EAST COAST PALATE

The first snow of the season fell on Saturday and I was in D.C. pouring wine at a YES Organic Market, where the wine and dairy sections share an aisle.  Needless to say, I was cold on that frigid day, and when my sampling duties were done, I went down a block to Busboys & Poets.  This was my first time here, but I'm planning on heading back this weekend.  The ambiance and noise and warmth were just what I needed.  It seems like a good place for a first date, but I could tell a lot of people were there for the food and drinks.  I, however, sat at the bar, opened a book, and thawed out.   A glass of Côtes du Rhone turned out to be the perfect wine for my brief visit.

The 2006 Côtes du Rhône by Jean-Luc Colombo is a blend of Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre that has some dark cherry aromas mixed with a spicy, woodsy smell.  The alcohol adds its own spiciness to the nose, but the wine's structure is solid.  There is a good deal of acidity to balance out the tannins.  The dark berry flavors come through, but at the same time this wine isn't overly fruity.  The finish is lengthy and on the tart side, which I like.  This wine would be able to stand up to some duck confit or a hearty steak, but it's made well enough that it does fine on it's own.  A glass at Busboys & Poets costs $8, so I'd guess this wine runs about $13-$15 retail.  I'll be looking for it for my own wine cellar.

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.

This is not a typical choice for a Monday night wine.  But I asked my sister to go select something from the growing stack of brown bag covered bottles by my desk.  She broght me a few ounce pour so I could practice some sensory analysis with this wine (This kind of olfactory exercise can be a lot of fun and will provide a more objective critique of any food or beverage.  If somebody, myself included, sees a wine label that says Châteauneuf-du-Pape, we're predisposed to think highly of this wine).
The color: beautiful ruby red that is clear...nearly translucent.
The aromas are very subtle.  This wine has that old-world dusty smell that allowed me to guess where it was from, but overall it is what many would call tight, meaning its smells and flavors are masked by its youth.  None-the-less I get a little bit of strawberry (my sister said red Jello) and a gravely minerality.  The alcohol (14%) really comes through on the nose here, only adding to the difficulty of picking up other aromas.
The wine has a solid body: decent acid, good tannins, and overall balance that transitions to a finish where the berry flavors are even more pronounced.  There just isn't a lot of depth to this product yet.
In my opinion, this bottle needs 2-3 more years before being opened.  I'm saving half the bottle to see how the flavors and smells open up over night.  If I had to give this wine a score right now, I'd have to stay around the 87-88 point range.  That's a let down when taken into account the bottle sells for $45.  For that much money I expect nothing less than an A effort.  But again, this wine hasn't seen its prime yet.
Lesson learned: wine is fun!!  I know that the 2007 vintage from Châteauneuf-du-Pape is being hyped up as one of the best in a long time.  Unfortunately I haven't tried that many of the CDPs yet.  This Domaine Lafond shows potential, but for the time being I'd have to take my money elsewhere. 
Who has tasted some of the 2007 Châteauneuf-du-Papes and could recommend a wine to me?  I'm working on writing my Christmas list...

I know there are some great Italian Dolcettos out there for a good price.  This wine, to me, just isn't one of them.  The smell of this wine didn't woo me, but it was wierd enough to intrigue my senses.  I smelled, somehow, musty basement and wool sweater over the slighty cherry-currant-rose petal aromas that struggled to waft their way out of the glass.  Moreover though, I got some modeling glue/nailpolish remover (The ethyl acetate strikes again) smells that really make this wine just seem flawed.  The wine tastes tart and leathery, with a cranberry finish.  The way the wine feels in my mouth was actually a lot more pleasant than the flavors in this wine (or lack thereof).  It might just be the bottle that was off, but I won't ever buy this Dolcetto again.  The first impression really ruined it for me.  This effort gets a C.  It would've been better with food, but on its own this wine just didn't do it for me.  
What was the last time you had a let-down experience after getting your expectations up about a wine?  Or maybe the last time you opened a bottle you thought would be kind of a "meh" wine, and then it rocked your world?  Share the stories... 

This medium bodied  Garnacha brings a lot of inviting aromas, a lush and leathery flavor, and a bit of a zing from that 14.5% alcohol (and most labels downplay the actual ethanol content of the wine).  The 2007 Las Rocas Garnacha can be found for $10-$12, and for me is a bottle that I'll definitely be revisiting in the future.
I'm winding down after a 2 hour drive back from a teetotaling Thanksgiving dinner in the Shennendoah Valley, and this wine seemed like a good pairing with post-paintball aches, and a stuffed bellyfull of turkey.
There is an allure to the nose of this wine that is almost sythetic, like a strawberry Jolly Rancher, but it's mixed well with a smokey, leathery component that immediately lets you know there's more to this wine that just fruit.  In the mouth it is a burst of berry flavors that yields to some tartness and the solid grip of some moderate tannins.  The alcohol comes through clearly, kind of like when you bite into a chocolate that is filled with a cherry AND some Cognac; with this wine you get the trio: fresh sweet fruit, dark bitter chocolate, and a slap in the face (a kind of playful slap, though) from that 14.5%. 
But the key to making that combo work is balance, and this Garnacha has that.  It isn't some elegant, super-complex Chateauneuf de Pape, but it is smooth and well structured.  I like it.  It gets a solid B/B+, with 88 points.  It's great value wine for its price.

My eventful Saturday began yesterday at down at Circle Wine & Liquors (www.circlewinelist.com), where I poured three well-priced Aussi wines.  The Rosemount 2008 Chardonnay, 2007 Shiraz, and 2007 Shiraz/Grenache are all on sale there for $9.  The Chardonnay for me was a bit green smelling.  Nice notes of crisp green apple... Not so nice aromas of peas or green beans.  It was an okay, non-oaky Chardonnay that scores a low B for my taste, but would probably be a good choice for someone to try if they like lighter Pinot Grigio style Chardonnay.
The Shiraz is a fruit-bomb aromatically, with a whiff of candylike sweetness mingling with nice cherry and plum action.  Once I tasted it, though, I percieved a slightly plastic taste, as if somebody dropped a Lego block in my glass when I wasn't looking.  A bit off, but still a typical spicy, plummy Shiraz from down under.  Another low B.
The Shiraz/Grenache was the favorite of the day...for me and most of the store's clientele that stopped by for a few sips.  This wine had the fruity qualities mixed with a cocoa subtlety that pops in on the mid-palate.  For me this is the bottle I would buy; a solid B and a very versitile vino for holiday pairings.

$7.50 is an amazing price to pay for the quality wine that you get from this bottle.  This blend comes from the southeast of Spain, in a region called Almansa, where in 2005 the heat was strong and the grapes ripened extremely well.  This wine consists of about 2/3 Garnacha and 1/3 Syrah.  There are some resinous dark cherry and leather components coming from the Grenache in it, while the Syrah adds some ripe plum and a peppery kick to the final product.  You can tell the wine spent some time in oak barrels, but those tannins are very well integrated with the fruit and acid it the wine, bringing a toasty cedar note into the mix.  The acidity here will put a pucker on your face, like a big swig of cran-grapefruit juice would, if you can imagine the sensation.  Early on I detected a bit of that nail-polish-remover, chemical odor (ethyl acetate) that can really screw up a wine.  But if it was a bit flawed, it wasn't to a strong enough extent to mask the great aromas, flavors, and overall balance of this red blend.  In any case, I'll be buying more of this wine, so I'll be able to compare the bottles I open in the future with the first one.  Overall I'll give this wine a solid B rating at 88 points.  I love that it matches or surpasses many of the wines in the $20-$30 range.  It is a drink-now kind of wine that bring with it many old world characteristics, and I recommend it to everyone.
I have to say thank you to Nick Henning for pointing this wine out to me at YES Organic Market in D.C.  Otherwise it could've passed under my wine radar and I would've never known what I do now.  Currently it is the wine of the month at YES, so there will be plenty in stock throughout the holiday season.  I am pumped up to know about this wine.  Tell your friends.  Share this wine at parties.  It's only 7 bucks and worth every sip.

I popped the cork out of this bottle on a Wednesday night, and after trying it I felt that everything was in its right place.  This is a Wednesday night wine: nothing costly or crazy.  It is a medium bodied, lightly colored, fruit foward Pinot that will please most of the crowd.  But for me it's still in the low B range as far as quality is concerned.
The alcohol content in this wine is 13.5%, so while it makes you yell woo-hoo a lot faster, the nostril stinging sensation robs the spotlight from some very nice flower petal, cherry and strawberry aroma.  Personally, I prefer a Pinot with some resious, smokey bacon odors coming off of it, and that this wine was so fruity was a let down.  I did enjoy some leathery cherry components to the smell, and the wine had surprisingly firm tannins for how light it seems at first. 
I would drink this bottle again, and would recommend it to others.  But I can't see myself purchasing this Pinot Noir any time soon.  I'd rather spend $4 more and get a bottle of Yealands Pinot Noir from Marlborough, New Zealand.  In fact, I need to go get some of that wine to review.  All in do time.
Question of the day:  If you could take some wine and some friends and go anywhere in the world, where would you go?  And what wine would you bring along?
One love.  Wine love.

So I picked up this bottle at a county (Montgomery) run liquor store for under $9.  As a linguist and a fan of Côtes du Rhone wine I appreciated the pun and bought the wine.  Later, with my aunt dishing up some of her arugula, orange, onion, and walnut salad, and myself ladeling out pumpkin and mango soup, I unscrewed the cap and poured out some of my new favorite wine from South Africa.
The nose carries some barnyard-earthy stink, which integrates nicely with some dark fruit and spice aromas.  The wine is medium bodied, spicy, and has a pomegranate-like tart finish.  Any fan of Rhone reds needs to try this wine.  I'll rate it a solid B with 87 points.
And for the Rhone fans: What are your favorite wines from the Rhone valley?

So tonight I went down to the YES Organic Market in NW Washington, D.C. to pour a pair of wines from Australia's Barossa Valley:  The Black Swan Pinot Grigio and the Black Swan Shiraz.  I had a great time hearing the shoppers' reactions to the two wines, and I was able to chat with some really interesting people.  This connection, for me, was the most important part of my evening.  The chance to sample two wines priced at only $8, and get feedback about the two products, is what I really valued most.  That is the essence of this blog: share wine opinions, try a few beers, talk about some restaurants that impress me, but mainly find wines that are worth their cost.
The 2009 Pinot Grigio is a refreshing, zesty white wine, perfect for summer or pairing with cheese or seafood.  It has a lemon-Granny Smith tartness that gives it a great finish.  It reminds me sort of the sensation of eating Sour Skittles or Sweet-Tarts.  It is a solid B wine (86) and definely worth its price.
The '08 Shiraz has a jammy, raisiny aroma, and once it's in your mouth it is a mix of toasty prune flavors with a bit of peppery spice to fill it out.  It didn't have much of a finish, but I still give it a low B rating (83-84).
Two decent wines that were well priced, and an evening of meeting the people I'm trying to reach with my opinions and recommendations... I enjoyed every second and every sip I shared with you all.  Cheers to all who came by to try the Black Swan wines.  Let me know how you liked them, and feel free to share some suggestions with me...I'm always open to try something new.
Thanks also to YES Organic Market.  The store is amazing... we need this in MD.  Visit their site at www.yesorganicmarket.com