Archive for September, 2014

A while back, I received an email from Christian Lane, the Director of Sales & Marketing at Viluko Vineyards, asking me where he could submit wine samples for review. In all honesty, I’d never heard of Viluko, but we’re always willing to try new things, so I passed on the address here at Gang Central and immediately did some research into what this operation was all about.

Viluko Vineyards is located on the Sonoma side of the Mayacamas Mountains, between the Russian River and Sonoma Valleys, with 37 acres of CCOF-Certified organic vineyards planted on a 500 acre estate, with Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay planted above the fogline at between 600-1,100 feet. The soil is volcanic, mixed with alluvial uplift, and the vineyard temperatures are moderated by cool night air from the Russian River. Viluko was established in 1998 by proprietors Pedro and Karen Arroyo; the winemaker is the seemingly ubiquitous Timothy Milos. The Arroyo’s four children are also involved in various aspects of the operation, and there is a strong sense of stewardship of the land with the incorporation of diverse practices of sustainability throughout. (Click image to enlarge.)

All this looks great on paper, but how are the wines? As has been the case so often lately, we took possession of the samples sent to us and then gave them plenty of time to recover from their cross-country journey. Here are my impressions of what we found in the bottles.
Read the rest of this entry »

The original title for this blog entry was intended to be “Disaster Wines,” since we had two challenging house-related issues descend upon us during the month of August, and I thought it would be fun to do a mini-reprise of our “Wines with Blackout and Other Earthly Delights” spread from several years ago. One of these issues was a loss of power after a powerful thunder storm rumbled through the metro Detroit area, forcing us to spend an evening with only candlelight to navigate our domicile, candlelight that I had to resort to in order to write notes on a lovely 2007 Tawse Cabernet Franc that Alan Kerr aka Canadian Zinfan had gifted to me many months ago. It would have made a cute little piece, but for one slight problem. The dog ate my tasting notes.

OK, so we don’t really have a dog, and I don’t really know where in the hell those notes on that slip of paper are. Hopefully, they didn’t end up in the recycling and will turn up sometime in the near future, at which point, I will pass them on accordingly, because that Cab Franc was delicious.

Since the other wine for my intended feature was a fine Ridge Zin, I decided to go with an excellent Plan B, and focus on three wines we’ve enjoyed recently from that esteemed producer.

I had a birthday last month. It was probably the worst birthday I’ve ever had, not because of the particular year that turned over on me, but because of the flood we had in our basement the night before. 6 inches of rain in 4 hours will do that. We spent a good part of my “special day” bagging up ruined belongings and dragging them out to the street, where they would finally be picked up over a week later. Tiring, frustrating drudgery, to be sure, but we did rest up afterwards and go to Royal Oak’s wonderful Café Muse for dinner with friends Rod and Hayden Leon and Shar Douglas. Afterwards, we came home and enjoyed this delightful wine, gifted to us by the equally delightful Christina Donley aka “The Donley.” (Click images to enlarge.)
Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this year, our friends at Cornerstone Cellars in Napa Valley decided that a change was needed with their second label, Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Cellars. You can read Cornerstone Managing Partner Craig Camp’s blog regarding their thoughts about that change, but the basic idea was that they wanted to move away from a range of declassified wines that were lower in price and more easygoing (or “comfortable, as Camp put it), and strive for higher quality with fruit from specially selected vineyards. The old Stepping Stone label was abandoned in favor of a black version of the familiar white Cornerstone Cellars label, and thus the Black Label Stepping Stone Cuvée tier was born. We received bottles of their inaugural Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc some months ago, and took our sweet old time getting to the latter, thus the delay in filing this report.

We mostly liked what we had tried from the Stepping Stone tier previously, so I was quite intrigued as to what these are all about. Here are my impressions of the two.
Read the rest of this entry »

I just got wind of what promises to be a very cool series of events put on by our friends at L. Mawby Winery in Sutton’s Bay, Michigan this September and October. They’re partnering with area food trucks each Saturday to pair good food and fine bubblies in what they’re calling Food trucks + bubbly + fall in Leelanau = delicious. ; )

Being a bubblehead my own bad self, this is a concept I can totally get behind. Here’s a rundown on what they have planned:

Fall Food Trucks: We are featuring a delicious array of local food trucks on Saturdays, Sept. 13- Oct. 25, at our tasting room. Visitors may enjoy a delicious sampling that they can savor in our tasting room with a flight or at our TentBar with a glass of wine from L. Mawby, M. Lawrence, or bigLITTLE. They may also want to enjoy a nibble before their next wine trail destination. (Click images to enlarge.)
Read the rest of this entry »

Call it coincidence; call it synchronicity or even serendipity. Perhaps it was a bit of all three, when, during her last visit with us, Christina Donley mentioned in passing a good friend of hers named Jenna who had worked with her at Ridge Vineyards before moving on to a new position at a winery in Washington. Kim immediately picked up on that and said that she had just received an email from Jenna Hannan, inquiring about the possibility of working with our company, Professional Pours, Inc., to sample and promote the wines of Mercer Estates here in Kroger stores throughout southeastern Michigan. “Yup, that’s her,” The Donley grinned.

Since Jenna was Christina’s buddy, that boded well for our getting on well with her too. What’s more, I had already had the opportunity to try and enjoy a few Mercer wines a few years previously, so this proposed arrangement was looking better and better. Jenna and Kim continued to email back and forth, and when an agreement was reached, Ms. Hannan informed us that she’d be in southeastern Michigan in late August, and that she’d love to get together with the four Professional Pours partners (Kim, Shar Douglas, Ken Hebenstreit and this reporter) to let us taste through a representative selection of their wines. It was decided that the best way to show the wines would be to pair them with small plates in a casual setting at Shar and Ken’s house, which we did on August 24th. My impressions are given below, but first, a little background on Mercer Estates. (Click images to enlarge.)

“Respect the land’ has always been our creed, and the land has sustained us for five generations.” – The Mercers

Read the rest of this entry »