WINO 101

Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!

I can’t believe it’s Thursday already! And you know what that means! It’s time for The Carpe Vinum Weekly Newsletter of the Week for This Week, brought to you with extra redundancy! What are we tasting this week? It’s BIG REDS of California! They’re wines that really need no introduction, however, this newsletter needed one, so it suits a dual purpose.

So most of us are familiar with California. It takes up half of the West Coast, grows a lot of grapevines for wine, and has more Santas than the Mall of America in December! (Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, etc. . .) And most of us are more familiar with the California  wines than those of European origin, just due to the proximity of the place. However, we’ve also seen a lot of cheap, boring Cabernet, Chardonnay, and Merlot. The unholy trinity of blah. Everybody down there makes these three, and it can get a bit wearing.

Now on the other hand, there is still quite a lot of other, less overblown wines going on there to keep our interest. It’s still the primary place to find our old spicy Croatian friend, Zinfandel, and his French friend, and often partner-in-crime, Petite Sirah. These grape varieties have a handful of plantings in other parts of the world, but still the best examples are from California. It’s also a land of creativity, in regards to the wine industry, as well as being a place that attracts eccentrics. This can be a powerful combination when it comes to interesting varieties to plant, ways to blend things and, heck, even just the marketing. There’s always something to be said about an interesting label or name.

The first wine that caught my attention for this tasting was a wine made from the Carignane grape. Carignane is normally a blending grape in the French Southern Rhone. I don’t recall ever having a single-varietal Carignane wine, and the importance of its presence in the Rhone wines is understated, so I thought it would be a good idea to try it on its own. From there it’s all oldies but goodies: The essential Zinfandel and Petite Sirah, and a really nice Sangiovese, as well as a few really nice and interesting blends. And don’t miss that last one, which is Pazzo (meaning “Call me crazy”). It features a psychedelic-hypno-label that I couldn’t resist. I guess it’s the hypnotizing aspect of the label. It’s much better than “Cats!”

So Friday, April 14th, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Big California Reds!!
Castle Rock 2004 Zinfandel, Sonoma
Pellegrini 2004 Carignane, Sonoma
Santa Barbara 2003 ZCS (Zinfandel, Carignane, Sangiovese), Santa Rita Hills
Barnwood 2004 Petite Sirah, Santa Barbara County
Tablas Creek 2003 Cotes de Tablas (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, Counoise), Paso Robles

Even More Even Bigger Even More Red Cali Reds!!
Seghesio 2003 Sangiovese, Alexander Valley
Bacio Divino 2003 Pazzo “Call Me Crazy” (Sangiovese, Cab, Perite Sirah, Viognier), Napa Valley

Next Friday tasting The Exquisite French Bordeaux!