decanted

californication

Geez, would somebody please make up his mind? For the better part of the past year, we've been sharing our experience of drinking our way through different countries, by way of their grapes. A kind of around-the-world-in-as-long-as-it-takes...with a buzz. If you've been with us from the beginning, you might remember Tim's initial prejudice towards California reds. (Meghan may or may not have held similar preconceived notions, but elects to, more often than not, play good cop.)

But our trip to Sonoma last year, while not totally dispelling his bigotry, was eye-opening in that it let us discover some smaller wineries that take an artisan approach to their craft. These wines are almost always going to carry big fruit flavors. We learned that it's possible, however, with the right touch, to balance them out with depth and acidity in order to make a more elegant product. So some might think of us as being indecisive about Cali reds or others might just claim, "You lie!" We like to think we have increasingly fluid ideas about wine.

While the Lynmar Estate Pinot Noir we had last October was a good start, the 2002 Hanzell Vineyards Pinot Noir we drank the other night upped the ante for both California Pinot in general, and Sonoma Valley more specifically. This was by no means a perfect wine, but a terrific example of not overextending one's assets. That is to say, ripe fruit was abundant, but because of the care taken in making this wine, layers of herbs, stone and acidity mix to form a lovely, soft, balanced wine. The current release (2006) is priced at $95--without having tasted it, it's hard to comment, but let's just say the price for this vintage (about $70 online) is just about right. We rate this an 8.5 out of 10.

the ridges of sonoma county

We have a confession to make: we're generally not big (R.I.P., Andre) on Zinfandels. Most wines range from 13% to 14.5% alcohol, while Zins can contain as much as 15% or 16%. That doesn't sound like a big difference, but it can change the wine's composition enough that winemakers will often overemphasize the fruit to try and balance out the alcohol. As a result, many Zins are highly acidic fruit bombs.

Not the 2007 Ridge Sonoma County Three Valleys. This $17.99 blend of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Syrah, Grenache, and Carignane grapes surprised us with its nice plummy fruitiness. It's also only 14.3% alcohol. The label advertises it as a "red table wine" and that's exactly what it is--not a special-occasion wine, but great for a casual dinner.

It would work well with tenderloin. Probably not with gamier meats or more flavorful cuts like hangar steak or ribeye--doesn't have the structure to stand up to them. Along with plum, we also tasted some dark cherry. All in all, when measured against other California reds, the Ridge is a very good deal. It gets an 8.0 out of 10 in our book.

A quick word about Ridge--this is a solid maker whose wines are generally well crafted, although they tend to be a little on the pricey side. (The Three Valleys Zin is on their low end.) They're particularly known for their Cabs and Zins.

big, fruity...and good?

If you've been following our little exploration of wine, you will not be surprised to hear that Tim is not a big fan of the California style of making wines. In general, he thinks big, overextracted, overripened fruit bombs that hit you over the head with their "style" are good for dessert, getting drunk and not much else. Then there's the additional problem of overpaying for wines from the Napa Valley, which is one of the most overpriced regions in the state, or maybe even on the planet. Think of it as the Ian Schrager hotel of the wine world-- lots of glitz, lots of glamor, not always worth the cost.

While fruit and alcohol may be the backbone of a wine, finesse and nuance take it to a different level. Many Napa reds we've tasted don't have much of the latter, but the 2001 Elyse Cabernet Sauvignon Morisoli Vineyard actually does. Its dark purple depths contain notes of leather and smoke as well as dried cherry, and it has a soft, elegant finish. For $69.99, we rate it a 7.5 out of 10.

sonoma (epilogue)

While we were out in California tasting wines with Kathleen Inman (see Sonoma post) we asked her who she thought was making the most Burgundy-like Pinot Noir in the area. She said Lynmar Estate, so once we got home to DC we picked up a bottle of the 2006 Lynmar Estate Russian River Valley Pinot Noir for $49.99.

Kathleen's advice was right on. This is an elegant, incredibly interesting wine. It begins very softly, then immediately opens up to a vibrant, almost effervescent sensation filled with flavors of cherry and bark. It finshes with a zing due in part to the high levels of acidity present. (Tim is a big, big fan of acidity, when applied judiciously.) The Lynmar's earthy mellowness gives it versatility. It could be paired with anything from fish to light game. Not steak, though--red meat is probably too rich for its comfort zone. We give this an 8.0 out of 10.

sonoma (part 2)

Our buddy Barry Koslow (Executive Chef of Mendocino Grille and Wine Bar) set us up with two unforgettable private tours.  We traveled over to Acorn Winery in Healdsburg to meet with Betsy & Bill Nachbaur (pictured to the right with Meghan in the middle). They showed us around their Alegria Vineyard and we marveled at the some 20 plus different types of grapes they were growing. Admittedly, these were not our favorite wines of the trip, but the vineyard is worth mentioning because of the informative and beautiful tour we were given.

From there, we drove about ten miles (top down in our rented red Mini Cooper Convertible) to Lauterbach Cellars. What can we say about Stew Lauterbach? First of all, for those of you who know Tim, you know about his unnatural obsession with the name Stu. Seriously, what's that all about.  To make things just a bit more confusing, he now believes that his rightful name should be spelled like the great Dr. Lauterbach. Something about the greatest human name in the world mixed with food.  But we digress. On to Stew. You know how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak supposedly built the first Apple computer in a garage? Well, Stew does the same thing, only with wine. This spry 60-something part-time emergency room doctor crafts Pinot Noir and Syrah in the garage of his rustic, vineyard-covered property. On a stepstool, brandishing a wine thief (a device used to taste wine from the barrel) that may have doubled as a turkey baster, he vaulted among several 30-gallon barrels to nab us generous samples of his upcoming vintages. In all, we must have tasted over 15 selections and we were starting to feel it, especially Meghan, who is still not comfortable with public expectoration (spitting). At one point, Stew had us taste from four separate Syrah barrels which individually tasted anywhere from extremely tannic to highly sulfuric, but when blended together formed a pleasant wine.

sonoma

After gorging ourselves and drinking a ton, it was time to head across the bridge and north to Sonoma County to, well, gorge ourselves and drink a ton. We were there mainly to taste Pinot Noirs and we did find a few that were good if not great. Two private tours/tastings were set up by a friend of ours, Josh Miles (a sales rep at Martin Scott Wines). Josh, being a Burgundy specialist, knows a great deal about this particular grape, so we were very much looking forward to his recommendations.

First we drove to Windsor to meet with Kathleen Inman of Inman Family Wines.  Kathleen told us she thought the Russian River Valley was a great place to grow Pinot Noir and that she feels any Pinot-based wine needs a good amount of acidity to give it balance. Tim couldn't agree with her more about the acidity--some of the better Burgundies he has tasted have needed a good deal of acidity in order to balance out the wine and even contribute to its complexity. We tasted a Rosé, a Pinot Gris and two Pinot Noirs, eventually deciding to buy a bottle of 2006 Inman Family Thorn Road Ranch Pinot Noir. What we tasted was a lot of sour cherry and some other berry fruits along with some leather, but mostly just a very nice, fairly fruity, soft, balanced wine. At $52 a relatively good buy in our minds. In our book, worthy of a 6.0 out of 10.

Next up was Scherrer Winery in Sebastapol. Fred Scherrer gave us a grand tour of his wine making facility, fed us some delicious lamb burgers left over from an open house the day before and let us sample 10 or so different bottles. We were most impressed with his Rosé which unfortunately for us was sold out. Most of the wines we tasted were good not great, but we both felt Fred was very close to making terrific wines and we will keep him on our radar.

san francisco

So we decided to take a trip to California to see our good friend Greg Berman (see picture on left) and also so we could challenge Tim's deep-seated feeling that all Cali wines are crap. While we weren't convinced that the region is competitive with the best in the world (we'll get to those), we did debunk the aforementioned idea of poo. We still think Oregon is the best place for American Pinot Noir, but we discovered that the Russian River Valley is an acceptable alternative. In general, the fruit was bright and prevalant but not overextracted (overripened) like many of the Pinots from Carneros and Santa Barbara County.

But before we went to wine country, we needed to spend some time in San Francisco doing the things that help to make us who we are:  eating and drinking. We stopped at a little wine shop called Ruby Wine and picked up a bottle of 2007 Chateau Ducasse Bordeaux Blanc for $16.99 and a bottle of 2005 Regis Bouvier Gevrey-Chambertin for $69.99.

We drank some wine with Greg and his girlfriend Laura, watched the fog roll over the mountains to the area where he used to live and just relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. The Chateau Ducasse was a blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Muscadelle grapes and was not particularly offensive or interesting. A very blah 5.0 out of 10 which was fine considering our mindsets (vacation).

Gevrey-Chambertin is one of our favorite places to find "bargains" in Burgundy. It's true that most great and even truly good Burgundies are ridiculously expensive and probably overpriced, but we have found some relatively decent values in this region. As with all red wines of Burgundy, it is 100% Pinot Noir and as with any good Burgundy, good fruit and good acidity to match. This was not a velvety soft wine, but had good balance and changed several times during each taste. A solid 6.5 out of 10.

Greg then took us over to A16 where his friend, Liza Shaw, made us a terrific meal and we got to know a very interesting 2003 Binomio Montepulciano d'Abruzzo for $70.00 (yours for about $45.00 in a wine store). A fairly robust and tannic wine, it definitely needed time to mellow and when it did, it was delightfully full and funky and chewy. A 7.0 out of 10 that we might have scored higher if we bought it in a store for $45.00.

wine

We really, really like wine. And, let's face it, we both like to hear our own voices. We started decanted as a place to think and talk about wine, and maybe even help a friend or two who is looking for suggestions or to join our conversation. We plan to mostly discuss wine, but will occasionally throw in some curveballs, such as thoughts on our other favorite things (various liquid refreshments, candy, random foods). We'll use a scale from 0-10 for wine and will take value into account. That is to say, a wine may be given a bump up if it is a bargain, but good wine is good wine, and price will not greatly affect the overall score.

So, you know when you go to the liquor/wine store and look around and you're thinking you want to get something nice but you don't know what to get. So you talk to somebody and they ask, "How much do you want to spend?" And you say, "I don't know, $25." Some random bottle of red or white or pink is picked out for you and you ask a series of follow up questions that are more often than not affirmed (i.e., "Will this go well with my lamb dish?", "I don't like my whites oaky. It's not too oaky, is it?", or for some of the newbies out there, "Sooo, this is good?"). Then you get home and you open the bottle and you taste it and think that the guy at the store must have been high or lying or both because the rotgut you're drinking tastes like the bastardly combo of Manischewitz and the box wine you drink at church.

Or perhaps you know a little bit more about wine. You've drank some in your time and might even be able to describe a wine if asked to--as long as you don't have to use words such as unctuous or precocious. If handed a wine list with no prior knowledge of what might be on the menu, you could safely land on a nice Sancerre or California Cab. You may have heard of Robert Parker and might even pay attention if you hear a wine nerd talking to a sommelier or knowledgeable salesperson.

Then there are those of you who really love wine and devote a little too much time (probably) and resources (definitely) to the pursuit of your addiction. You might have heard of Eric Asimov and may subscribe to one or more publications devoted to wine. You can usually tell the difference between a Grüner Veltliner and a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and maybe even correctly choose which Pinot Noir is from California and which one is from Oregon. Receiving the wine list at a restaurant is a joy and you often feel that it is your duty to take on this daunting task in order to heighten the pleasure of your fellow diners (and yourself).

Whichever category you fall under, this blog is a good place for you to visit. Whether you want to learn more about certain varietals, discuss differences in vintages, compare tasting notes or simply get a good recommendation for your next visit to the store, check back often because we do drink our fair share of wine.