August wine club. Kate and Wayne hosted, and I brought the wine. This was a neat tasting, because some people had never spent much time with this particular grape, while others are major Pinot-holics. Sadly, my handwritten notes on the evening fell victim to some overzealous housekeeping here on North Olympia Street, so all the scores, comments and fake names -- not to mention Chip's witticisms -- have been lost. But I did come across the receipts, and my memories of the evening are fairly clear. So at least we know what we tasted...
     We started with a rosé, the Toad Hollow "Eye of the Toad" Sonoma County Dry Pinot Noir Rosé, which cost $9 or so at Cork & Bottle. A pleasant little palate cleanser. As I recall, Kate, Wayne and Becky were pleasantly surprised by its fruitiness and dryness.
     Next came the 1996 Germain "Les Teurons" from Beaune in Burgundy, though I'm not 100 percent sure of the year. $20 or so at Cork & Bottle, marked down from $36 or so. This was a surprising wine; Germain is a 1er-cru winery, and it was supposed to set a standard for a traditional lean, elegant Burgundy wine. In fact, it was smooth and pretty intensely fruity -- maybe not as much so as the Calis that came later, but still... Everybody in the room seemed to like it.
     We moved on to the 2000 Domaine Arlaud Bourgogne Rouge, $19 at Cork & Bottle. This had been billed as more of an international-style Pinot Noir (read, fruity and not Frenchy) but it turned out to be leaner than the Germain and had just a hint of that wacky terroir. People liked it, though not as much as the previous one.
     The fourth wine, the 2002 (?) Adelsheim Oregon Pinot Noir, $20 or so at Cork & Bottle, Wine Seller and elsewhere, turned out to be one of the favorites of the evening. The last time we tasted them, the complaint about Oregon Pinots was that they felt almost sterile; their formal characteristics -- color, body, fruit intensity, etc. -- were perfectly fine but didn't add up to anything. The Adelsheim had a little more of an edge to it, and the group seemed to appreciate that.
     Then we tried the 2003 (?) Zenith Vineyards Pinot Noir, from New Zealand's Marlborough region. $14 at Martin Wine Cellar. Also very popular. This one was extraordinarily pleasant, though it lacked any hint of the darker flavors that some of us look for in Pinots. If memory serves, it struck me as the Pinot Noir equivalent of a Jolly Rancher, with the sweetness and tang dialed down a bit. If there was a knock on it, it was that the wine was too candyish -- light, fruity and inoffensive. No risks here, in other words.
     By contrast, the 2002 Te Kairanga Pinot Noir, from New Zealand's Martinborough region, was the most controversial wine of the evening. I really, really dug it; to this day, I can taste it just by thinking about it. It tasted like asphalt seasoned with black pepper, with a spare portion of blueberry-blackberry fruit cut into it. But not everyone liked it. Chip and Kate found it pungent and offensive, and thought it tasted like asphalt seasoned with black... well, you get the picture. Incidentally, thanks to Jon at Cork & Bottle for finding this wine for us. It retails for about $23.
     Into the home stretch. We had high hopes for the 2002 (?) Chalone Pinot Noir, from the Chalone AVA in California, not least because the winery's parent company also owns one of my true loves. And in fact, most of the people in the room really enjoyed this heavy, hyper-extracted, piney, almost port-like wine. And I sort of did, too. But in the end, Steph and I both geeked out and docked it heavily for not being a proper Pinot.
     Our last wine, the 2001 Keyhole Ranch Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, didn't get a fair shake. It was big and heavy, and by this point our tastebuds were exhausted and we were all thinking, "Yeah, whatever. Can we go now?" It's made by Seghesio, a longtime wine club favorite. I'd love to try it again on its own.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 10:20 PM
 :: Comments? []

Automatic for the people. A friend sends along this link to an NPR item on automated wine bar in San Francisco. The place is called VinoVenue, and they've got a bunch of wines hooked up to machines that deduct money from a purple smart card and dispense 1 oz. of wine at a time. (For wines in the "Velvet Room," that one ounce may set you back $28.) Might be worth a pilgrimage during the next wine trip.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 5:22 PM
 :: Comments? []

October in wine country. Two friends' wedding provided a convenient excuse for another swing through Napa and Sonoma. Last year's trip was all about Pinot Noir; this one was mostly about thick, dark, powerful Zinfandels.
     DAY ONE: Steve, Alisa, Angela, Pam, Mitch and I started at Seghesio. I've never been that interested in Cal-Itals, but Seghesio makes a terrific Barbera. But they're best known for their Zins, and I took home a bottle of the Saini Zinfandel. Next was Pezzi King, where the tasting room is now upstairs in an office building in downtown Healdsburg. A bit odd, but they make a bunch of great, reasonably priced wines. And the tasting room person -- barefoot, natch -- at least had the presence of mind to mock Steve's, um, controversial shorts. The smooth Claret was a bargain at $15; my favorite was the Dry Creek Valley Old Vines Zinfandel. Before heading back to Sonoma to get changed for the wedding, we stopped at Family Wineries, a tasting room for five small producers. For me, the stars were the Meredith Mourvedre, the Noel Kunde Ranch Barbera and Mayo Ricci Vineyard Old Vines Zinfandel.
     DAY TWO: Pam and Mitch went back to chilly Minnesota, but Steph and Natalie joined the crew. We stopped at Darioush, whose newly constructed main building, a riff on a Persian palace, wouldn't look out of place on the Las Vegas strip. They don't make many wines; the ones they do make are subtle, vaguely exotic and on the pricey side. (Gotta pay for the palace somehow.) I wouldn't go farther than the $38 Red Wine, a Bordeaux blend; Steph sprung for the Cab. Next stop: Reynolds Family, where the phenomenal wines were somewhat overshadowed by a tasting room hostess who responded to one of our questions with, "Could you let me finish this first?" And no, she wasn't referring to the quesadilla she was chowing down on for most of our visit.
     That afternoon, we went to Signorello, which might have been the best stop on the trip. I took the Estate Syrah and Las Amigas Pinot Noir. Then we headed to Napa Wine Co., where we tasted the Larkmead Cab and Merlot that were a huge hit at Once Upon a Vine, but I ended up buying another burly Zinfandel, this one from Lamborn Family Vineyards. Weary and wine-stained, we finished the day at Cakebread, where we took the picture above. I like their wines, but I went nuts there last year. This year, they were out of the Rubaiyat, and I just wasn't feeling the love.
     On DAY THREE, it was just Natalie, Stephanie and me. We began at Quintessa, and it was like landing on the planet of the anal-retentive winemakers. The winery looks like a ski lodge crossed with a Bauhaus-style factory. They supposedly grow grapes in a "soil-sensitive manner," and they bury animal horns in the field to recalibrate the karma and accentuate the feng shui, and the people who work there recognize that the B.S. factor is through the roof. Quintessa makes only one wine, which retails for upwards of $100 a bottle. And its only redeeming quality is that it's amazingly good. If I recall correctly, we tasted the 1998, 2000 and 2001. You couldn't go wrong, but I think I liked the '01 best.
     We stopped at Conn Creek/Villa Mt. Eden. The winery is home to two cats, one of which is even fatter than the infamous Perry. Our taste buds were zonked out. But the 2000 Villa Mt. Eden Mead Ranch Vineyard Napa Valley Zinfandel, which is as thick as purple house paint, but darker, was powerful enough to make an impression.
     The three of us went to Bouchon for lunch. This is another restaurant run by the French Laundry guy. Tasty and reasonable. I ordered some kind of open-faced sandwich. It came with "french fries" that were, in fact, french fries. Really good ones. At the adjoining bakery, we bought ham-and-cheese baguettes and cookies for the plane ride home. (A better dinner than those blasted peanuts.) Before heading to the airport, we made a final stop at Acacia. For whatever reason, the tasting room had mostly the same stuff as last year -- i.e., the same exact releases of the same wines. Not the blockbuster ending I hoped for, but still a fine trip.
     You can see a few other photos here.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 9:43 AM
 :: Comments? []