2006 Pierre Chainier Vouvray

Taste: 5/5
Value: 5/5
Price: $10-$13

An unmistakable bottle as it is octagonal and yellow, with a plain label. I'm less familiar with Vouvray, which is apparently French Chenin Blanc. This is a semi-sweet wine with moderate acidity, so I suspect it would be good with food as well as for a sipping wine, which is how I had it. It was perfumey on the nose, so I was surprised to find it was refreshing and reminiscent of honeysuckle and pear. Would buy again.

Rodney Strong Alexander Valley Cabernet

Taste: 5/5

Value: 5/5

Price: $25-$30

Please note, although it may seem like I drink an awful lot of wine, some of these posts come after a wine tasting or a glass at a friend's house. They are not all full bottles that I have opened and consumed!

This is the second time I have had the great fortune of trying this wine. Although more than I would typically pay for a bottle, I still give it a high value rating because it TASTES like a much more expensive bottle. The nose reminds me of a traditional library you might find in an old mansion, so I guess I would classify it as cedar, smoke and leather. People who don't like Cabs usually don't like the heavy tannins that bowl them over on the nose, let alone the taste. This wine is fruit forward and soft on the tannins. Rodney Strong wines are generally great. This is a winery I missed the first time and would like to visit on my next trip to Sonoma.

2003 Columbia-Crest Two Vines Cab-Merlot

Taste: 3.5/5

Value: 3/5

Price: $7-$10

The winemaker notes “Generous blackberry, black cherry and raspberry aromas and flavors unfold from the glass. This is a luscious, expressive wine with a soft, appealing finish” so at $7, I was excited to give this a try. I found the nose to be heavy on the alcohol and the overall experience nothing to write home about. A friend's opinion was that it was "ok". I would be much more apt to buy Alice White from Australia, which can be found $6-$10 in our local grocery stores.

2005 Three Blind Moose Merlot

Taste: 4/5
Value: 5/5
Price: $8-$10


I would definitely buy this Woodbridge, CA Merlot again. I found the nose to be dark berry fruit (black cherry and plum) and light oak, with smooth drinkability and flavor that mimicked the berry fruitiness. The oak and tannins were present in the finish in a nice, but not overwhelming balance. I could easily have looked down my nose at the whimsical label, but I would have missed out. I would enjoy taking this to a "blind" (no pun intended) tasting to get other people's opinions.
Notes from the winemaker: The grapes came primarily from vineyards in the Central Coast and Lodi regions, both excellent sources for high-quality Merlot. Mild summer weather and a relatively light crop in these areas contributed to an impressive concentration of color, aroma and flavor in the fruit, which was harvested in fine condition before the sun vamoosed and Jack Frost – or Jack Nicholson – came nipping at our heels. We night-harvested the fruit, crushed it into stainless steel fermenters, then inoculated the juice with a cultured yeast. (Yes, yeast are highly cultured.) The juice fermented for a week at 70-800 F. and was pumped over the grape skins several times daily to maximize extraction of color, flavor and tannin. A judicious dollop of French and American oak enhanced the wine’s texture and complexity, as did blending in small amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah and Zinfandel.

2006 Cline Viognier vs Wolf Mountain Chanteloup

Taste: 3.5/5
Value: 5/5
Price $10-$13

This wine is a drier, medium to full body, non-oaked wine. The aroma is heavy on the peach, but the flavor did not follow through for me. The wine review on the bottle reads: "a powerhouse of flavor that is full-bodied. It will make an excellent match with flavorful foods like Mediterranean stew and spicy Mexican dishes. Also recommended with lobster." I had it with Cajun tilapia, and found it too purfumey for my taste, as I do with most Viogniers, but as I mentioned in a previous post I favour the fruit forward wines. Although I am not likely to purchase it again, it is still a fantastic value at $10-$12, and I would not hesitate to give it as a gift to someone who likes purfumey wines.

Wolf Mountain Chanteloup

Taste: 5/5
Value: 4/5
Price: $20

In contrast, there is a Chardonnay/Viognier blend from GA of all places, called Chanteloup. The winery's description is: "French for "Song of the Wolf", Chanteloup is a medium-bodied dry white wine with a hint of French oak. This wine was fermented completely dry and offers an excellent balance of fruit, floral notes and delicate French Oak tannin imparting a softer finish. This unique flavor was achieved by blending 70% French Oak fermented and sur-lie aged Chardonnay with 30% stainless steel fermented Viognier. Enjoy with smoked seafood, poultry, white-meat dishes and soft cheeses." I first tried this wine with my sister-in-law when we did a GA wine weekend in Dahlonega.

So many wineries, so little time!

I would have to say my increase in wine consumption really took off after the birth of my second child. Coincidence? I went on a girls week to Napa with 3 of my friends from Colorado, only I couldn't drink much wine because I was 4 months pregnant. My doctor, whose name I will withhold, actually told me I could drink 1-2 glasses over the course of the day. Prior to this trip, I was still in the Merlot stage of wine drinking and had not yet crossed over to appreciation of Cabs. The most memorable wine of the trip was Frank Family Chardonnay, which continues to be one of my favorite Chardonnays if I'm going to splurge.
Last fall, I had the opportunity to return to Napa for a week with my sister. Vacationing with my beloved aside, this was one of the best vacations I have ever had! I am a planner, and a lot of the joy I get from traveling is in the anticipation and planning. We booked our trip 18 months in advance, and spent the 6 months prior to the trip looking over winery maps of Napa and Sonoma, planning 5-6 wineries each day, going to web sites, and looking for classes we could take. Interestingly, we struck out on classes until the month or so of our trip when we hit payload! There were so many great moments, I'm sure I'll forget some, but we started out with a wine and cheese tasting at V Sattui, where we got to taste Sauvignon Blanc grapes from the vineyard. This was my first experience pairing a rose (Gamay Rouge) with BBQ, and Blue Cheese with Port. Both were out of this world! We later visited a small winery called Havens (so small we didn't think they were open when we first arrived) - known for their Albarino, and ended the day at Domaine Chandon with a flight of Champagne (not a Champagne fan myself) and a tomato mozzarella salad. Other highlights from the trip were sitting on the hill overlooking the vineyards at Viansa in Sonoma, visiting Chateau St Jean (one of my favorite wine portfolios), the progressive tasting at Sterling, a wine class at the Franciscan where we were the only two students, and a winemakers dinner at Copia. There are so many memories I am leaving out, but those are the ones that flood instantly to memory.
So why is Chateau St Jean one of my favorite wine portfolios? You know how after hearing a live performance, the music takes on a more personal meaning? That's what happened to me at the winemakers dinner at Copia, which was sponsored by Chateau St Jean. Hearing Margo talk about how she cultivates and blends her wines made them more personal for me, hence my listing of her wines as a favorite portfolio. Never in my life have I ever tasted a $100 bottle of wine. Never would I have believed that it could be so much better than a $15 bottle of wine, but I almost succumbed to temptation and spent $100 on this bottle of Cinq Cepages. BTY, I recently found it for $50 on some web sites. Anyway, I talked myself out of it because I tend to save $20 bottles of wine for special occasions, when would I ever be able to bring myself to open a $100 bottle of wine?!? My wonderful sister gave me a bottle of Cinq Cepages for Christmas last year. I'm saving it for my 40th birthday or some other monumental occasion.
If I lived in CA, which I will never do, I would have to give up a weekend a month to work at a winery, because then you get a reciprocal 30% discount at most of the wineries! My only complaint, well more a disappointment, about the trip, was that the wines you taste are typically their limited production, so you can only buy them at the winery or through their website. So many of the wines I brought home, I don't want to open, because I feel like they are irreplaceable. I was also surprised at the amount of money spent on tastings alone - $10-$25/tasting, 5-6 tastings/day over 6 days - well, you can do the math!

A good wine sale

The other day, I had to stop by Kroger to pick up some chips for our fajita dinner. I didn't really have to go to Kroger, per se, but they have a really good wine selection. I live in AL, where it is legal to sell wine and beer in the grocery store, but until recently it was not legal to have wine shipped to AL. Anyway, since I needed chips and didn't want the hassle of the Walmart checkout, I went to Kroger, where I could also puruse their wine selection. I had a couple run of the mill bottles written down that I wanted to try to find. I have a wine review book by Andrea Immer that I went through after I bought it and marked various wines that sounded like ones I would want to try. She uses a panel of tasters to rate wines on both taste and value scales and even gives each wine a grade on how well it ages in the few days after the bottle is opened. After a good 30 minutes of just walking up and down the wine aisle, reading different bottles, my gaze fell upon 'R' Napa Valley Cabernet (Raymond Estates) that was on sale for $13. This is normally a $20+ bottle of wine that I had previously purchased at a wine tasting at my favorite wine shop. I hadn't been that excited over buying wine since Leap Day, when I got a one day offer from winechateau.com for free shipping! I ended up leaving with 2 bottles of R, a bottle of Chateau St Michelle Indian Wells Cab, a bottle of Covey Run Riesling, a bottle of Three Blind Moose Merlot and a bottle of BV Coastal Estates Pinot Noir. All in all, a great wine outing!

How I became a wine lover

When I try to remember how, exactly, I became a wine lover, I really can't say. By that, I mean, I really don't know. I didn't grow up in a wine producing area or in a wine drinking family. I didn't drink my first big red and think "this is it". I could say that the dietitian in me buys into the health benefits of wine, but the truth is, I just love wine! I "specialize" in the $15 and under wines for everyday consumption. I used to feel guilty about the amount of money I spend on wine, but a wise friend (my sister) pointed out that, unlike most women, I don't get my nails done and I don't get highlights, so when you add it up I'm getting off cheap - almost.

Like many wine drinkers, I started out with White Zinfandel, thinking I was a wine drinker. Now, when I happen upon said WZ drinker, it's hard not to snicker. In fact, having become a wine lover, it took me until just last year that I could even bring myself to buy a bottle of anything rose, and that came after a trip to Napa with my sister, who is also my best friend, where we were served Gamay Rouge with BBQ, and it was incredible! I'll share more about that trip in a later post.

I would describe my taste preference as sweeter whites and bolder reds, fruit forward vs floral. Two of my favorite wines are Covey Run Riesling ($8) and Liotro (an Italian red ~$12). I love that I can drink a glass of wine one day and like it, have it with a meal the next day and love it. I love that I can taste a gazillion different Chardonnays or Merlots or Cabs and they will all have their own nuances, some I may not care for, some I may appreciate, and some I may fall head over heels for, all depending on where the grapes were grown, the climate and soil conditions, and how the winemaker ages and blends the juice. I love that a wine I drink by myself may be good, but the same wine shared with a friend may be phenomenal. I love that I can drink a Cab and get bowled over by the tannins, then pair it with blue cheese and all I taste is juicy fruit. I love the way wine looks in a wine glass - the right wine glass. I'm not saying I have Reidel glasses for every type of wine I drink, but I do have my (rather large) multipurpose red and multipurpose white glasses. It's just not the same drinking wine out of "Olive Garden" type wine glasses.

It is rare that I don't have a bottle of wine open that I drink over 3-4 days, and since I am given to enjoying a good bit of wine, I thought it prudent to start a wine blog to help me keep track of what I've tried and what I've liked!