WINO 101

Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!

Welcome to the Newsletter of Extreme Power for Carpe Vinum Tasting That Carries Such Extreme Power. I hope the Holiday went well for you all as we head into the final stretch of 2006. So in preparation, let’s visit one of my favorite varietal wines: It’s the Incredible, indelible, unforgettable, and totally versatile Syrah (aka Shiraz). This is one grape varietal that has more personalities than . . . well, someone with a lot of personalities. Is Sybil still a valid reference? Let me explain.

I my line of work here as the resident wine monger, I have the incredibly tasking job of tasting numerous, if not innumerable, wines per week. I’ll taste somewhere between one wine and several hundred, depending on special events put on by distributors or wine festivals or tasting at wineries and so on. I know. Tough job. Throughout these multiple wines there are many grape varieties that give you what you expect. Cabernet Sauvignon is pretty much a Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot is pretty much Merlot, and Chardonnay is pretty much Chardonnay. All with varying degrees of oak, depending on the discretion (or lack thereof) of the winemaker. But Syrah! Syrah seems to exemplify and express the terroir of the growing region more poetically than any other grape.

In Southeastern Australia we find many huge, hulking, fruity and jammy bombs of Syrah practically bursting out of the bottle. In the Southwest of Australia the wines are more subdued with more emphasis on the spicy characteristics of clove, anise, nutmeg and so on. In the Northern Rhone of France we find the Syrah with other darker spicy notes of black and white pepper, flavors I also found recently in a Willamette Valley Syrah (of which there are very few). South Africa produces a Syrah that is so meaty it’s served Medium Rare, not room temperature. In California there tends a balance of many of those fruity and spicy characteristics, depending on regional diversity, and in Washington the styles can be leaner and cleaner, but still exude all the powerful fruit of which this varietal is capable. Recently I read that India is starting production of Syrah, as well. The climate is so warm in the region that they grow the grapes during the winter, and trim back the vines during the summer to simulate a vine’s winter hibernation. That’s something I’d love to try! (The wine. Not a summer hibernation.)

Shifting gears, though, one of the most common questions I get in here is “What’s the difference between Syrah and Shiraz?” Quite simply, it’s just the name. There’s an update on that explanation, though. Up until today I thought the grape came from the city of Shiraz, its namesake in Persia (Iran), many years ago and that through years of French pronunciation it became “Syrah”. Now results posted from the UC Davis wine geneticists have concluded that Syrah, at least the Syrah that is currently cultivated as “Syrah” or “Shiraz” is actually native to the French Rhone, and a cross between the grapes “Dureza” and “Mondeuse Blanche”. That totally throws a brick into the “Shiraz” theory, and I haven’t found any explanation as to why these grapes were ever called “Shiraz”, unless it was a misidentification somewhere along the way. So to make a long story short: The “why” of the Syrah/Shiraz story is unclear, but the “what” is simple. It’s the same thing. The same delicious thing.

So Friday, December 1st, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Syrah (aka Shiraz)!!!
Stonecap Vineyards 2004 Syrah, Columbia Valley, Washington
3 Rings 2005 Shiraz, Barossa Valley, Australia
Chateau Val Joanis 2003 Cotes du Luberon, France
Montes 2004 Alpha Syrah, Colchagua Valley, Chile
Rosenblum 2004 Syrah Abba Vineyard, Lodi, California

Shiraz (dba Syrah)!!!
Fidelitas 2004 Columbia Valley, Washington
The Pines 2005 Syrah, Columbia Gorge, Oregon

A stellar deal at $10 for the First 5, $6 for the Extra 2 Premium Pours.
Hope to see you here!

Seize the Wine!

Next Friday tasting is The French Rhone!

M

Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!

Happy Thanksgiving Eve to you all! And Happy Thanksgiving Eve Eve to our friends named Eve, just to be clear. Welcome to the Carpe Vinum Newsletter of Truth and Justice to Eonophiles, Emo-Styles, and Xenophobes and the Tasting Announcement for Not Tomorrow, Not the Day After Tomorrow, but the Day After That, Which Is Friday! We’re tasting the wines of Italy’s Tuscany! Oh, deliciousness! It’s the perfect match to all that food you won’t be eating tomorrow. (See? Because if you eat it tomorrow, then you can’t enjoy it with the wine that we have here the day after tomorrow. Ugh. Being two days early on this thing just confuses me.)

Let’s discuss Friday. It’s the day after Thanksgiving, the most hedonistic holiday this side of the Superbowl (which is, indeed, a holiday). So for people who aren’t me, Friday is also the biggest shopping day of the year. Followed by the day before Christmas which is the second biggest shopping day of the year . . . or the biggest shopping day for people who are me. But for a small selection of people, this Friday is Black Friday, or Buy Nothing Day. I would just like to propose a compromise and call it “Red Friday” or Buy-Nothing-BUT-Wine, day. Or for the sake of tasting on Friday, how about Screw-Shopping-and-Let’s-Get-To-Drinking-Wine Day?

So what are we serving for my new favorite holiday, the Screw-Shopping-and-Let’s-Get-To-Drinking-Wine Day? (Red Friday). Italy’s Tuscany! The predominantly Sangiovese-based reds from the region are probably the best known in the world. And this region of Italy owes it to one simple word: Chianti. This doesn’t mean it’s synonymous with the region, but it is the most familiar wine of all of Italy, for better or worse. Okay. For worse. I’ve had more bad Chianti than I’d like to admit. Or maybe it’s that I’ve had more bad Chianti than I can count. (But hey, those bottles wrapped in reeds and raffia sure do look good as candleholders, right?) So with this in mind, even though there are a lot of good Chiantis out there, I prefer to take it slowly when trying new ones. So I am only featuring one Chianti in this lineup. But Tuscany has so much more to choose from, considering Italy is a veritable wine empire.

So, Chianti aside, I grabbed a selection of some of the other best regions of Tuscany. But I’m doing something kinda wacky this time around. One of Italy’s heavy-hitters hails from this region. It’s the burly and long-lived and legendary Brunello di Montalcino. I’ve had few, if any of these that I can remember, as the retail prices start at about $45, with most hovering well above that mark. So for fun and for the educational experience, I thought I might feature 3 Brunellos in a separate tasting off to the side. Considering the price of these bottles, the tasting for the three will be $10. It might be confusing things for myself, but it’s all in the name of science! (Okay, not really science, per se.)

So Friday, November 24th, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Tuscany!!!
Corte alla Flora 2004 Rosso di Montepulciano
Agricola Centolani 2003 “Poggiotondo” Rosso di Montalcino
Gualdo del Re 2003 Val di Cornia
Mannucci-Droandi 2003 “Cepetto” Chianti-Classico
La Parrina 2002 Parrina Rosso

Tuscany Two!!!
Potentino 2003 “Sacramonte” Montecucco Rosso
Avignonesi 2003 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano

Tuscany Take Three: Brunello!!!
La Gerla 1999 Brunello di Montalcino
Poggio San Polo 2000 Brunello di Montalcino
Mocali 2001 “Vigne della Raunate” Brunello di Montalcino

A stellar deal at $10 for the First 5, $6 for the Extra 2 Premium Pours. And $10 for the Bunello Sampler.
Hope to see you here!

Seize the Wine!

Next Friday tasting is Syrah/Shiraz!

And just so’s ya know, we will be closed Thanksgiving Day. And I might be a bit late to the shop on Friday, but the tasting still starts at 4:30. Happy Thanksgiving!

M

Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!

That time of year has come again with much fanfare and falling rain and falling trees: It’s Autumn and with it brings the Spectacular Super-Special Carpe Vinum Annual Thanksgiving Wine Primer of “What Goes With Turkey?!” and the Tasting Announcement That Corresponds to That Tasting Special! And special it is! I believe I had it billed in the paper as “Pinot Noir, Gamay and Beaujolais” and, indeed, those I do have. Also, I have other great things. And they’re all meant to accompany your Thanksgiving meal, whether that be the traditional Tryptophan-induced-food-coma-style-giganto-meal or your non-traditional-macaroni-and-cheese-because-I-have-to-work-on-Thanksgiving-type meal.

So I thought I could start with a complete history of Thanksgiving. But then I fell asleep, hit my head and started drooling into my keyboard. So I thought better of the complete history of it and, suffice it to say, Thanksgiving is all about the food and family and, of course, the wine. It’s a hedonistic feast of epic proportions in a truly American style. It’s also a feast many people agonize over what wine to serve with all that stuff.

First and foremost of food and wine matching is the golden rule of “drink what you like”! I mean, there are classic combinations of certain foods with certain wines. Cabernet Sauvignon with steak. Merlot with lamb. Sauvignon Blanc with oysters. Milwaukee’s Best with Ramen Tacos and A-1 Steak Sauce (another story altogether). But if you don’t like the wine in question, even if it’s the perfect match, it’ll never work for you. For example, I could have a Syrah with just about anything besides shrimp, but even though Pinot Noir is a perfect match for many chicken dishes, I’ll still go for a Syrah. Make sense?

So from there let’s talk about the classic combinations for the traditional Turkey meal. Like I just mentioned earlier, Pinot Noir goes well with chicken dishes and, as another poultry, turkey is just a big chicken, isn’t it? So Pinot Noir is a shoe-in for that meal. And like the classic Pinot, any wine that is lighter in style so as not to be overbearing to the delicate flavors the bird and the vegetables would do well. One of my favorites is wine made from the Gamay Noir grape.

Gamay is the grape of the French Beaujolais, the district pretty far south within Burgundy. Burgundy proper produces Pinot Noir based red wines since the Gamay vines were ripped out back in 1395 by the duke of Burgundy. They survived in Beaujolais and now they make the finest Gamay-based wines in the world. And a lot of plonk. Apparently more than half of the wine produced in Beaujolais is sold as “Beaujolais Nouveau”, which is wine quickly fermented and sold just 2 months after harvest. The wine is not meant to be taken too seriously and can have all the appeal of a good can of Coke. On the other hand, the Cru Beaujolais, specific districts making serious wine do the Gamay Noir justice. Some of my favorites include Morgon, Moulin-a-Vent, and Cote de Brouilly.

Oregon has been growing a small amount of Gamay Noir and in my opinion has been doing a smashing job of it. I’ve had a number of exceptional ones over the last couple of years. Unfortunately, the Gamay I look forward to getting every year keeps getting more exclusive so that I can never get my hands on it. That is the Brick House Gamay, and is apparently only available at the winery this year. Sigh. Also, all of the other Gamay producers are sold out of their remaining stock, due in part to low-yielding vintages. Ah, well . . . maybe next year.

Until then, here we have a couple classic Oregon Pinot Noirs and a trio of Beaujolais. Last year for this tasting, the surprise hit was a dark red and bubbly and slightly sweet wine from Italy. It was a . . . <gasp> Lambrusco! Apparently “Lambrusco” isn’t a dirty word any more. It was tasty and terribly popular and would make a suitable companion to the Turkey meal, and as a centerpiece of conversation, as well. So I brought it back.

Finishing out the lineup is another good wine to talk about. It’s a Syrah from Cristom (in keeping with my favorite food wines) and has lip-smacking white-peppery goodness that resembles Northern Rhone wines. This Syrah is made from estate grown fruit on the Cristom property . . . in the Willamette Valley. Yes. It’s a Willamette Valley Syrah. Which begs the question: Is global warming good or bad for the wine industry? Discuss.

So Friday, November 17th, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Turkey Wines (Not wines from Turkey)!!!
Ca de Medici 2004 “Oblio” Notturno Dolce, Reggiano, Italy
Terrapin Cellars 2005 Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Oregon
Dupueble 2005 Beaujolais, France
Bernard Diochon 2004 Moulin-a-Vent, Beaujolais, France
Marcal LaPierre 2004 Morgon, Beaujolais, France

More Delicious T-Day Wines!!!
Cristom 2003 Syrah, Willamette Valley, Oregon
Anam Cara 2004 Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Oregon

A stellar deal at $10 for the First 5, $6 for the Extra 2 Premium Pours.
Hope to see you here!

Seize the Wine!

Next Friday tasting is Italy’s Tuscany!

And just so’s ya know, we will be open regular hours during the week(Tuesday and Wednesday 11:00AM to 7:00PM), but closed Thanksgiving Day. Any special orders needed by Wednesday will need to be in by mid-afternoon on Tuesday.

M

Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!

Welcome again and again to the Ever-Present, Informative and Entertaining and Often Linguistically Superfluous Carpe Vinum Newsletter and Tasting Announcement of This Week, the Week Culminating with the Friday the 10th of October. We’ve survived a massive precipitative drowning of several months’ worth of rain in a 2-day period, and at the same time somehow survived another election season and all the depressing campaigning that goes with it. Whew. Kinda puts you in the mood for some good wine, eh? Well, here’s the thing! It’s wines of the South of France! Most specifically, it’s wines of the French Languedoc and Provence. After all, these times deserve some serious wines at some seriously decent prices. This is one of my favorite wine regions of France and the world. The region produces such a vast amount of wine down there that the French often refer to it as the “Wine Lake”. Want to go swimming in the “Wine Lake”? Yeah . . . me too.

The region borders the Mediterranean Sea and has a warm climate that is well-suited to grape growing. Also, the wine laws governing the region are less restrictive, so it gives the local winemakers more play with different grape varieties and blends. That doesn’t mean that the wines down there are all over the place with no semblance of order. There are a number of regions producing high-class wines, but there is an expansive “Vin de Pays” designation that has been terribly successful in the Languedoc. Directly translated it means “Country Wine” and allows, as far as I can tell, just about anything. For example I have the Chateau Fontanes 2004 Vin de Pays d’Oc featured in the tasting. Technically it’s a wine from the Pic Saint Loup region of the Languedoc, but it’s made from Cabernet Sauvignon, which isn’t allowed in a wine labeled with the Pic Saint Loup designation. So that makes it a “Vin de Pays d’Oc” or a “country wine of Languedoc”. That doesn’t make it any less of a wine and certainly not a lesser Cabernet.

Now while featuring the Languedoc wines, I thought I might feature wines of Provence. They’re not widely available, and it would be a bit difficult to piece together a full tasting of Provencal wines. One specific wine of note is the wine of Bandol. The region is small, and is located about at the southern tip of Provence as it dips into the Mediterranean. The wines are made predominantly of Mourvedre, which I mentioned last week was my new favorite grape to chase around. Mourvedre (also known as Monastrell in Spain and Mataro in Australia and a few other places) makes an inky-dark, spicy and powerful wine, and is commonly seen blended with Grenache and Syrah in Rhone-style blends. Bandol wines are certainly some of the best examples of Mourvedre in the world, and they tend to fetch pretty high prices.

So assembled here is a wonderful selection of wines of the Languedoc and Provence. Considering that there are so many wines hailing form the area, this is just the figurative “drop in the wine lake”. But on the good side, the wines of the region seldom disappoint and are just good all-around wines costing less than, say, their Californian counterparts.

So Friday, November 10th, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Languedoc and Provence!!!
Chateau de Lascaux 2004 Coteaux du Languedoc Rouge
Chateau Fontanes 2004 Vin de Pays d’Oc
Mas de Aveylans 2004 Cuvee Prestige, Vin de Pays du Gard Syrah
Mas Carlot 2004 Les Enfants Terribles, Costieres de Nimes
Chateau Maupague 2004 Cotes de Provence

More Languedoc and Bandol!!!
Chateau de Lancyre 2002 Pic Saint Loup “Grand Cuvee”, Coteaux du Languedoc
La Badiane 2003 Bandol “Les Terres Noires”

A stellar deal at $10 for the First 5, $6 for the Extra 2 Premium Pours.
Hope to see you here!

Seize the Wine!

Next Friday tasting is Thanksgiving Tasting: What Goes With Turkey?!

M

Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!

It’s that time of the day during that time of the week that we all look forward to! It’s the time for the Awesome Power that is the Carpe Vinum Newsletter of Many Words and Tasting Announcement Contained Therein. Herein. Wherein? This week we’re headed to California to sample the monster big reds they have to offer. Offer they do, and we accept! Want to talk about them for a little bit? Okay! I guess that’s what we’re here for!

So . . . I guess we don’t really need to talk about where or what California is. Yes, it’s that hot and steamy land to the South of our beauteous Oregon . . .It’s that state that’s shaped like a malfunctioning boomerang. (Which, by the way . . . isn’t a malfunctioning boomerang just a stick? That’s what I thought.) We’re all connected by one continuous veritable neuron net of pavement. And, as such, I think we’ve all been down that direction once or twice. Or have lived there through the Oregon/California Foreign Exchange Program. After all, are we Northern-Northern California or perhaps is California just Baja Oregon? Dunno. I digress . . .

Did you know they make some wine down there? Alright, I guess that’s not much of a secret either, considering all the Kendall-Jacksons and Mondavis and Gallos and Berringers and Wal Marts and McDonalds and Jiffy Lubes and . . . wait . . . where was I? Oh, yes. Huge, huge wine companies pumping out millions of gallons of grape-flavored ethanol. But through the wine lake, or rather, wine ocean of woody chardonnays and white zinfandels there are small islands and oasisses . . . (oasees? oasisesses? What the heck is the plural of oasis?) Oases! Small oases of independent wineries cranking out some monster reds from the land down under. (Down-Under-Oregon, that is.)

So what makes a monster red? It’s the sturdy and strong and heavy grape varieties that, when matched up with California’s hot growing season, produce a hearty red wines of bodacious fruit and power. Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, Merlot, Mourvedre, Syrah, Grenache and Sangiovese, just to name a few. They make wines that have a bit more heft to them and seem nice and warm and comfortable on a cold, rainy, autumn day. There are lots of them, and it would take a lifetime to sort through them all. Partly because new wineries spring up all the time.

We’re in a kind of lucky spot up here in Oregon also because of that continuous slab of pavement, sometimes simply called “The 5″. It brings us a bit closer to that wine region and gives us some of these wine offerings that the rest of the country may not get at all. So here’s a collection of some hearty reds that have piqued my interest recently. The first five are blends of 3 or more grapes, some in seldom-seen-together combinations, and the final two are single-varietal wines of two of the heartiest grapes grown in California: Petite Sirah, and one of my new favorites, Mourvedre.

So Friday, November 3rd, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Big California Reds!!!
Byington 2001 Alliage (Cab Sauv, Cab Franc, Syrah), Sonoma County
Hanna 2002 Two Ranch Red (Kitchen Sink Blend), Alexander Valley & Sonoma County
Mutt-Lynch 2004 “Portrait of a Mutt” (Zinfandel, Carignane, Petite Sirah), Sonoma County
Steven Vincent 2004 Crimson (Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre), Napa Valley
Tudal Winery 2004 Tractor Shed Red (Sangiovese, Zinfandel, Merlot), Napa Valley

More Big, Perhaps Bigger, Califiornia Reds!!!
Norman 2002 Petite Sirah, Paso Robles
Cline 2004 Mourvedre, Contra Costa County

A stellar deal at $10 for the First 5, $6 for the Extra 2 Premium Pours.
Hope to see you here!

Seize the Wine!

Next Friday tasting is Wines of the French Languedoc and Provence!

M