Category Archives: Wine

by

Welcome 2021

I’m still here. By here I mean alive, well, and still in Florida. Like a lot of people this year got away from me. The new job (same place, just a promotion to admin and what is officially a district leadership position) is great and has a lot to learn. That is the main reason I went silent for a good few months – every bit of brain power I had went to work and when I got home, I just needed to shut my brain off. So not too much reading, no writing, no experiments – just furry creatures, easy meals, and knitting.

This is not to say I didn’t enjoy my wine – I did. I just didn’t have the (I hate this term but it is appropriate) bandwidth to think about it, take notes (or pictures apparently) and write anything up. However, I can categorize the wine we drank into three categories:

Everyday wine (always under $20 a bottle, often under $10):

  • Trader Joe’s Vinho Verde. This lovely, refreshing, light alcohol and cheap wine was pretty perfect after 10-12 hour days in August and September. Close second here is the Gruner Veltliner. So darn good.
  • Sticking with whites for a moment, the Chinen Blanc I picked up was also lovely. I liked this more than Bob did but it had great herbal notes while still being smooth, crisp and easy to drink.
  • On the red front, I have to admit, Botabox Zinfandel and Black Box Pinot Noir are pretty good every day wines. They are not super complex and I have little desire for more than a glass or so, but for a not bad and pretty good with food, they will more than do.

Good wine that I don’t need an occasion to drink ($20-$30 range):

  • Bedrock Old Vine Zinfandel ($19 a bottle). This is my favorite go to wine. It is a wine I like so much I order it by the case when it comes out each year and then regret not getting more.
  • Desire Lines Cole Ranch Riesling. Again, this is one I order by the case since I can only get it once a year, but it is so incredible good I never regret it.
  • Mutt Lynch – almost anything by this winery is good for regular drinking. The Zinfandel and Pinot Noir are interesting and easy to drink and the Merlot is just perfect for those days. The Rosie Rose is a great summer sipper and none of the wines are so expensive that I feel guilty for drinking them on a regular basis.

Semi-Special Wines (Over $30 but under $40) These are the wines I drink when I want something good, something I’m going to sip and contemplate. I might have one on a regular weekday, but not when I’m super tired because I want to really think about the wine in the glass:

  • MoniClaire Barnside Zinfandel. This is probably the wine I would drink if I could only ever drink one wine. Deep flavors, lots of red fruits with enough mineral notes that it’s interesting and not sweet.
  • Anything by Bedrock – white, red, pink … it’s going to be good. We have multiple red blends and several different single vineyard Zinfandels around and every one is fantastic, slightly different than the others and complex and interesting.
  • Longboard Vineyards Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc. These are incredibly good wines that are worth spending the money on. Not cheap, but not super expensive, they are worth it. Lots of depth of flavor and a wine you can think about or just enjoy – which is really hard to do.

Special Occassion wines (more than $40 a bottle). Some wines we save and only drink when we have a real reason to open them. It might be a holiday, my promotion or a celebration of some kind, but there has to be a reason:

  • Under the Wire Sparking Wine. OMG good and better than any Champaign I’ve ever had. Vintaged single vineyard wines that are pretty perfect.
  • Bruliam Pinot Noir. There are very few wines that are $50 a bottle that I think are totally worth it, but this is one of them. I only have one or two in the house, and we will only open these with other people and when celebrating something.
  • Fort Ross Pinotage. We only had two of these from our California trip and I really wish we had more. We saved and then savored the last bottle and I really need to get another bottle or two.

Since this is getting long, I’ll do a separate post for the knitting (I knit a lot last year) and pet update. Happy New Year and here’s to hoping I can get back to a semi-regular posting.

by

Girly Girl Pinot Noir

  • Producer: Mutt Lynch Winery
  • Location: Sonoma, CA
  • Year: 2016
  • Price estimate: $45
  • Tasting notes: Garnet in color with some transparency at the edges. Very little on the nose. Underripe strawberry, bright cherry and a little bramble are the dominant flavors, but there is a dusky/darker element to the wine. Very plum on the finish – good length finish, but not the longest I’ve ever had.
  • Conclusions: Good wine, lots of depth. Needs some time to open to really shine, but it is good.
  • Notes: This came in our club shipment from Mutt Lynch this spring and I was intrigued. I mean, the label is fantastic, so of course I’m going to want to pop it open. It is good, but for me, I actually prefer the Miss Understood Pinot from the same producer. There are more riper fruit notes in that one that is my personal preference. I’m hoping a different bottle of this will have some of those flavors, but if not, it’s still a good wine.
by

California Blanc de Blanc

  • Producer: W. Donaldson
  • Location: Sonoma California
  • Year: 2017
  • Price estimate: $20 (Naked Wines)
  • Tasting notes: Straw colored in the glass with good bubbles. Notes of apple and yeast on the nose. Very fresh and clean tasting. Apple, pear, some yeast and a bit of cut grass. Not a long finish, but good.
  • Conclusions: Good wine and for the price, I don’t mind opening a bottle of bubbly on a random weekday. This isn’t a wine to really savor and contemplate, but it is a good drinking wine and it paired really well with the cheese we had one night. (It also paired well with Pad Thai).
  • Notes: This was one of the wines we got in our Naked Wines case, so it isn’t something you can pick up at the store. It was a tad sweet to drink on its own – for me, that is, I just prefer a really dry bubbly – but it did go really well with dinner and actually made some of the stronger cheese better.
by

Dakine Vineyard Merlot

  • Producer: Longboard Vineyard
  • Location: Sonoma, Ca (Russian River Valley)
  • Year: 2015
  • Price estimate: cannot remember for the life of me
  • Tasting notes: Garant in color and opaque in the glass. nose of black fruits and baking spices, with nutmeg coming through. Flavors of blackberry, current, really ripe raspberry and a little licorice. Long finish – some tootsie roll, black forest cake and lots of cherry on the end.
  • Conclusions: This is not your typical Merlot. It has the typical Merlot flavors, but turned up and deep. Every sip was slightly different and I was so happy with this wine.
  • Notes: I bought two bottles of this somewhere around 2017. The first bottle we drank shortly after buying, but it wasn’t to my taste. There were a lot of tannins and it just seemed harsh, so I put the bottle away with a note to not open it until 2020. Well … it’s 2020 and we decided to give it a go. The day we opened it, I was sad. It was harsh, hard to drink and had a ton of tannin and vine taste. It was fine with food, but not something I could sit and sip. We put it away for the night and tried again the next day. Holy cow was I glad we did. The transformation in the wine was amazing. It became everything we love about Merlot and had none (and I mean none) of the harshness, tannins or bramble flavors it had the day before. It was amazing and one of the best wines I’ve had all year. Now I’m sad that I don’t have any more of it, but I do have a bottle of Malbec from Longboard that I’m going to open the day before I want to drink it. Fingers crossed it just needs to open for a day to be as amazing.
by

2018 California Pinot Grigio

  • Producer: D.H. Elliott
  • Location: California
  • Year: 2018
  • Price estimate: $10-$13 (Naked Wines)
  • Tasting notes: Pale straw color. First impression was of chardonnay when tasting – smooth and creamy like a chardonnay, and the flavors of apple, pear, lemon curd and a touch of vanilla made this not your typical Pinot Grigio. A few herbal notes came mid-palate and there was some nice bramble and peach on the finish. Good flavor and interesting to drink.
  • Conclusions: When I opened this bottle I was not expecting this wine. I was thinking it would be either not much flavor at all (unfortunately like a lot of Pinot Grigio out there) or very citrus forward. It wasn’t. This was a really good, lots of good flavor Pinot Grigio. After being opened a day, more of the citrus came out, but the smooth texture was still there making this a wine I may very well pick up again.
by

Sonoma County Chardonnay

  • Producer:Franc Dusak
  • Location: Sonoma County, California
  • Year: 2018
  • Price estimate: $18 (not what we paid)
  • Tasting notes: Pale yellow in the glass with notes of apple, vanilla and white peach on the nose. Apple and quince with a little something I can’t identify. Lightly herbal with some stone fruit and mineral notes on the finish. Very smooth – creamy but not oily or buttery at all.
  • Conclusions: Very nice, easy to drink wine and much better than expected for a Chardonnay. This paired really well with our cheese plate, especially a double cream from Sweet Grass Dairy.
  • Notes: Since Val moved to California she has been drinking wine again and she introduced us to Naked Wines. While I’m usually skeptical of wine “clubs” where the wines are made for them only (can’t find them in stores) I decided to give them a try and used the coupon Val sent me to get a case of wine for about $60. I figured for about $5 a bottle, I can afford to try it. I’m actually glad I did. This is the first wine we had from them, but I was pretty impressed. I’m not a chardonnay gal most of the time, but this was good. I wanted something that would take me out of my comfort zone and make me try different wines again (I felt like I was getting into a wine rut – a very nice wine rut, but a rut all the same). So we will see how long I like these wines and what will happen when I run out of this case. But so far, really pretty good.
by

Rocky Ridge Vineyard Zinfandel

  • Producer: Bruliam Wines
  • Location: Windsor (Sonoma), California
  • Year: 2016
  • Price estimate: $50
  • Tasting notes: Dark red, bordering on blood ruby with a tint of pink at the edges. Lots of granite and wood on the nose with very little fruit. Very soft and round with lots of dark fruits, chocolate cake and black cherry tastes. Really long finish with a hint of pepper on the end.
  • Conclusions: There are some wine you hesitate to open because they are more expensive than you are totally comfortable spending on the bottle, but after the first sip, you remember why you occasionally indulge yourself. This was one of those bottles. Definitely more expensive than I usually spend on wine, but 100% worth every penny. Lots of flavor, lots of complexity and a super smooth, easy to drink wine. When you close your eyes and sigh on the first taste, you know it’s good.
  • Notes: We opened this bottle to celebrate the success of my first work-from-home week. I figured since neither Bob nor I wanted to kill the other after two weeks of only seeing each other and having no way to take a real break, we thought it appropriate. I also didn’t have nearly as bad a transition as I thought I would have – just had to remember to log off and stay logged off – so we celebrated. We also had our first virtual happy hour with Val and Bill, so that was really nice. Good wine for that too.
by

MBF Zinfandel

  • Producer: Mutt Lynch Winery
  • Location: Sonoma, California
  • Year: 2016
  • Price estimate: $32
  • Tasting notes: Dark ruby color in the glass and hints of cherry on the nose. Dark cherry, ripe raspberry, a little plum on the palate. A little dusky, but not unpleasant. Back end has notes of chocolate and black pepper with lots of spice on the finish. Good finish. Very smooth.
  • Conclusions: Mutt Lynch is one of my go-to wineries. The Man’s Best Friend Zinfandel is one of their more expensive wines, but at $32 a bottle, I’ll still drink it and not feel guilty because it is that good, but I won’t grab it every day like I might with some of their other wine. This was a particularly good bottle.
by

Evangelho Vineyard Red, 2018

  • Producer: Desire Line Wines
  • Location: Contra Costa County, CA
  • Year: 2018
  • Varietal: Carignan and Mourvedre
  • Price estimate: $35 (from winery)
  • Tasting notes: Dark purple in the glass, just a touch of pink at the edge; good legs and a nice weight to the wine. On the nose, cut wood and dark fruit. Tastes of plum, cherry, a little bramble, tootsie roll and tart black raspberry. Long finish ending with a touch of black pepper.
  • Conclusions: This was a wine that was well worth it’s price and more, Perfect tartness, lots of complexity and amazing flavor. This is a wine to sip and linger and to have with food. (Paired nicely with pasta.)
  • Notes: Normally I order the Riesling from Desire Line and call it good. Their Riesling is amazing, one of my favorite, so I try to get some every year. Last year I took a chance and picked up this bottle, and one other red just to see. I am so glad I did, and really wish I had gotten more than one. This was a really beautiful wine – fruit forward with lots of mineral notes and tons of character. Even at $35 a bottle, I would get more if I could.
by

Friend & Farmer Tempranillo

  • Producer: Friend & Farmer
  • Location: Castilla La Mancha, Spain
  • Year: 2019
  • Price estimate: unknown (from our cheese & wine box)
  • Tasting notes: A purple-ish ruby color in the glass and opaque even at the rims. Aromas of dark fruit, licorice and chicory. Alone, the taste is sour, tart and sour like an underripe plum. With the cheese, chocolate and sour cherry come out and only a hint of the sour remains. Short to medium finish.
  • Conclusions: By itself, I was not a fan of this wine. I wasn’t certain how I would drink it, but once paired with the cheese, it really came into it’s own. Good, strong flavors that compliment food. Not my favorite wine, but as long as I’m eating I wouldn’t turn it down.
  • Notes: My local cheese shop does a monthly cheese and wine club that we decided to try after years of just doing there regular monthly cheese. This was paired with Jasper Hill Clothbound Cheddar and it did go really well with it. I personally liked it with the gouda we picked up for our cheese plate even better – the chocolate notes in the wine complimented the caramel notes in the cheese really well, but not in a way that made either sweet. Just a nice wine with cheese.