Archive for the Tasting Notes from the Underground Category

Periodically, we receive samples of some of their client’s wares from the public relations and brand marketing agency, Donna White Communications. The wines are always good, and come from diverse growing regions from around the world. The latest offerings are from a Spanish producer that I was vaguely aware of previously, but have never actually tried. These two selections also gave us the opportunity to taste some things from an appellation we have had very little exposure to, Bierzo, located in the province of Castilla y Leon. I’ve not posted any notes from this region until now, but Canadian Zinfan has once or twice, the most recent being back in 2015.

Bodegas Godelia is apparently a relatively new operation, owned by one Vicente Garcia Vazquez. There are 35 hectares of estate vineyards, and another 15 hectares farmed under contract, some as old as 100 years. According to Europvin, their importer, “All picking is by hand, loaded into small plastic crates and then chilled 24-48 hours at -5°C in a reefer container. This causes them to split and begin maceration on the skins.

The white grapes are gently pressed while still semi-frozen, and then settled off the gross lees. Fermentation in stainless steel. The Blanco remains in tank on the fine lees (with lees stirring) for 5 months before bottling. The Tinto spends 12 months in 400 and 500 litre oak casks (90% French, 10% American, 1/3 new oak.”

2015 Bodegas Godelia Blanco Bierzo, 80% Godello, 20% Doña Blanca, 13.5% alc., $17 SRP: Clean, medium color, with a little lemony citrus on the nose at first; no lightweight by any means, this shows good depth and intensity on the palate, with mineral driven lemon-lime-citrus flavors. Medium-full bodied and somewhat thick in texture, with zippy acids and good length, this is really to our liking; it’s a seafood friendly kind o’ white, and a excellent choice as the weather warms going into the summer. Sourced from 10-40 year old Godello vines and very old vine (60-80 years) Doña Blanca. Find this wine

2012 Bodegas Godelia Bierzo, 100% Mencia, 14.5% alc., $19 SRP: Good dark color here, with an earthy, slightly herbaceous nose. Rich and intense on the palate, where flavors echo and expand on the aromatic promises, with a lot of dark berry at the core. The earth and herb (no, not THAT kind of herb!) set the tone to the wine’s character, and a subtle note of iodine emerges on the finish, somewhat reminiscent of a northern Rhône Syrah. Full bodied, with a good tannin/acid backbone and good length on the finish, with the stuffing to benefit from 3-5 years in the cellar, if not more. Find this wine

Both of these wines evoke a strong “sense of place.” When Kim says she likes to taste dirt in her wine, these are the kinds that she’s talking about, and I mean that in the kindest possible way. The winemaking is thoroughly modern, but these are anything but “international styled wines,” which is why we like them so well. I ran across a lone bottle of the red a few days ago at an area retailer, and didn’t hesitate to grab it and bring it home. I’ll do the same with any others that I may happen to run run across in coming weeks and months, and, when you think about it, isn’t that the best possible recommendation I can give?

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It’s been a while since we last tried anything from Cornerstone Cellars. I had to look back over the last two and a half years of our reports to find our last encounter with this excellent Napa Valley producer. We hadn’t heard anything from them until just a few months ago, when we got an inquiry as to whether we’d like to try some of their new releases, and, of course, we’ve never been known to turn down offers like this.

The four wines came in packages of two, a few weeks apart. We gave them plenty of time to rest, and tasted them in the order that they arrived. (Click on images to enlarge.)

2014 Cornerstone Cellars Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Benchlands, 14.9 % Alc., $65.00: Deep and dark in color, and all lush fruit and chocolate on the nose. Creamy in texture at first, but some serious structure makes itself known in short order. Very intense and primary, and very much in the house style that we remember from previous encounters with Cornerstone Cabs, with black currant, cassis and chocolate. Ideally, I’d like to try this again in about 10 years. Still, it finally does start to open after about three hours, so give this some time in a decanter if you have to open one now. Find this wine

2014 Cornerstone Cellars Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Calistoga, 14.5% Alc., $75.00: Deep and dark in color, fairly faint on the nose and not quite as backward as the Benchlands. Deep, dark black currant and berry flavors, with a chocolatey note similar to the Benchlands, and some earth underneath it all. Full bodied, and not quite as big as the wine above, but well-structured for aging and evolving over the next ten years and beyond. It also opens with some extended air, so you know the drill if you want to open one now; decant, decant, decant. Find this wine

I like both of these wines, the Benchlands perhaps the better of the two; despite my reservations about opening either of them anytime soon, they do work well enough with some grilled, medium rare steak. They need lots of time to tone down those tannins and acids, but both have to goods to go the distance.

We opened the second two a few weeks later, starting with the Sauvignon.

2016 Cornerstone Cellars Napa Sauvignon Blanc, 14.1% Alc., $30.00: Clean medium straw, morphing into pale gold; the intense aromatics tell you right away that this ain’t no Kiwi Sauvignon, and the flavors confirm that impression. It might actually compare more favorably to a Didier Dagueneau Pouilly Fume from the good ol’ days than a grapefruit-gooseberry number from New Zealand, but it’s really most reminiscent of previous Cornerstone models that we’ve enjoyed and some of those nice old Mondavi Fume Blancs. This one is more in the green melon, apple and grape spectrum, with the barest hint of oak influence from some neutral barrels and even some mineral lurking here and there. Medium-full bodied, with good acids and length; the fruit has excellent intensity, and it’s not fruit bomb ripe. A very good seafood white, and maybe even better with grilled smoked chicken. Find this wine

2014 Cornerstone Cellars Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain, 14.6% Alc., $100.00: Deep, dark color, with a pretty perfume of ripe (but not too ripe) black currant and blackberry, graced with well-integrated sweet oak. The flavors largely echo the aromatics, with a good dose of earth and significant structure; some subtle toast, smoke and cocoa emerge as it opens. It would have been interesting and instructive to try this with the other two cabs, but we had already tried those when we received this, but my gut feeling is that this would be my favorite of the three. It’s a fine match for some thin-sliced medium rare flank steak on a bed of power greens with sliced beets and fried goat cheese, but it’s best to put this down for several years to mellow those tannins. Find this wine

These four are very much in the same “house style” that we remember from our previous experiences, which is a very good thing. They’re not inexpensive, especially the reds, but they’re very well-made and offer lots of pleasurable drinking, both now and/or several years down the road.

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From the Quick-but-by-no-means-Dirty Dept.:

2016 Cuvee des 3 Messes Basses Rosé Ventoux, 60% Grenache, 20% Cinsault, 20% Carignan, 13% alc., $5.99: Here’s everything you need to know about this terrific bargain. The bottle pictured on the right is empty for a reason. This rosé is made by the same producer that is responsible for one of the more memorable red QPR All Stars that we’ve run across in the last several years, and it offers the same kind of value.

It does everything you could ask from a dry rosé, and is eminently drinkable. Hell, it’s way too easy to drink. A bottle shared with friends can be drained in minutes. The price is so low at Western Market in Ferndale, you can buy it in multiples (6 gets you a 10% discount) and open a 2nd bottle after you finish that 1st one. You can even open a 3rd and 4th, depending on how many friends you have.

We picked up 2 cases of this yesterday, and Western had another 5 or 6, so, I would recommend getting your butt in there post haste if you’re looking to cash in on the best value in dry rosé that we’ve found in many moons. Find this wine

Imported by Kindred Vines Import Co., Troy, Michigan

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I’d like to think that I’m not the type of hombre who is swayed by a Robert Parker score on a wine label when making my purchasing decisions. Obviously, this is nothing but a ploy to sell bottles to numbers chasers and consumers who aren’t savvy enough to have a buying strategy based on more substantial factors, like the producer’s reputation, appellation of origin, age of vines, etc.

So why in the hell did I bite on this one when I found it displayed at our friendly neighborhood Costco?!

The producer, Señorío de Barahonda, is hardly a household name, even here at Gang Central, and while we’re not exactly unfamiliar with wines from Yecla, located in southeastern Spain, neither is it way up there on our radar. And just what does “old vines” mean on a label, when no actual age is given?

Sometimes it all comes down to just being intrigued and asking one’s self, “How bad can it be for 9 bucks?”

As luck would have it, this turns out to be a pretty damned good glass of wine. A quick look around the producer’s website never did tell me just how old those vines (situated at 700 and 800 meters above sea level) actually are, but the bottom line is what’s in the bottle.

2014 Campo Arriba Old Vines Yecla by Señorío de Barahonda, 70% Monastrell, 20% Syrah and 10% Garnacha Tintorera, $14% alc., $9.99: I was concerned that this might be a fruit and oak bomb, but such is not the case. Clean and dark in color, with a nice, earthy core of plum, berry and cherry fruit, more black than red. Big, but not too ripe, and I really like its earthy disposition; the good structure should take this at least five years down the road, no sweat. This is a red meat kind o’ wine, and I’m thinking lamb all the way. It opens nicely with some air and gives pleasure with an hour in a decanter, but tannin pigs might just want to pour a glass as soon as it’s uncorked. This was aged three months in small French oak barrels, but, again, shows very little influence from that regimen. It offers great QPR (quality-price ratio) for so few dollars, which is why we keep going back for more. Find this wine

Imported by Joint Ventures, New Rochelle, NY

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My first encounter with one of Andrew Jones’ Field Recordings was back in January of 2016. My buddy Putnam Weekley gave me a taste of the 2014 Old Potrero Zinfandel as an aside during a Ridge tasting at Mudgies Deli & Wine Shop, and I liked it quite well. I had never heard of Andrew Jones before trying that particular wine, but, according to his website, he’s a “vine nursery fieldman planning and planting vineyards for farmers all over California.” His work allows him to find interesting, often “unknown or under-appreciated” sites, and he is sometimes offered small lots of the best fruit from them to make wine under his own labels. (Jones’ secondary labels include Wonderwall, Alloy Wine Works and FICTION.)

Field Recordings is a clever repurposing of the old term that describes “recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds.” Perhaps the most famous field recordings in the US are those made by musicologist/folklorist John Lomax in the 1930s and ‘40s, including legendary tracks performed by Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly. When you think about it, it doesn’t take much of a stretch to consider wine as a kind of “field recording,” especially wine that expresses a “sense of place” of its vineyard source. In that sense, this Old Potrero Zinfandel is certainly successful.

2015 Field Recordings Zinfandel Aroyo Grande Old Potrero Vineyard, 92% Zinfandel, 5% Mourvedre, 3% Syrah, 14.9% alc., $19.99: Clean and dark in color, and effusively aromatic, all earthy dark “zinberry” and toasty oak. Young, tight and intense, but not unapproachable; full bodied and built for several years in the cellar, but you can give it some air now, say, an hour or so in a decanter, and enjoy it with BBQ, grilled red meats or pasta with a red sauce. The marriage of the deep, dark fruit and toasty oak sets the tone for the wine’s personality, but I’d love to see what happens to this over the next five years and beyond, because it certainly has the stuffing to age and evolve nicely. Find this wine

I found this one, where else, at Ferndale’s Western Market. Putnam is head of the wine department these days, and he has this placed in a stacked display, at a friendly price. I’ll be picking up more this week.

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In what now seems almost like a previous life, I managed the wine department in a high-end food market here in Greater Day-twah some years ago. Distributor reps would regularly stop in with winemakers, winery owners and other in-the-biz types who were on the road selling their wares. On one such occasion, I had the opportunity to meet and taste with Lori Felten, who, with her husband Steve, owns Klinker Brick Winery in Lodi, California. I remember Mrs. Felton as being a refreshing change from some of my other visitors; rather than being one of the glamourous Sonapanoma-types who start or buy a winery and hire others to work and manage their business or the corporate career suits who would often spout their pitch by rote in a somewhat disinterested manner, she was quite obviously a farmer, and I mean that in the kindest possible way. The Felten family has been farming their property for 5 generations, and she was down-to-earth and completely without pretense of any kind.

I enjoyed tasting with Mrs. Felton that day, and I enjoyed the wines we tasted. In the following several years, I sold more than a little of their Old Vine Zinfandel, which garnered a devoted flock of admirers. I’ve been out of retail for a while now, so I hadn’t had the opportunity to try one again until just a few weeks ago. I was strolling through my friendly neighborhood Costco, and I noticed a bin-full of the current vintage at a price that was too good to pass up. Here’s what I found in the bottle.

2014 Klinker Brick Old Vine Zinfandel Lodi, 15.8% alc., $13.99: Clean and dark in color; the “zinberry” nose is a little stingy at first, but this is tons more generous on the palate, with big, rich, ripe and earthy black raspberry and black cherry flavors. Full bodied, but not too heavy, with very good structure (the acids are as prominent as the tannins) for at least 3-5 years in the cellar and nice length on the finish. We’ve drifted away from ripe wine styles for the most part, but we like the way this one offsets the fruit forward character with those earthier elements. It’s an excellent BBQ wine, but we don’t do much of that around here, so we’ll opt for things like burgers (either lamb or beef), pizza or even some moderately spicy Asian fusion. We’ve had 4 or 5 of these already; we have 3 more in the cellar, and with such great QPR (quality-price-ratio; this costs $19.99 at the winery), you can bet that we’ll be picking up more so that we don’t run out when Chef Kerr aka Canadian Zinfan pays another visit. At this price, we can really stock up. Find this wine

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There are some things in this world it seems like you can always count on. For instance, who can argue with the fact that the sun always rises in the east? (Even those purveyors of “alternative facts” can’t dispute this, can they?!) Another is what we were all taught in American grade schools, that literally anyone can grow up to be President of the United States. And one of the most obvious to us is this: you can always count on Tablas Creek Vineyard to make brilliant wines, right across the board.

Since I first met and tasted with Tablas Creek General Manager Jason Haas back in 2006, not only have we not had a bad wine from this Paso Robles producer of red and white Rhône varieties, pretty much everything we’ve tried from them is really, really good. Such is the case with the six latest samples we got our hands on recently, all of which carry on with the established pattern of very high quality fruit and winemaking. (Click on images to enlarge.)

2016 Tablas Creek Vineyard Patelin de Tablas Blanc Paso Robles, 52% Grenache Blanc, 24% Viognier, 12% Roussanne, 9% Marsanne, 3% Clairette Blanche, 13.0% Alc., $25.00: Showing clean, medium color, with typically characteristic lanolin, mineral and white peach flavors and aromas. Full bodied, with excellent acids and very good length, this is very much what we’ve come to expect from this bottling over the past several vintages. We’ve just recently finished the last bottle of our not-inconsiderable stash of ‘14s and ‘15s, so it’s high time for us to stock up on the current vintage. Drink now or hold for a few years. 3000 cases produced, incorporating fruit from nine top Rhone vineyards in Paso Robles, each selected for its quality. Find this wine

2016 Tablas Creek Vineyard Cotes de Tablas Blanc Adelaida District Paso Robles, 43% Viognier, 40% Grenache Blanc, 14% Marsanne, 3% Roussanne, 13.0% Alc., $30.00: Clean, medium color with a tinge of lemon, and a stingy nose at first; classic Cotes de Tablas Blanc flavors in the “house style” that we’ve come to know and love so well, rich, ripe and so damned tasty. All white peach all the time, with a delicious dose of citrus and undertones of minerality. Full bodied, but not at all heavy; balanced, zippy and good to go now, or in five years and beyond. An absolutely dee-lish white Rhône blend that will pair well with a wide variety of fish and bird. 1790 cases produced. Find this wine  

  2016 Tablas Creek Vineyard Grenache Blanc Adelaida District Paso Robles, 100% Grenache Blanc, 13.9% Alc., $30.00: Clean pale golden color; rich and intense in the mouth, offering peachy flavors and aromas accented with some lime, with a bit of mineral lurking. Full bodied, with balanced acids and good length, and more lime/citrus emerges with air. A really tasty white, with depth and substance, and like the Cotes de Tablas Blanc, it’s well-matched with a variety of seafood and fowl, and is sure to evolve and improve over the next five years and beyond. 700 cases produced. Find this wine

2015 Tablas Creek Vineyard Mourvedre Adelaida District Paso Robles, 100% Mourvedre, 13.7% Alc., $40.00: Lighter in color than one might expect, almost Pinot Noir-like; a pretty dark berry and cherry nose leads into rich, fairly ripe red and black plum, berry and cherry flavors with nice, earthy undertones. Full bodied, but not as weighty as these can sometimes be, and while it’s structured for several years of aging and development, it’s already gorgeous with a medium rare steak, spuds and broccoli. Every sip is a pleasure. 360 cases produced. Find this wine

And then, there are the two flagship bottlings…

2015 Tablas Creek Vineyard Esprit de Tablas Blanc Adelaida District Paso Robles, 55% Roussanne, 28% Grenache Blanc, 17% Picpoul Blanc, 13.0% Alc., $45.00: Clean, rich color, almost golden; the rich, intense flavors have an earthy, almost tannic quality, very much in the white peach and mineral spectrum. Very good now with a plate of roasted turkey and gratin, but this will be even better in 3-5 years. It opens up with some air, so it might not be a bad idea to decant if you want some now. 2000 cases produced. Find this wine

2015 Tablas Creek Vineyard Esprit de Tablas Adelaida District Paso Robles, 49% Mourvedre, 25% Grenache, 21% Syrah, 5% Counoise, 14.5% Alc., $55.00: Clean and dark in color, with a red and black fruit nose leading to plenty more of the same on the palate in the guise of moderately earthy red and black plum and berry with just the faintest note of oak. Full bodied, with ample structure for 10 years and more in the cellar and good length, it is less in the voluptuous house style than many TC wines display, but it’s seriously good stuff nevertheless. It does become richer and more tasty with air, so, again, decant if you want to drink some now. A solid, no-frills California red Rhône blend that, as always, is much to our liking. 2850 cases produced. Find this wine

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The good folks at Mercer Estates reached out to us a while ago to ask if we’d be interested in trying some of their recent offerings. It had been a while since we last tasted anything from this producer, and we have fond memories of a wine dinner centered around some of their wares back in 2014, so, of course, we replied to the affirmative. We thought it would be fun to check out the three wines they sent us with our good friends Shar Douglas and Ken Hebenstreit, and Shar offered to cook dinner, so we set a date and made our plans.

The white was poured with appetizers, and the two reds were paired with Shar’s excellent beef-centric repast. Our impressions are as follows.

2015 Mercer Estate Horse Heaven Hills Sauvignon Blanc, 12.5% alc., $15.00: Showing clean, medium color, and a little stingy on the nose; steely, and not exactly fruit forward, eliciting a descriptor of “salty” from Kim, and there is a certain subtle saline quality to it. Shar adds an impression of “a little bit of orange peel,” while I find under-ripe green apple, citrus and stony mineral. Medium bodied, with good acids and decent length, this doesn’t show a lot of varietal typicity; it could be mistaken for something else in a blind tasting, like Ugni Blanc, for instance. Perhaps surprisingly, it’s a bit more Old World in style than new, and that’s not a bad thing. A pretty good all-purpose white, in our not-so-humble opinions. Find this wine

2015 Mercer Estate Horse Heaven Hills Sharp Sisters Red Blend, 29% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Syrah, 18% Merlot, 14% Petite Verdot, 10% Grenache, 2% Carignane,14.8% alc., $25.00: Clean, dark color, with a bright red fruit nose kissed with a bit of oak; flavors echo, smooth, showing more oak and very New World in style (more than I care for in this case). Very soft structure, almost flabby, but full and round otherwise. Almost “generic” in character, without much to distinguish it, and quite overpriced for what’s in the bottle. Find this wine

2015 Mercer Estate Horse Heaven Hills Malbec, 78% Malbec, 22% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14.8% alc., $25.00 (sold out at the winery): Clean, dark color, with a nice black fruit nose graced with a generous dose of oak; more substantial and more structured than the Sharp Sisters Red Blend, but any varietal character is obscured by the New World winemaking. Ripe and round, with flavors reminiscent of blackberry and black plum, shaded with hints of chocolate and earth. The oak character has a more balanced place here than in the blend, and of the two reds, this one appeals to us much more. It pairs pretty well with the beef too, but I wouldn’t spend $25 on it. To be fair, those who gravitate more toward the “international” style might well view this price point more kindly, and it can be found for less using the following link. Find this wine

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Recently, we had the good fortune to taste through 5 of the most recent releases from Troon Vineyard. We first encountered wines from this fine Oregon producer back in the summer of 2016, and with each successive group of selections they’ve offered for review, it’s become increasingly obvious that this is a winery that is deserving of greater recognition.

The wines, three whites and two reds, are all made with Rhône varieties, and they are, without exception, delicious.

2016 Troon Red Label Vermentino Applegate Valley, 12.5% alc., SRP $15: Clean, medium color; this has an earthy quality to it that complements the apple, peach and citrus fruit nicely. Fleshy, medium-to-medium full bodied, with good density and length and active acidity. As it opens in the glass, more earthy, chalky mineral emerges, adding interest and appeal. Find this wine

2016 Troon Blue Label Vermentino Cuvée Rolle, Applegate Valley, 90% Vermentino, 10% Marsanne, 12.5% alc., SRP $20: Clean, medium color; brighter and less earthy than the Red Label, with a bit more intense citrus character, very much in the lime spectrum. No lightweight, this one; it has substance and flair. Medium-to-medium full bodied, with excellent acidity and very good length. This has a dense intensity that reminds me a little of Oregon Pinot Gris, perhaps from the weight of the Marsanne. Find this wine

Kim really likes both of these, and so do I. Here’s what Troon GM Craig Camp has to say about them.
Read the rest of this entry »

2013 Joseph Swan Vineyards Russian River Valley Pinot Noir Cuvée de Trois, 14% alc., $34.99: Pretty ruby color, with an attractive black cherry nose, shaded with just a whiff of smoke; denser and more substantial in the mouth than the color might indicate, with deep, dark and intense earthy black cherry flavors underscored with notes of mushroom and rhubarb that linger long on the palate. Medium-to-medium-full bodied, with excellent structure that will take it more than a few years down the road. While this wants 3-5 years to shed some youthful tannins, it’s certainly approachable now, whether sipping slowly on a cold autumn evening or enjoying with some organic turkey smoked on the grill. As you’d expect, it opens nicely with air, getting better and better.

Swan Pinots are always welcome at our house, and this has a lot of what we weren’t finding in the Flowers Sonoma Coast PN a few weeks ago, namely that “sense of place” that we always find with wines from this venerable producer. Made with fruit from Trenton Estate, Trenton View, Saralee’s, Catie’s Corner, Ritchie and Great Oak Vineyards. Find this wine

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