decanted

something different

We didn't know what to expect from this 2007 Cornarea Roero Arneis, but decided to give it a shot. Arneis is a white grape from northern Italy, and apparently its name means "whimsical" in a Piedmontese dialect. Definitely an accurate description.

This wine is thick and viscous, and changes several times in one sip. It probably works best with food, which would help tame its many layers. We detected a slight effervescence and a piney, almost woodsy taste. It also has some ginger and a little bit of sweetness, and its flavors tend to go on for a long time.

We found the Cornarea to be offbeat and interesting, with a strong backbone. It's not for everyone, but we would recommend it to anyone looking to try something new. We picked it up for $19.99 at Schneider's of Capitol Hill, here in DC, and would give it a 7.5 out of 10.

mystery guest

Apologies for our absence--we've been on vacation in the Pacific Northwest. Where, by the way, we went to a great Seattle wine and food store called The Spanish Table. It's near Pike Place Market and specializes in, you guessed it, Spanish wines.

Before we left for our trip, though, we tried an interesting white blend from Morocco, the 2007 Zniber Les Troix Domaines Guerrouane Blanc. It took us a while to figure out the short burst of fruitiness at the end of each sip, but eventually we identified it as honeydew or honeysuckle. There's also a hint of both bitterness and chalkiness at the end. It starts out dry, unlike most of the whites we tend to choose, which usually start fruity and finish dry.

This was something of a mystery wine--we found very little about it online, aside from this CNBC article on Zniber Vineyards. But we do know that we got it at Whole Foods for $13.99, that it's very light, and that it would make sense with (naturally) Mediterranean food. We rate it a 6.5 out of 10.

old white guy

We have few opportunities to try aged white wines--they just don't tend to be as readily available as two or three-year-old whites. When Tim came across this 1998 López de Heredia Viña Gravonia Blanco Crianza at Addy Bassin's MacArthur Beverages, he picked it up out of curiosity. It's a $23.99 white Rioja, made from 100% Viura grapes (and organic ones, at that) at the family-owned López de Heredia winery.

We sipped it at home a few hours later and felt surprised by the oakiness sitting right in the middle of it. The taste is definitely not as subtle as French oak (it was aged in American barrels) but it's not as blatant as California-style oak. Like many oaky Chardonnays, especially California ones, it contains some hints of vanilla and creaminess. But it doesn't end like a chard; it's more acidic. After much debate, we identified the hard-to-pin-down fruit note as orange.

This isn't an unbelievably crafted wine. But the age on it gives it a few tricks up its sleeve that are hard to find in a younger bottle. We rate it as a 6.5.

not quite ready

We must admit we have not tasted as many Spanish wines as French or American or even Italian wines. But this is what decanted is all about:  sharing new experiences and learning from them. At one of our favorite DC wine stores, Addy Bassin's MacArthur Beverages, we selected the 2003 Aalto Ribera del Duero from Spain's northern plateau. Like most red wines from this region, the Aalto is made from the Tempranillo grape. Due to similarities in taste and structure, many experts once believed that tempranillo was related to one of our favorites, Pinot Noir, only to be discredited by those pesky geneticists. It was because of these similarities that we were very excited to try this example of Tempranillo.

Oftentimes, however, high expectations can lead to greater disappointment. The Aalto was a deep purple-colored wine with a strong smoky nose. What we tasted was a very tightly wound, tannic, toasty wine that got reasonably better with aeration (exposing it to air over time), but never really came out of its shell. Perhaps a few more years would do this wine well, but for $54.99 we gave this wine a disappointing 5.5 out of 10.

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.