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.
