EAST COAST PALATE

  This wine will rock your summer, cutting through D.C.'s humidity with razor-sharp acidity and a fresh burst of flavor.  I love the clean, crisp sensation this wine leaves behind. 
  Sauvignon blanc is a versatile grape that can come in many different styles… I’ve even heard “cat pee” used as a descriptor from the smell of some Sauv Blancs.  2008 Flora Springs Soliloquy Vineyard SB is one of the best white wines I’ve ever had.  Aromatically it is a mix of lemon grass, orange blossom, and subtle citrus.  It’s acidic and racy.  It’s wonderfully refreshing.  Being from Oakville, a region within Napa, it will cost between $20 and $25.  If you need a bottle to impress any wine-savvy guests or hosts, this is it.  This is a good pairing with sharp cheeses, salads, and shellfish, but just a nicely chilled bottle of this wine is a perfect remedy for summer heat.  A defininite A for this wine.

Friday evening, the week comes to a close, seven wines from some of California's finest facilities await at Georgetown's gourmet grocer, Dean & Deluca.  This is what I call work.  It is a delicious, palate-pleasing experience, a chance to taste some of the high-end part of my portfolio.  With the help of Emmie, Graham, Dan, and of course the kitchen staff at the store, we all enjoyed a few hours of luxurious relaxation...
The wine: 
1.  Roederer Estate Brut;  This bottle of bubbly does a tremendous job emulating a veritable champagne.  It's a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grown in the Anderson Valley.  Its nose is remeniscent of macaroons fresh out of the oven.  Its acidity is crisp, playing nicely against the toasty, yeast aromas.  A-

2.  Grgich Hills Estate 2007 Fumé Blanc;  A 100% Napa Valley Sauvignon blanc with about 6 months of sur lîes aging, which means that the yeasts that turned the juice to wine are present, settled down at the bottom of the barrel, dead but not done.  Every few weeks the winemakers will perform a batonnage, in which the wine in the barrel is stirred with a stick, allowing the yeast hulls on the bottom to swirl up into suspension, releasing subtle flavors.  All this is done in neutral barrels (usually these have been used in four or five vintages and now won't impart heavy oak flavor to the wine).  The end result is a crisp, lemony wine with a bit more body than a typical Sauvignon blanc.  A-

3.  Grgich Hills Estate 2006 Chardonnay;  Normally I avoid oaky California Chardonnay, but this has an impressive balace.  The creaminess is cut with a zesty acidity, and the fruit aromas of apricot, pear, and apple make the buttery woodsy scent less offensive.  If your a fan of toasty, oaked-out Chard, this wine will make you very happy.  The bottom line is that it is very well made.  B+

As a fan of both Tom Robbins' writing and the timeless tradition which is Beer, I was happy to spend a few hours over the weekend reading the latest book by señor Robbins.  Saturday afternoon I managed to sip away the time while reading the first half of the 120-page story that is a self-proclaimed children's book for adults (or vice versa).  My first drink was a North Coast Brewery "Brother Thelonious," a full-bodied, dark dubbel fashioned in the Belgian style, but hailing from the West Coast.  It was tasty, in deed, and chased down with a smooth belly-warming mouthful of Jameson Irish whisky.
This was all at the Quarry House down in Silver Spring, a place that always offers refuge from the rain, and plenty of suds and strong drink to quench your thirst. 
I finished the book on Sunday morning over coffee and a crossword puzzle.  The tale relates a young 5-year-old girl's introduction to beer, her travels with the beer fairy, and the ever-present philosophical lessons that can be extrapolated from a kid's book about booze. 
In short, I loved this book... Almost as much as I loved the 2004 Muga Gran Reserva after it had been decanted for an hour and a half.  This is a quick read, and if you have kids, maybe a fun, if not exploratory venture out of the realm of normal bedtime stories.  Go buy a sixpack of North Coast brewery's finest.  Support your local bookstore.  This is a great way to spend a few hours of your life.

Well, here is a wine to avoid on this day for lovers.  I admit, the label has some appeal, the name is corny, but it is one of those wines that you see around stores and they just pique your curiosity enough to make to spend the 9 bucks to find out what's on the inside of the bottle.
The look:  The wine has lightness and a pretty red hue, but with a Cabernet I want deep color; I want to be pulled in by dark mysterious shades of crimson.
The smell:  Some dark cherry and cola aromas with a weird rubbery odor that, even though subtle, distracted me from the soft fruity smells.
The taste: "meh"... Really poorly integrated oak, jammy flavors at first that give way to oak and more mediocrity.  This is a C wine and there are so many other bottles  out there that offer better quality at the same cost.
On a good note, I have tried the Malbec by Cupcake Vineyards and found it much more palatable.
Lovers of wine... winos in love... whoever you are, whomever you are with on this sunny Sunday, uncork some good times. 

Recently, Dawn - the publisher of City Living magazine - recommended that I stop in and visit a brand new store down in the Adams Morgan area.  A.M. Wine Shoppe has a beautiful display of wine lining an entire wall.  When I walked in there were a few bottle open, waiting to be tried.  They had cheese and salami samples as well.  There wasn't a huge amount of different wine (while there, I heard someone come in and ask for Virginia wine, and there is none there), but what they lack in extensive selection, they make up for with their service.
Okay, the wine: 
2008 Mader Pinot Blanc... The nose on this Alsatian white wine is fresh, loaded with citrus and a sweet honeydew aroma.  I picked up a slight nasal burn from the alcohol, and there's a floral component layered into the fruity aromas.
If you like sorbet, or Starburst, or just good crisp wine that wakes up your tongue, this is a wine for you.  It is light, but full of flavor, with the lemonpeel leading the way.  The tartness stretches out the finish so that if you take a sip and walk away from your glass, you will honestly carry the flavor in your mouth for a few minutes.
This is a B+ wine for $14 (I've seen it at Rodman's, as well).  It would balance out a strong cheese or cream sauce, or work as a perfect compliment to a fruit salad.
2007 JK Estates Cabernet Sauvignon... Krishna, thank you for this wine.  No, I'm not converting to any religion, Krishna is the guy who gave me this California Cab to try out.  It is a $15 bottle, hailing from an Estate winery in Lodi.  The aromas are what made this wine stand out so much for me, while the body is rather light weight.
This bouquet is full of the beautiful weirdness that gets me excited about wine: pickled okra?  check.  capers?  check.  Imagine you have a dish of blackberry preserves, and then somebody reaching over drops a bit of green pepper, cippolini onions, and pickle juice into the mix.  Sound delicious?  The greenness of this overall aromatic blend may be a turnoff for some, but the onion and green pepper are known to make cameos when it comes to Cabernet.
Despite the olfactary circus going on, the wine is light in tannin, feels fresh and smooth in the mouth, and for me gets a solid 85. 

Every Saturday there are tastings at Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits from two to five.  This is the the easiest way to learn about new wines and put your palate to practice...
From right to left (light to bigger) in the picture here are four wines that offer different styles, smells, and flavors:


2008 Ferrari Carano Fumé Blanc:  This is 100% Sauvignon Blanc, full of zestiness, with key flavors like lemon and grapefruit.  About 1/3 of the wine was put into barrels to age, to soften some of the acidic sharpness, then blended back with the rest that stayed in stainless tanks.  The end result is a fresh Sauvignon Blanc that still has good acidity, yet comes at the palate in a more mellow way.  This normally costs $17, but was on sale for just under $13.

2006 Merryvale Starmont Chardonnay:   Chardonnay is a grape that can be vinified in a number of ways, a fact which splits Chardonnay drinkers into two schools: those that dig oak, and those that don't.
This bottle delivers a blend of half barrel-fermented and half stainless-steel-ferments grapes, resulting in a wine that still has nice body and a beautiful golden color, but is smells more of fresh fruit than it does of butter and barrels.  There are some lovely citrus, pear, apple, and even pineapple aromas here.  For someone like me (I tend to steer clear of California Chardonnay) this is a nice medium between the two ends of the Chardonnay spectrum. 

2007 Erath Pinot Noir:  For those that haven't tried Oregon Pinot Noir, you are missing out.  This wine shows just a glimpse of the whole world of Pinot that is growing continually in Oregon's Willamette Valley. 
This wine is light in body, and color.  It has earthy, leathery smells that meld well with a soft cherry aroma.  The wine is silky smooth in your mouth and, though its finish isn't big, it leaves a spicy aftertaste.  For pairing wine with Thai food or salmon, this would be perfect.

2007 Planeta Segreta:  A Sicilian blend consisting of mainly Nero d'Avola, this wine has body, lush fruit aromas, crisp acidity, and great overall balance.  There is Syrah, Merlot, and a touch of Cab. Franc in the blend.  The pruney, blackberry aromas are strong on the nose, with undertones of cranberry and rocks.  The minerality makes a huge play once the wine coats your mouth; it has substance, an almost chalky viscosity that makes you take this wine seriously.  This bottle could compliment so many types of food, from cheese to chicken, pizza to prime rib. 

Question for today:  Do you go out to shop where you know you can taste wines?  If not, you're neglecting your palate-maintenance.  If so, where do you go, and why?

These wine shed any pretense, come packaged in screw caps and fun, colorful labels.  They might not fit the bill for a fancy celebration, but what really counts is what's inside, and the vintner at the Big House Wine Co. has done a great job making a tasty product that costs from $10 to $13.
2005 The Prodigal Son Petite Sirah: Don't confuse this varietal with Syrah.  The Petite Sirah grape is a crossbreed of Syrah and Peloursin, and in France it's commonly called Durif.  It definitely has some of the peppery qualities of Syrah, but for me this particular wine had some very nice floral aromas not typical of California Syrah.  It was like someone giving me some Zinfandel with a sachet of pot pourri hiding in the bottom of the glass.  The flavors are much like Zinfandel, with prunes and black cherries leading the charge.  Unfortunately, this wine's taste vanishes quickly, leaving only a dry, tingly sensation in the gums and cheeks.
It's a low B wine for me.  I'd like to see more balance on the back end of it, but really I was happy to try a varietal Petite Sirah, and to learn that in California they grow quite a bit of this grape and grow it well... for a more thorough look at Petite Sirah, check out www.psiloveyou.org

2006 The Slammer Syrah: When I opened this bottle and poured a little into a glass, the wild aromas wafted and excited me to the point where I was running around putting the glass under my friends' noses.  This wine is aromatically insane - truly funky, weird odors flood out of this wine, and I love the uniqueness of it.
This Syrah from California's Central Coast has aromas of blackberry and pepper that mix it up with freshly unearthed mushrooms, sweaty socks, and Green Giant canned asparagus.  The overall olfactory impression is swampy and dank, but the wine has some solid fruit, and decent structure.  It is more medium bodied and I think it would benefit from more tannins.  From behind the crazy smells emerges a lush and flavorful wine.  I like this enough to give it 88-89 points, B+ juice.  It's a great experience, and I'd recommend this wine to take to a blind tasting group just to see others react to it.
Visit the jail-themed Big House website at www.bighousewine.com.

I tried a glass of this Cali Merlot the other day.  It is a great example of a wine where some vanilla aromas are easily perceived.  That smell mainly comes from the barrel aging process.  The oak used (Quercus alba) has vanillin in it inherently, so the longer a wine sits in the barrel, the more vanillin can integrate into the wine.  The particular bottle here also brings some fresh blueberry aromas, and an slightly herbal quality, which might have been what triggered my memory this morning when I had some Rooibus/Vanilla tea.  That's what really reminded me of sampling this Merlot almost a week ago.
The wine is very light-bodied, almost watery even.  It has a freshness, a juciness, and a simplicity that makes me think it would be a crowdpleaser for people who don't drink much wine .  It does have an oaky bite near the back end of the palate, but it's by no means a big, meaty Merlot.  It's a low B for about 10 bucks, perfect to have with pizza, maybe even pizza bagels like I used to make when I was kid.
For more info on getting some Gnarly Head, visit www.gnarlyhead.com.