who always makes any gathering more fun. The bonus was the fact that Jim has been threatening to cook dinner for us for some time now, and he showed up with grocery bags full of yummy delights (steaks for the grill and mushrooms and veggies for a stir fry) to go with his wines. In that regard, he acquitted himself admirably, revealing yet another talent that he possesses. Add some vintage Steely Dan on the stereo, and what more could we ask for?

We got things started with a worthy companion the Hofer Gruner Veltliner that we like so well. This was only my second or third time tasting Zweigelt, a variety developed in Austria in 1922, by Fritz Zweigelt, who crossed Blaufränkisch and St. Laurent. Based on this one, there’s bound to be plenty more of the stuff in our future!

2008 Bio-Weingut H. u. M. Hofer Zweigelt Niederosterreich, 1L, 12.5% alc., $13.99: Medium garnet color, with earthy cherry and plum flavors and aromas and a hint of pepper on the finish. Medium bodied, with moderate structure and very well received by all four of us. Likes a bit of a chill. About it, Jim remarked, “At first whiff, it reminds me of a cross between Dolcetto and Cotes du Rhone.” More, please! Find this wine

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Since we started regularly reviewing wines made by the Perrin family in the fall of 2006, we’ve gotten to taste quite a few and our impressions have almost always been to the positive. In fact, the worst notes I can remember posting are of the luke-warm variety; I don’t think we’ve ever actually had a bad wine from them. We recently tasted through six new samples, and guess what? Nothing has changed. There may be a few surprises, but the wines all range from pretty good to very good, and if there are no real knockouts, there’s something to be said for consistency. Here are my impressions of this latest batch.

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2009 La Vieille Ferme Côtes du Luberon Blanc, Grenache Blanc 30%, Bourboulenc 30%, Ugni Blanc 30%, Roussanne 10%, 13% alc., $7.99-8.99: Clean, medium color, with white tree fruit flavors and aromas; moderately ripe fruit and quite food friendly, with very good acids and intensity. Find this wine

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I first became aware of Julie Johnson’s Tres Sabores label back during Zap 2003. At that time, they were making quite a splash by operating on the novel model of producing three Zinfandels made by three different winemakers (Karen Culler, Ken Bernards and Rudy Zuidema ), all from the same fruit source. The wines were, by all accounts, quite good, and also quite distinct from each other.

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Mac McDonald - click to enlarge

To look at Vision Cellars owner/winemaker Mac McDonald in his overalls and straw hat, one might almost expect to find him singing the blues at The Ark in Ann Arbor, instead of conducting a tasting of his wines at venues such as Shiraz or the Detroit Athletic Club, and his down-home demeanor and laid back drawl do nothing to dissuade one from that notion. In fact, Mac is both a very fine winemaker and a shrewd judge of related matters of terroir, such as soil (he’s been known to actually taste it to determine its quality and viability for growing grapes) and season (he’s allowing for a larger crop this vintage, due to the unusually heavy amount of rainfall that California received during the winter). Read the rest of this entry »

Warning sign on gate entering Rosati's ranch - click to enlarge

Who might have guessed that, in southern Mendocino County, Cabernet Sauvignon is being produced from vines that came from cuttings originally sourced at Ridge Vineyards’ Jimsomare Ranch.  As unlikely as it may sound, it’s true, and while it’s not intentionally kept secret, you probably would never know unless you happened to stumble upon the Rosati Family Wines website or had chance to communicate with  Allan Bree aka califusa, who discovered this little known fact during his tireless investigations of all things Ridge.

Rosati hilltop vines - click to enlarge

The Rosati story is a fascinating one.  Mario Rosati is a lawyer, and his very first client was Ridge Vineyards.  He would go on to serve on Ridge’s Board of Directors for 15 years or more, and became good friends with many of the principals there, including David Bennion.  As Mario’s practice grew, he and his wife Danelle bought a 1,500 acre property just across the county line from Sonoma; you literally turn right off the freeway to access their sprawling property.  While visiting the Rosatis, Bennion suggested that Cabernet Sauvignon might grow well at the higher elevations, and, in 1987, cuttings from Jimsomare were planted and continue to thrive on Mario’s favorite hilltop setting, at around 900-950 feet above sea level. Read the rest of this entry »

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This week, I had the opportunity to try a couple of Italian reds imported by our friends at US Wine Imports in Ann Arbor. As previously reported, US Wine Imports specializes in uncovering and distributing wines from boutique producers from Europe and California, selecting small batches (less than 1000 cases each) that balance quality and value. Both of these are fine examples, as they are very pleasing, both to the palate and the pocketbook. Read the rest of this entry »