It’s easy to forget why you used to like chardonnay, but this wine will remind you quickly and best of all costs under $20. Clean and fresh mineral, chalk and tart apple aromas lead into a fine firm chardonnay with a long toasty finish. Consumed over three days it hardly missed a step even on the last day. Very nice wine that will make you love chardonnay again.
Under ten bucks and what a charmer. No great complexity here, but a great drink. Perfect for burgers and and any meat off the Weber. Serve with a light chill and you will be seduced.
It bites hard. Punching the palate with searing acidity. I loved it.
Is there a wine more complimentary to homey, rustic foods than top-quality grignolino? I don’t think so because rich, full flavored dishes need a good dose of acidity to keep the palate alive and few wines deliver like grignolino. The 2004 Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese, Bricco del Bosco, Az. Ag. Acconero imported by Montecastelli fills that bill just perfectly.
Warning: if you like California merlot or Australian shiraz with cute animal labels selling for under ten bucks a bottle, avoid this wine at all costs.
I fell in love with this wine from the first sip that set my saliva glands into hyper-drive.
There can really be no debate about the best Sangiovese ever…
Well, that’s not exactly true for the best ever will be debated with no resolution. However, the best Sangiovese ever for under $20 – in fact, under $15, is not a topic open to debate in my opinion.
That wine is the Fattoria Zerbina Ceregio Sangiovese di Romagna Superiore. A wine of perfect Sangiovese varietal character vintage after vintage with a bright freshness that embarrasses most Tuscan reds. Ceregio is everything you could want out of Sangiovese at such a modest price range. In fact, Ceregio is a better Sangiovese and more Italian in character than most Tuscan reds at double the price. The only reason this wine could remain such a value is that it not Tuscan, but a product of neighboring Romagna.
Winemaker extrordinaire Cristina Geminani, owner and winemaker of Zerbina, has crafted this wine with the same passion, intensity and skill she devotes to all of her wines – no matter the price. Cristina is dedicated to excellence and that means her top wines, like Pietramora and Marzieno are extraordinary, but it also means that her basic wines, like Ceregio, are incredible values.
The current release of Ceregio, the 2004, is yet another of a long list of very fine Ceregios that I have had the pleasure to enjoy for well over a decade. Explosively alive with fresh fruit on the nose and a bright rich ruby color that is still translucent, the juicy bittersweet cherry fruit mixes with sweet tobacco and a firm mineral backbone to create a wine that could only be Sangiovese.
This is a wine to go out of your way to find.
If points were years, less would be more, but now everyone pays for points, not maturity or complexity, while leaving older, more developed wines for others – like me.
The current release of Guigal, 2001 Côte Rôtie Brune et Blonde runs about $50, but there it was right in front of me, a long ignored bottle on the shelf. In the bottom rack was a 1997 Guigal Côte Rôtie Brune et Blonde at the same price. Sure, for those in the wine-know Guigal is famous and Côte Rôtie revered, but other than those eight people nobody cares so the 1997 was still there waiting…
Côte Rôtie was a name mentioned with respect and awe not so many decades ago, but now drinkers are more interested in Shiraz than Syrah. Easy is in and terroir is esoteric. I suppose that’s great for me and other old guys in that we can find bargains like this, but I find it hard to believe that decades from now someone will be waxing poetic about some machine-picked, low-acid and over-extracted wine from a hot vineyard made in 2006 – unless you have a thing for canned stewed tomatoes, which is what those wines will taste like in a decade or so – just about the time 2006 Côte Rôtie will be just getting warmed up.
Today’s feeding frenzy is for the latest and hottest, while store shelves throughout the USA are filled with bottles from a few years ago that are cheaper than current releases and far better to drink on the week you take them home. While I can’t understand why you (the consumer) aren’t grabbing up these wines, I am very happy that you don’t. The earthy beauty of this Côte Rôtie was exotic and layered with spices and a generous sottobosco of mushrooms and cedar chips with an expansive mid-palate and a lingering finish of wild flowers and a depth throughout that challenged and inspired the palate and the mind.
The definition of great Syrah is still in the Northern Rhone Valley of France.
* 3 Tablespoon butter
* 2 yellow onions, sliced
* 1 red onion, sliced
* 1/2 cup sweet marsala wine
* 1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar
* 2 teaspoons honey
* 3 bay leaves
* 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
* 1/2 teaspoons ground corriander
* 1/4 teaspoons ground allspice
* salt and pepper to taste
In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the sliced onions and cook until softened, but not browned.
In a small bowl, mix together the wine, vinegar and honey. Add to the onions. Add the bay leaves, thyme, corriander, allspice, and salt and pepper.
Bring the the mixture to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The wine should be reduced to a thickened syrup.
From:
It smelled funky: earthy, compost and dried mushroom without a touch of black cherry or cassis. Man-o-man what a wine. I love the taste of wine aged in big old barrels, as this one was for eighteen months.
It was hidden there on the wine list in an out-of-the-way section sure to be missed by the cassis and oak hunters. All the better for me and I pounced on it. Best of all, it was a bargain. I was doing them a favor as they would have hated this wine. I also did myself a big favor by ordering it.
This beauty was the 1999 Bosquet des Papes Chateauneuf du Pape, Cuvee Grenache. One of the best wines made from the grenache grape, it is a outstanding example of a varietal at it finest moment. Although, considering its non-fruit driven character, many will find this wine disorienting. That would be a good thing for today’s young wine drinkers need a bit of disorientation to wake them to the pleasures of wines driven by terroir and varietal instead of the “wisdom” of the latest hot-shot consulting enologist dead-set on making wine by a proven point-winning formula.
Brickish in color without a touch of purple, the aromas explode out of the glass with a smoky meaty character mixed with tar, fresh tobacco and coffee grounds. Not a bit of blueberry, blackberry, raspberry or currant show in any aspect of this wine. Warm and generous on the palate with flavors of a haunting burnt black fruit tarry-ness dominated by fresh morels and exotic spices. This is a wine more about wildness (sauvage) than simple, obvious fruit.
I found this tasting note from wine writer Daniel Rogov on this wine in 2002:
“Bosquet des Papes, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, 1999: Made entirely from Grenache grapes, this deep, full bodied wine is packed with ample black fruit, mineral, tobacco and earthy aromas and flavors. Showing its tannins and its acids rather strongly now so don’t dare drink this one now but give it until at least 2005 to find its equilibrium. After that this will be a wine to sip slowly, for as it opens in the glass it will reveal an almost sweet-stewed plum overlay. Don’t worry as the 2005 date approaches for the wine will store nicely until 2020 or longer. Score 94. (Tasted 6 Jan 2002)” Link to original article
I find his notes right on the money and forgive him for reducing such a complex wine to mere points.
This wine is yet another example of why it is better to first search a wine list by vintage instead of varietal. Most wine lists are dominated by current vintages and not only do wines with a few years of bottle age offer better drinking, but usually much better value.
I know numbers lie, but in the eighties I think they lied less. Alcohol levels were not an issue, so if they were less than accurate on their labels, they did it for convenience instead of as a marketing ploy. Yet, these labels of two wines from the 80’s made me think.
I opened two of my cellar wines over the weekend; a 1989 Girard Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and a 1980 Fisher Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon - each were 13% or less. Both were excellent wines that had aged gracefully. In fact, the Fisher was an extraordinary bottle still showing great depth, richness and layer after layer of complexity.
How can that be? A twenty-six year old wine with less than 13% alcohol that is still rich and complex? The reason is these wines were made to last, to expand and develop over time.
If anything should make today’s winemakers sit back and contemplate the current fashions of winemaking, it is bottles like these. We must seriously ask the question; how will today’s 14+% wines taste in twenty-six years? We certainly don’t know the answer, but the quality that these two bottles showed should make a lot of people insecure about extended aging of today’s California (and others) Cabernet Sauvignon.
Today they make’em to drink now. To taste great in a press tasting when only two years old. This was a concept that never occurred to Steve Girard and Fred Fisher when they made these magnificent wines. They aspired to make Cabernet Sauvignon that would develop greatness over time. The philosophy that made Bordeaux and Cabernet Sauvignon famous. They were trying to make great wines not great points.
A winemaker that makes wines like these today is consciously sacrificing high press scores when the vintages are first reviewed. This is courage not many have. It would be very sad if great California Cabernet Sauvignon, like these two wines, was a thing of the past.
(pictured: Fisher Wedding Vineyard)
Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
200 grams dried (or canned) chickpeas
1 eggplant
2 small ripe tomatoes, diced
4-6 spring onion, sliced
6-8 Tbs olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 large sprig of rosemary, chopped finely
a splash of fresh lemon juice
1 tsp sweet paprika
If you are cooking dried chickpeas, place them in a bowl and cover them with a few inches of water. Allow them to soak overnight or at least 8 hours. Cook them over a medium heat with the crushed garlic clove for an hour and a half or longer, until they are tender. (I soaked the chickpeas overnight and then put them in a crock pot in the morning to cook all day on low.) Once they are tender, drain them and allow them to cool.
Cut the eggplant in half and score it with a knife in a diamond pattern. Drizzle a little olive oil over the eggplant and bake it at 200c for about 35 minutes, or until soft and tender. Let it cool while you begin assembling the rest of the salad, dicing tomatoes and slicing onions. Toss the tomatoes, onions, chickpeas and rosemary with the remaining olive oil. Cut the eggplant into bite-sized pieces and toss the salad again. Ideally, you should allow it to sit in a refrigerator for a few hours to develop flavours. Before serving, add the lemon juice and paprika and taste for salt, pepper and sour. You might want to add another glug of olive oil too, especially if you are using a really good quality one.
Wild Salmon with Blueberry Marinade
1 pound of wild salmon
Marinade
1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1/4 cup finely chopped onion or shallot
Generous squeeze of fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp roughly chopped fresh basil
Salt and pepper
Place salmon on baking sheet.
Add all marinade ingredients to small saucepan and heat over medium until blueberries have popped. Allow to simmer for a few minutes.
Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Pour mixture into blender and puree.
Spread a thin layer of the marinade over the salmon - you don’t want to mask the flavor of the salmon just enhance it.
Bake at 500 F for about 10 - 15 minutes depending on how thick the fillet and how well done you prefer your fish. I prefer that the salmon seem a little uncooked in the very center.
Slice the salmon into serving pieces and dollop with a bit of the remaining marinade.
Fresh Wild Salmon Painting the Salmon Salmon with Blueberry MarinadeFrom the:
While I found the recent comments made by Randall Grahm on terroir compelling ( Randall Grahm on Terroir #1 and Randall Grahm on Terroir #2), you can’t help but be struck by the distance between Grahm’s commentary, which I agree with, and the results of his winemaking, which I don’t. While he talks a good game, it is well known that the wines of Bonny Doon no longer have any relationship to his wines of the early 80’s. Bonny Doon today is nothing more or less than an industrial wine producer, just like Mondavi or Kendall Jackson.
Bill Zacharkiw recently brought to my attention an outstanding anonymous post on his Caveman’s Wine Blog in response to his provocative post on Biodynamics. This excellent post and thread is well worth your reading and below you will find an excerpt from the long and thoughtful comments of “anonymous” on the topic of Randall Grahm and biodynamics.
Is it Doonsday for US Biodynamics?
Randall Grahm’s Faustian deal
"Bonny Doon Vineyard, run by the irrepressible Randall Grahm, now produces nearly 400,000 cases of wine, yet it continues to cultivate an image of a small, boutique winery. Some of the wine world’s most innovative packaging is created by this estate, but, as I have written before, the quality in the bottle has declined from Bonny Doon’s glory years (in the mid-eighties) when Grahm was both a pioneer and a committed Rhone Ranger revolutionary. It now appears to be all about image and high production, resulting in somewhat innocuous offerings." - Robert Parker, June 2005
Over the past couple of years, Randall has been at a crossroads. He suffered with a rare bone infection, his estate vineyards died off, he was involved in a lawsuit for smuggling in “suit case cuttings” from France by Caymus Winery, and he has openly admitted to succumbing to “seditious winemaking legerdemain” ie., making bad wine passable by using dubious techniques in the cellar.
Now in a move that has some in the “real wine” movement worried, Grahm the Santa Cruz marketing wiz behind the bulk juice winery Bonny Doon - is taking up the mantel of Biodynamic. He recently lectured on the subject at UC Davis Viticultural program called Terroir and is now holding himself out to his wine professional colleagues that he is now a born-again Anthroposophist – “fighting for the soul of wine”.
What is Biodynamic wine?…Read the full text of this compelling post on The Caveman’s Wine Blog at the link below.
Can it be true? Not that I would recommend this, of course.
Winexpression » Blog Archive » NEW - Hacking Wine Spectator: Full Access!.
* 2 Tbsp. soy sauce
* 2 Tbsp. lemon juice
* 1/4 cup olive oil
* 1 teaspoon sesame oil
* 1 teaspoon grated ginger
* 1 teaspoon sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
* 2 teaspoons hot water
* 1 lb. Napa Cabbage, finely shredded
* 1 red onion, sliced
* 1 carrot, shredded
* 2 cups seedless green grapes, halved
* 2 Tablespoons sesame seeds
In a medium glass mixing bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, lemon juice, olive oil, sesame oils, ginger, sugar, pepper and water. Cover with saran wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
In a large glass bowl, mix together the cabbage, onion, carrot, and grapes. Pour over the soy sauce mixture and toss.
When you serve the slaw, top with sesame seeds.
Serves 4-6From:
Potato Pancake Halibut and Arugula Salad
serves 4
1 shallot chopped
2 tsp coarse salt
1 tbsp cracked pepper
1 tsp chopped dried thyme
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 bay leaf, crumbled
2 tbsp olive oil
Four 6 oz halibut fillets
Potato Pancakes:
2 medium potatoes shredded
1 slightly beaten eggs
1 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cooking oil
1 cup onion chopped
Mix all ingredients together, pan fry in oil 3-4 minutes per side until golden brown. Makes 4 nice potato pancakes.
Arugula Salad:
1 bunch arugula
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp Dijon mustard
3 tbsp olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Combine shallot, salt, pepper, thyme, garlic, bay leaf and 1 tbsp olive oil. Spread over fish and marinate for 30 minutes. To make salad, place arugula in a bowl. Whisk together vinegar, mustard and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Toss dressing with arugula. Place on four individual plates. Heat remaining olive oil in a skillet on medium heat. Add fish, skin side down. Sauté for 2 minutes, cover with lid, reduce heat to medium-low and cook 8 minutes longer or until fish is firm to the touch and white juices are beginning to appear. Remove skin and place fish on top of potato pancake and arugula salad on serving plates.
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Small pleasures are a lovely part of enjoying wine. Pretty little wines that don’t cost much, but deliver pleasure and enhance a Monday night dinner. Tonight with an all Oregon omelette with Tillamook Cheddar and Apple Orchard Smoked Ham from McMinnville, a charming little bottle of Bordeaux provided just such a moment. Running somewhere around $10, this is the type of Bordeaux ignored by the American press and public. However, I found it disarming with my dinner for its clean flavors, medium body and obviously regional character: this could be nothing but a Bordeaux. This is exactly the type of wine it is hard to find at this price point from New World producers as the Australians are so often just too fruity and the American wines are just too characterless to provide such a nice counterpoint to a meal.
Tonight’s wine was the 2004 Chateau les Bordelaises, a plain AOC Bordeaux from Dominque and Jean-Louis Pointet and it is a charmer to anyone who loves the angular character of a true Bordeaux. I don’t expect lovers of Yellowtail and Mondavi will understand why I find this wine so delightful, but here is a wine with no pretense, yet plenty of terroir and enough character to actually make you think for just a second before taking another bite.
(Recommended by Doug Salthouse at SmartBuy wines in New Jersey)
I suggested American Wine Idol and now Dave Brookes of the Vinosense Blog is proposing The Iron Wine Critic. I think we have a whole new television season ready to go for wine buffs. Check out Dave’s pilot and his excellent blog at the link below.
The brouhaha over the botched attempt to recreate the Paris tasting of 1976, where Steve Spurrier pitted some California wines against some of France’s best and low-and-behold; the California wines won, shows how far we have sunk when it comes to appreciating wine. American bloggers are raging against what they see as the cowardly French, while ignoring the ego battles between the Americans.
We have finally reduced wine to a competition instead of a pleasure. Why not go all the way?
Fox Network should be working on what will be a hot new reality show: American Wine Idol. The formula is set already. You’ll need three celebrity judges just like the current American Idol show. I would propose the following three:
Then, just like the singers, you bring the winemakers out on stage, whose wines are then tasted and ripped apart on national television by our celebrity panel. At the end, the viewers vote on which winemakers are given the boot. Finally, the winning wine gets a national distribution deal as a wine by the glass at all the Four Seasons Hotels and a guaranteed 95 point or higher score in The Wine Spectator for the next five vintages.
This is the direction we are taking wine appreciation. While everyone is bemoaning the fact that this contest was not recreated, they should be really asking themselves if this is how they want wines to be judged?
While hearing that great gentleman of wine, Michael Broadbent, speak at a seminar last summer, I was particularly struck by one of his comments. He recounted a conversation with the owner of Chateau Haut Brion, who was complaining of how wines are rated these days. That gentleman noted that he made his wine to go with food; not Chateau Latour. It’s true, we have become more obsessed with how wines taste with other wines than how they taste with the food on our plates.
Humor is often all to rare when it comes to the snobby (yes I too confess to wine snobbery) world of wine. Jeff Lefevere of The Good Grape Blog (link below), is doing us all a favor by mixing in some of his own cartoons into his wine blog. Below you’ll find one of his recent efforts and I recommend frequent visits to his blog to see his latest work. I hope to see some of his cartoons in some of our print media wine publications, but perhaps they take themselves too seriously or maybe just lack a sense of humor. Fortunately for us, Jeff does have a sense of humor.
Good Grape: A Wine Manifesto: New World.
Through the haze of jet-lagged sleep the aromas would wake me and lift my tired, but still hungry body to the lunch table. Normally we would arrive at the airport at 7 a.m. and then go straight to bed for a few hours sleep when we reached my in-laws house just northwest of Milano. As lunchtime approached a fragrance would slowly grow and expand throughout the house and before you know it my nose would set off the alarm clock in my stomach.
That fragrance was created by my father-in-law, Aldo, cooking his soffritto as he began to prepare for lunch. Soffritto is that simple combination of sautéed aromatic vegetables that is the basis of a seemingly endless list of Italian dishes. Everything from pasta sauces to ravioli filling to Brasato al Barolo has at its heart a fragrant and flavorful soffritto.
The basic soffritto is equal amounts of chopped celery, carrots and onions slowly cooked in butter or olive oil so they release their flavors and aromatics into the ingredients that are then added. The trick is the temperature of the pan: too cool and you just poach the vegetables in the oil — too hot and you start to caramelize the vegetables. In France they call it mirepoix and in Spain sofrito, but whatever you call this process of cooking aromatic vegetables in fat to create a foundation of flavors for a dish, it is a basic element of good cooking in every cuisine: both for amateurs and professionals.
The word soffritto is a conjugation of the Italian verb soffriggere, or to fry lightly, which is an accurate description. A good soffritto needs a little attention from the cook. A trip to the wine cellar while the vegetables are cooking can result in a burned soffritto. Expect to devote an attentive 10 to 15 minutes to cooking your vegetables. They do not need constant attention and stirring, but they do want a watchful eye. You will know you have it right by the mouthwatering aromas that fill your house.
Soffritto is about flavors. If you buy bland, old vegetables you will get a bland soffritto. Go out of your way to get the freshest most flavorful vegetables available. While carrots, onions and celery are the holy trinity of soffritto, there are as many variations as there are vegetables. Garlic often makes an appearance in southern Italian dishes. Some soffritti include pancetta or other meats in the preparation. In classic risotto recipes, onions stand alone as the soffritto. Remember soffritto is a technique and a concept in flavoring not a specific recipe. Try the recipes below and then get creative. Each serves six as a main course and eight to ten as a first course.
Spaghetti con Pomodori e Soffritto
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped.
2 large stalks celery with leaves, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1- 28 oz. can excellent quality crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon sugar
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 lb. thick spaghetti (avoid very thin spaghetti)
Sea salt
Grana Padano or Parmignano Reggiano cheese for grating
Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat and add celery, onions and carrots. Sauté the vegetables gently for about ten minutes until just before they began to brown, then add sugar and cook for one minute more. Add canned tomatoes and mix well. Cover and slowly simmer for thirty minutes stirring often. Salt to taste.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add 1 heaping tablespoon of salt for every two quarts of water. When the water returns to a boil add the pasta and cook until not quite done.
Bring the heat under the pan with the sauce to high and drain the pasta. Add the pasta to the pan and gently mix the pasta and the sauce. Continue cooking until the pasta is done.
Serve immediately with grated cheese on the side.
Penne con Ragu alla Varano Borghi
1 lb. ground sirloin
1 sweet Italian sausage, skin removed and chopped coarsely
2 large carrots peeled and chopped
1 large onion chopped
2 large celery stalks with leaves, chopped
1- 28 oz. can excellent quality crushed tomatoes
a piece of lemon peel
1 bay leaf
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ lb. unsalted butter
1 cup red wine
1 cup beef or chicken broth
Grana Padano or Parmignano Reggiano cheese for grating
1 lb. penne pasta
Heat and melt the butter in a heavy tall-sided pan over medium heat and add celery, onions and carrots. Sauté the vegetables gently for about ten to fifteen minutes until just before they began to brown then add the ground sirloin and sausage, cook for several minutes more. Add canned tomatoes, wine, broth and mix well. Add bay leaf and lemon peel. Add salt and pepper to taste. Loosely cover and slowly simmer for thirty minutes, then cover tightly and simmer on very low heat for 3 hours stirring often.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add 1 heaping tablespoon of salt for every two quarts of water. When the water returns to a boil add the pasta and cook until not quite done.
Bring the heat under the pan with the sauce to high and drain the pasta. Add the pasta to the pan and gently mix the pasta and the sauce. Continue cooking until the pasta is done.
Serve immediately with the grated cheese on the side.
