Returning to Bourdeaux... next up is the . Part of the gigantic appellation, the Médoc (which in true French wine fashion, is also, confusingly, the name of the sub-appellation that covers the northern third of the region). Generally speaking, the southern two-thirds is considered the Haut-Médoc. Now pay attention: within this area are four famous villages, Margaux, St-Julien, Pauillac and St. Estèphe. I will cover each of those villages with their own wines.


Most of the wine produced here is red, and is primarily cabernet sauvignon (if you remember, the Médoc is on the left bank of the Gironde). An interesting tidbit- much of the Médoc used to be marshlands, certainly not grape growing land. But in the 1600’s Dutch engineers were brought in who cut large drains in the land. By lowering the water table, riverside gravel banks were created. Wealthy people from Bordeaux bought land in the area and planted vines. By the end of the eighteenth century many of today’s most prestigious wineries were established.

I tasted a 2001 from Château Camensac, which happens to be a fifth growth. If you remember, the Médoc is the region in which Château were classified in 1855. Because it's fairly old, the wine was dark brick red. It smelled very smokey and of toasted oak, white pepper and red fruit- maybe a bit like the defrosted raspberries I put in my yogurt parfaits each morning (I miss stone fruit season!).

The wine was a bit thin and light (I’m obviously used to Napa cab!), and was earthy. It also tasted like leather (which I’d read about, but never really experienced). It had a super long finish. Not too bad, but not too great.

The Score: ★★½

I decided to take a very brief detour off of Bordeaux to taste the 2010 Beaujolais Nouveau. Beaujolais is in Burgundy, but unlike the rest of red wine produced in Burgundy, Beaujolais is made from the grape, a grape that apparently doesn’t produce much of anything worth drinking anywhere else that it’s grown. I tried a Beaujolais a few months back (and didn’t enjoy it either), but this is .

What does that mean exactly? Well, as you might have guessed, its pretty new wine. Its the 2010 vintage, which considering that grapes are harvested in the fall and I’ve already had it... Technically speaking, it is wine that is 7-9 weeks old. Traditionally, it was then shipped nearby for people to drink in celebration of the harvest. Like American Thanksgiving, if you will. Of course, now its shipped worldwide; my Whole Foods had signs up in anticipation of its arrival for weeks ahead of time. Legally, the wine cannot be released until the third Wednesday of November. So, on November 18th it hit the shelves. Touted as an excellent accompaniment to Thanksgiving dinner*, I decided to pick up at bottle. I mean, it was only $7.99. (*We already had an excellent Thanksgiving wine chosen, so we drank it along with leftovers after the holiday.)

I’ll save the specifics on how gamay is grown and fermented (both unusual) for when I really taste Beaujolais. Given my impression from this wine and the ill-fated Trader Joe’s Beaujolais, I see that it is IMPERATIVE that I taste a Cru wine if I want to enjoy it.

The wine was a magenta purplish color and was intensely fruity on the nose. It smelled almost candy-like. It was very light-bodied and had a general fruitiness, but was also the slightest bit sour. We drank almost half of this bottle before pouring it down the drain. It wasn’t horrible, certainly drinkable, but why drink mediocre wine when you can drink great wine?

The Score ★½

Looks like the holidays are going to be rough for blogging. Don’t worry I’m still not having trouble finding the time to drink wine, just to write about it. Speaking of fantastic wine I’ve drank lately, Myles and I shared our first Burgundy last weekend while out for our first date in a long, long while. It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. It was a 1996, and perfectly aged. It was also my first experience using the services of the sommelier- which was also pretty great. Its just like all the books say, tell them what you want and how much you can spend and they will lead you to the perfect wine!

But, I digress. Earlier this week, before I started stuffing myself with turkey, we drank the 2008 Clos Floridene, which is from Graves. My handy pronunciation website doesn’t have just “Graves” but “". I think that’s a place (which isn’t in the wine appellation of Graves either), but it’ll give you the right idea.

This is the last white Bordeaux, so it’ll be all red for a while after this. This wine was a light straw yellow. As I often do, I smelled bananas and a little lemon.

I had it stuck in my head that this was going to be a sauvignon blanc based wine, even though I know that there are others allowed, probably because the other white Bordeaux was primarily sauvignon blanc. It wasn’t until I’d finished my tasting notes that I realized the obvious. At any rate, I thought it tasted a tad sweet, though with an acidic backbone. It wasn’t sugar sweet (it's a dry wine), but tasted of apricots and peaches, which are such sweet fruits. I was surprised that I tasted no citrus. I shouldn’t have been. I wrote down that it was such a full wine, almost like a French pinot gris.

And that was when I realized... it was semillon.

The Score: ★ ★ ★

Wow, I’ve been so busy lately that I have two wines to write about. Luckily, I haven’t been too busy to drink wine. I can multi-task! Both of the wines are from Pessac-Léognan, which is a sub-appellation of Graves. The area is located just south of the city of Bordeaux. This is a full service wine education blog, so to help both myself and the rest of us that cannot properly speak or pronounce French, here is how you say .


It is said that it was in Pessac-Léognan that fine red wine was born 450 years ago at Château Haut-Brion. (Which is also the only classified first growth from the 1855 classification outside the Médoc.) This area of Graves is dominated by pine trees, apparently the vineyards are clearings and can be heavily isolated from each other. And while red wine is the primary type produced, most château also produce high quality white wines as well.

Another interesting tidbit is that Château Haut-Brion is owned by Americans (!), it was purchased in 1935 by Clarence Dillon when Bordeaux wine production was so unprofitable that it wasn’t the only first growth for sale! Now his descendants own four high end château in Pessac-Léognan: Château Laville Haut-Brion, Château La Tour Haut-Brion, Château La Mission Haut-Brion, and of course, Château Haut-Brion itself. The red I tasted for this region is the second wine of another château in the area with in the name (good thing they named all the château around here with completely different names so we could easily keep track, right?), Château Larrivet Haut-Brion. Under the name of Domaine de Larrivet, this wine was quite the bargain.

So, what is a second wine (or in French, second vin)? It's very common in Bordeaux for a winemaker to make wine out of younger vines or certain vineyard plots, which he/she will ferment and age separately. Some of the wine goes into the Gran vin, the rest into the second vin. Its a great way to get good wine for less money- the wines are both made by the same winemaker using the same equipment!

The Domaine de Larrivet was certainly a bargain, the cheapest Bordeaux I bought at only $16.99. Not bad for a wine that’s spent the last nine years aging! The wine is half cabernet sauvignon and half merlot. In the glass it showed its age being a dark reddish brown color, very maroon for a wine. It had a very smoky nose, also smelling like cassis, nuts and wood.

It had a very smooth texture, most likely from the very mellow tannins. I tasted bacon (or maybe Myles and I had just been discussing bacon before opening the bottle!) as well as black pepper and oak. It had a long finish. Hands down the best “cheap” red wine I’ve had in a long, long while.

The white wine, from Château Cantelys, is primarily sauvignon blanc. It was super pale yellow and smelled of lemon, peach and was even slightly floral. It had good acidity, and tasted citrusy (as I have come to expect from sauvignon blanc) and even a bit like green apple. Perhaps the only twist is that it also had a hint of oak. Unlike sauvignon blanc that I typically drink, this one was aged for a bit in oak. Still quite tasty!

The Dual Score: ★ ★ ★

Since I’ve been at this for about four and a half months, its time for a check in on my progress. Or rather, something that I read in Secrets of the Sommeliers made me realize that my approach thus far has been wrong. Completely and totally all wrong. The book advised that if one is interested in learning about wine, how it tastes and recognizing wine in a blind tasting one should first taste wine from the classic regions. My haphazard approach has really done nothing so far as educating my palate. In fact, I’ve probably just confused it!

So, what are the classic regions? They center around France, of course. And also include Germany; Austria; Piedmont, Tuscany and the Veneto in Italy; Rioja, sherry and Albarino from Spain; and port and vino verde from Portugal. Also considered classic are New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley Cabernet and Oregon Pinot Noir- the only New World wines that have been elevated to this status. I was off to a good start back in July, beginning this quest with Alsace, France. But, then I blew it. So, to make up for it I’m going after what is probably one of the most confusing, complicated, infuriating, expensive and famous wine regions in the world. Bordeaux. Pay close attention now, this is about to get tricky. And French.

Let’s start with the geography lesson. The name Bordeaux is derived from ‘au bord de l’eau’, which means ‘along the waters’. The region straddles three important rivers, mainly the Gironde and the two rivers that feed it, the Dordogne and the Garonne. French AOC (Appellation D’Origine Contrôlée) law dictates everything from vineyard borders, grape varieties allowed, alcohol levels, labeling and more. Bordeaux has 57 AOC regions, however only four of them stand out: Médoc, Pomerol, Graves/Pessac-Léognan and St-Émilion. But just to make it extra fun, the Médoc actually has multiple sub-appellations including Haut Médoc, St-Estèphe, Pauillac, Margaux and St-Julien. Also remember that Sauternes is in Bordeaux, although I already covered that in a previous post/tasting.

Next for the history lesson. Within many of the regions the various wineries, or château, are classified using various systems, the best well known of which is the 1855 Classification. France was sending wines to represent the country at the International Exposition that year so the top Médoc wines were ranked according to price (which equated to quality). Sixty-one Château were ranked from 1st growth through 5th growth: five 1st growths, 14 2nd’s, 14 3rd’s, 10 4th’s and 18 5th’s. There’s also a series of château classified as Cru Bourgeois in the Médoc. Last updated in 2003, there are 247 château on this list. Other classification systems exist for Graves (Grands Crus Classé) and St-Émilion (Premiers Grands Crus Classés and Grands Crus Classés). Still with me?

So, for the wine. Both red and white wine is made in Bordeaux, though close to 90% is red. Each year somewhere between 60 and 70 million cases of wine are made, among them some of the most expensive wine on the planet. Red Bordeaux wine (also known as claret) can legally contain only cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, petit verdot and malbec, the latter two are used only sparingly, if at all. White wine can contain sauvignon blanc, sémillon, muscadelle and ugni blanc, again with the last two rarely used. Since the grape varieties have been defined in the laws they are not on the label. Its illegal to put them on the label. So, it’s helpful to know that “left bank” wines (Médoc, Graves/Pessac-Léognan) tend to be primarily Cabernet Sauvignon and “right bank” wines (St-Émilion and Pomerol) tend to be primarily Merlot. Ready to go buy some Bordeaux based purely on the labels? Yeah, me neither.

Feeling an immense amount of pressure to choose the right wines, I conducted hours of research before heading to K&L. Its not like I can afford a first growth wine (futures of the 2009 Château Lafite-Rothschild, a first growth in Pauillac, are going for $1,599. A bottle.), but these wines are going to be my first ever Bordeauxs and I want to be sure I pick wines that are both representative of the specific regions, as aged as I can get them (no younger than 2005 for the reds), and less than $50 a bottle, preferably a lot less.

So I did what any reasonable person would do. I got out Kevin Zraly’s Complete Wine Course book, turned to the Bordeaux chapter and searched for every single Château he mentioned. I made a list of all the appellations I wanted represented (that would be nine) and all the possibilities K&L had. Based on Zraly’s vintage charts, wine descriptions and prices I finally narrowed it down to 10 wines (I have both a red and a white from Graves). Yep, this means we’ll be tasting, learning about and discussing Bordeaux in great detail until January!

Here’s what I picked up:

2001 Château Camensac, Haut-Médoc $29.99
2008 Clos Floridene, Graves Blanc $24.99
2001 Domaine de Larrivet, Graves $16.99
2007 Château Cantelys Blanc, Pessac-Léognan $19.99
2005 Château De Pez, St-Estèphe $34.99
2005 Château Pedesclaux, Pauillac $39.99
1994 Château Langoa-Barton, St-Julien $49.99
2003 Château d'Angludet, Margaux $49.99
1995 Château Larmande, St-Émilion $44.99
2005 Château Lafleur-Gazin, Pomerol $39.99

I was pleased to discover while reading my latest wine book, Secrets of the Sommeliers, that this wine is made by a sommelier and his wines were listed in the book- which is written by a quite famous sommelier. For some reason, after reading the book, I really trust his judgement. So much so that I made reservations for later this month at the restaurant he owns with Michael Mina in San Francisco. After I try a wine from his hand picked list we’ll see if I’m still in agreement!

But, back to this syrah. Its pretty young for a red wine, so I poured it through my Vinturi first to make sure it was nice and aerated. It was a dark purplish color with ruby edges. On the nose it was spicy, and smelled strongly like pepper. I also found a hint of anise.

It tasted very peppery as well, and not very fruity, although I believe that’s pretty typical of syrah. The wine is actually 95% syrah and 5% viognier, which is a white wine. I thought I could sense it in the wine. Viognier is a very distinctive wine, aromatic and flavorful. I also tasted a hint of wood in the wine. At first Myles and I didn’t love it, but the more I sipped, the better it got.

One of the things the book said about sommeliers is that they don’t like the big, powerful wines that often get high scores from wine critics. They tend to be too bold and high in alcohol. Wines like that go terribly with food. And what more is their job than to help choose wine to drink with food? Therefore, when they make wine themselves they strive to make lower alcohol wines that go well with food. I saved much of my glass to drink with dinner. We were having homemade macaroni and cheese that night, which actually turned out to be a great match!

The Score: ★ ★ ★½

We went to Napa, with our children, for three whole days and it was quite a fabulous time (minus the two straight days of pouring rain, of course). I wanted to write about a couple of the highlights.


First: Kelham Vineyards. Oh. My. God. Back in September, shortly after we decided to make this journey up to wine country, a friend was up there and found himself at Kelham on the good word of several tasting room employees. He raved. I made an appointment, six weeks ahead of time. I warned we’d have the kids.

When we arrived it was pouring rain, so we sat inside. Kelham is a family winery, so Susan and Ron Kelham (mother and son) were working the room and pouring wine. Connor (my older son) even got to play with an old tractor set that belonged to the Kelham boys when they were kids. The first thing to notice is that while they’re pouring the current releases the vintages are much different than what you get just about anywhere else. First up was the 2006 Sauvignon Blanc. Partially barrel fermented, aged in the bottle for years and undoubtedly amongst some of the most delicious wines I’ve ever tasted! The only “young” wine they poured was the 2008 Chardonnay which they make only 140 cases of each year to drink on Thanksgiving. I would happily eat Thanksgiving dinner every day just to drink that wine!

We tasted a few merlots and then came the cabernets, first a 2003. Quite good. Then they poured the 2001. I believe my exact words were “Holy crap!”. Probably one of the, if not the best wine EVER. Ron, and his brother Hamilton, happen to be the wine makers, and so do I take the opportunity to ask Ron an intelligent question? Nope! Like a crazed fan who finally meets her celebrity idol I say something like “How do you make it so yummy?”. Luckily, my stupid question still received a great answer. He said the secret is using super high quality fruit and bottle age. Most of the greatest fine wines in the world aren’t released until they’ve aged for ten, maybe 15 years, he explained. Now I know why! My wine cabinet is going to get crowded as I wait for all my cabernets to age at least nine years before opening them! He also said they really strive to make wine in the old world style, rather than the fruit forward new world style.

Other highlights of Kelham: Picnic the cat who sat on my lap, the three other dogs that roamed the tasting room (and appeared one by one as a new wine was poured as if on purpose!), and two well behaved boys!

Another highlight was at the Elizabeth Spencer Harvest Event. This was what convinced us to make the trip in the first place. An event at one of our favorite wineries on our anniversary weekend? Sign us up!


Myles and I (we left the kids with a sitter!) had the pleasure of chatting with Matthew Rorick, the winemaker at Elizabeth Spencer as well as his own label, Forlorn Hope. He was a super friendly guy and answered my burning questions (such as why does ES not make any blends?). He was also looking quite dapper for a guy in the middle of crush! Myles claims that I really sounded like I knew what I was talking about when it came to wine, so maybe this education is getting me somewhere!

We also had the chance to talk with Elizabeth Pressler, one of the owners. She was fun to chat with and loved to hear our story about how we discovered the winery. Even more fun was seeing her again on Monday when we just couldn’t resist stopping by again with the kids after lunch at Rutherford Grill.

It's so fun to meet the people behind the wine. It's no coincidence that our favorite places are small and NOT owned by some corporation.

Wow, I’m really behind. We finished this wine more than a week ago. Then we immediately jetted off to Napa for a long weekend to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary. (And we took the kids!). Given that I’ve tried at least three dozen other wines since I had this wine, and endured one of the worst colds I’ve had in years (complete with laryngitis) this is going to be brief and almost assuredly less interesting than if I had written this post within 48 hours of drinking the wine as usual.

So... this merlot from Seven Hills was very purple with ruby edges. The nose was full of cherries as well as oak. It was very fruity, like jam. It was very easy to drink, and was not as fruity as I had expected given the nose. The toasted oak flavor was present, but not overwhelming. I also tasted blackberry and the slight bitterness of coffee. Overall, a good wine. Despite its less than stellar reputation recently (thanks, Sideways), I find that I quite enjoy merlot.

The Score: ★ ★ ★

I haven’t had the opportunity to try a lot of ice wine, mostly because it tends to be so pricey. But first, a quick lesson in the making of ice wine: True ice wine is made from grapes that are frozen on the vine. The sugar inside the grapes doesn’t freeze, but the water does. When pressed, a super concentrated juice results which is then fermented. It’s made in several countries throughout the world, but the most famous ice wines are made in Canada and Germany (where it’s called Eiswein).

This bottle from Kiona was quite the comparative bargain at only $23 and is made from Chenin Blanc. Instead of a foil top it was covered in wax which presented me with quite the challenge. If anyone has tips on the best way to open a waxed bottle of wine please do share. I finally managed to crack and then break off the top to get at the cork. There has got to be a better way!

As I’ve come to expect from sweet dessert wine, it was golden honey in the glass. It also smelled of honey, carmel and a super sweet peach pie with vanilla ice cream. Tasty. I’ve been smelling a lot of peach pie in my dessert wines lately-- I think my nose is trying to tell me something.

The wine also tasted of peaches (sans crust) and while it was certainly super sweet (the residual sugar is 26.8%) it was also balanced and a bit tart by its acidity. Not a super long finish though. As I drank the rest of my first glass, as well as subsequent glasses (on other nights!), I was really struck by what the wine really tasted like: Welch’s white grape juice. And not in a bad way. I LOVE white grape juice. I used to love drinking it as a kid, never cared much for the purple stuff. White grape juice was both more tart and less likely to leave a stain. This wine is a grown up version of my favorite childhood juice. Wine that tastes like grapes... weird, huh?!

The Score: ★ ★ ★

It hot again in Northern California. Isn’t it fall by now? One of the only reasons not to be irritated by the heat is that it's great weather for a nice cold glass of riesling. Since I love riesling oh-so-very much and this has to be one of the most written about rieslings (at least in what I read!), I was really looking forward to it. I mean, the wine even has its own website. And lucky me, I was tasting the 10th vintage.

According to Eroica’s website, Chateau Ste. Michelle produces more riesling than any other American region, making seven different kinds. Among them, their “standard” riesling that I used to drink practically by the case in my early 20’s. The Dr. Loosen side of things comes from Ernst Loosen, part of a winemaking family that has been making riesling in Germany’s Mosel region for more than two centuries. Together they produce three different Eroica rieslings grown in Washington’s Columbia Valley.

They have twice produced an ice wine, when the conditions were just right in their Horse Heaven vineyard, in 2006 and 2008. They also produce a single berry version, in the Trockenbeerenauslese style. A word that I simply cannot pronounce, probably even if I did have a reference for the proper pronunciation, that translates to selection of individual grapes left on the vine until nearly dry or trocken (i.e. raisened). They also allow botrytis to settle in. This produces a wine not that unlike Sauternes, I would imagine.

I tasted their off-dry version, the Eroica “widely” available. It was very pale yellow in the glass. While I likely served myself wine that was a bit too cold, I went ahead with my tasting. The nose was light (but was certainly affected by the cold temperature) and had a slight tropical scent, like pineapple. Being riesling, it was citrusy-- like white grapefruit.

I thought it was fairly light for an off-dry wine. I always expect something fuller, but this was still light and refreshing. Must mean it's properly balanced. It was very citrusy, again with white grapefruit as well as lime. The acidity was nice and there was a hint of minerals. I especially enjoyed the super long finish. Yum!


The Score: ★ ★ ★½

I’ve never been to Washington, but I’d like to go. Its on my list of Pacific Northwest locations I’d like to visit. I’ve done Portland, Oregon, but still need to hit Seattle, Spokane and Vancouver, BC. (Nevermind that none of these cities are particularly close to Washington “wine country”!) While I wait for the opportunity to visit these places, I thought I should hit on a domestic location in my wine tasting. Washington seemed fitting given that one of my former go-to wines is a Washington native (the Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling).

Most wine is grown in Eastern Washington, over the Cascades from Seattle and generally along the Oregon border, in the Columbia Valley. The Columbia Valley is an AVA that contains several more specific AVAs including Yakima Valley, Red Mountain, Horse Heaven Hills and four others. Columbia Valley seems to be the preferred designation on many Washington labels.

In stark contrast to the Western part of the state, where people likely envision the near constant rain of Seattle, Washington’s wine country is a semi-desert with a continental climate. It also happens to share the same latitude of Bordeaux and Burgundy in France. The growing season is short, however the sun shines most reliably in the summer and it rarely rains, which keeps disease at bay. The winter on the other hand is just downright cold, and while that can be rough on the grape vines (i.e. kill them), it has also kept phylloxera away and apparently most of the vines are planted on their own rootstocks.

Chateau Ste. Michelle is owned by the dominant winery in the state (that also owns brands such as Columbia Crest and many others), but they have also played a large part in helping raise awareness of Washington wines.

I picked up a riesling, which is the third most planted vinifera grape variety in the state behind #1 Chardonnay and #2 Merlot. This particular one is a popular joint venture between Chateau Ste. Michelle and Dr. Loosen, (an extremely popular German winemaker). Nearly every book I read that talked about Washington wines mentioned this wine. It's one of the few specific wines on my tasting list.



When I was at K&L buying the wines I was fortunate enough to be helped by an employee (whose name I missed, darn it!) that said he had just returned from a Washington wine trip. He said he’d had the opportunity to meet the winemakers from Gramercy (whose Syrah I chose) and Seven Hills (merlot), which he described as “delicious”.

And, of course, there’s always a wine that’s somehow unusual that I can always be counted on to buy. This time it's an ice wine. I did some research before deciding to get it and found that in the vast majority of Washington vineyards the grapes do not freeze reliably enough for most wineries to produce ice wine (for example, Chateau Ste. Michelle has only made one a handful of times), but Kiona has a small patch of vines on Red Mountain that allows them to make one every year. At only $22.99, who can pass that up?!

Here’s what I picked up:

2008 Chateau Ste Michelle-Dr. Loosen "Eroica" Columbia Valley Riesling $17.99
2007 Gramercy Cellars "Lagniappe" Columbia Valley Syrah $35.99
2008 Kiona Yakima Red Mountain Ice Wine $22.99
2007 Seven Hills Columbia Valley Merlot $19.99

I love Pinot Noir. Maybe its because I know just how darn hard it is to grow the grape. Maybe its because I know just how darn hard it is to make great wine out of the grape. Maybe its because it tends to be softer wine which on many occasions I prefer. In any case, I was rather looking forward to tasting a pinot noir from Australia, a place where big, bold wine seems to be king.

I feel especially lucky to be trying this particular pinot from Yeringberg because apparently they made only 20 cases of it. Only 240 bottles and I have one of them! Yeringberg seems to be a small family winery who has been making wine in the Yarra Valley for 150 years. I say seems to be because I barely have more than the label from which to glean my information. If you click through to their website you’ll see what I mean. Winemakers, yes; website-makers they are not. A local wine website tells me they have 4 employees, all in the de Pury family. I’m a little amazed this bottle of wine has managed to land in my Northern California home!

This is probably one of the oldest pinots I’ve had, a 2004. Seems silly, but I’ve really only discovered pinot in the last few years. It never used to help that good pinot was out of my price range. This one was showing its slight age in the brick red color of the wine.

On the nose it was smokey with a hint of black pepper. I sensed dark berries, almost like jam- blackberry jam. It was light to medium-bodied and had the spicy pepper taste I expected given how it had smelled. It was earthy and round and tasted like nice smokey bacon. Now there’s a wine I can get behind!

I thought it would go well with food, as pinot noir often does, and I was right. We poured a bit more with dinner: baked sweet chili salmon, apricot and raisin bread and a side of steamed broccoli. I would also like to publicly give myself a shout-out for making salmon that turned out awesome! A great meal with great wine.

The Score: ★ ★ ★ ★

Before I even start talking about this wine, I would like to offer some advice: Always read the label. Ok, read on.

Yabby Lake doesn’t sound like the greatest place, yabby rhymes with shabby. However, this lake is on the Mornington Penninsula which sounds like a lovely place to enjoy a cup of coffee out on your porch, if you do that sort of thing. This Yabby Lake Chardonnay was a pretty bright yellow in the glass. It had a pleasant nose that was fruity, smelling of apples as well as vanilla.


But, I did not read the label. It states that this wine is aged for 10 months in oak. One third in new oak, one third in year old oak and the remaining third in two year old oak. Would you like some oak with your oak? Something I learned long ago is that I do not, repeat do not, like my chardonnay over-oaked. In fact, I prefer it naked (or least wearing next to nothing).

Since I did not read the label, I was not expecting so much oak flavor. It had some nice acid in the background and the vanilla taste was there as it was in the nose. I tried so hard to get past the oak and search out the fruit. All I got was perhaps a touch of pear, but with each sip it's hard not to simply feel like I’m licking the inside of an oak wine barrel. I’m instantly taken back to earlier this month, while tasting at Woodside Vineyards, when I had the opportunity to stick my nose into a brand new barrel made of French oak. It smelled fabulous. But I had no desire to lick it.

All this being the case, this wine is not going down the drain, and not only because it was $25. Its not bad and I don’t hate it. It is a good wine, just has more oak than I prefer. As I learned at last month’s wine club, the chardonnay tasting, many people enjoy oak in this amount so I don’t think its even over-oaked. This wine has taught me to read the labels of chardonnay. Closely. And to enjoy the rest of this bottle with a hunk of strong cheese.

The Score: ★ ★

Admittedly, this wine isn’t really a “learning” wine. I already know I love riesling. I know that something called Prickly that promises effervescence is right up my alley. Its not like I’m trying something like this for the first time. But, at only $10 it seemed a sure thing, so I couldn’t resist.

It was super light yellow in the glass and had the distinctive nose of riesling. I always have the most difficult time describing the nose and flavors of riesling. It's so distinctive to me; riesling smells like riesling! This one smelled citrusy, but less so than the Alsatian riesling from a couple months ago.

As I knew, it was a very easy drinking wine. It was super low in alcohol (in stark contrast to the grenache!) at only 8.7%. If I wasn’t being so mindful of my sugar intake I probably could’ve had half the bottle or more without even realizing it! It had a nice balancing acidity to counter the sugar, that was reminiscent of grapefruit. And, perhaps my favorite, the slightest fizz.

Ok, let’s learn something. This wine is 83% riesling and while it tasted like it could have been 100%, it was 17% something else. That something else is Muscat Gordo. This is not a noble grape variety, by any means. Its also known as Muscat of Alexandria, having thought to have originated in Egypt. However, except for Australia and South Africa, its not often used for wine production. Extensively grown in California for raisins, and “under glass” in Britain and the Netherlands for table grapes, it has a lack of finesse and its major contribution to wine is sweetness. Throughout most of the world people do not do as I did with these grapes, for they eat them rather than drink them.

The Score: ★ ★ ★

We started with the grenache because it didn’t have a spot in a wine fridge (the pinot won the last one- it was more expensive). Grenache is typically used in blends and is commonly grown in Southern France, Spain, Australia and the San Joaquin Valley here in California. It needs a hot climate since it's a late ripening variety. I’ve had a few 100% varietal versions lately though, including one from our favorite Napa winery, Elizabeth Spencer. Grenache is supposed to be spicy and berry-flavored, with little acid or tannins.

This one, from Jasper Hill, was a dark ruby red color. It smelled like ripe cherries and raspberries and a bit of spice. I leaned towards anise, just a bit licorice-y. Overall it had a strong fruity scent.

It was indeed, very big and bold. True to type, it tasted like all manner of berries: blackberries, blueberries and raspberries. Instead of tasting anise, I tasted a hint of cloves. Also true to type, it was high in alcohol at 15%. This was undoubtedly a new world style wine. I really liked it, but one glass really knocked me down. My head was spinning a bit when Evan nursed at 4am the next morning and then later in spinning class I was ridiculously sluggish. Myles complained of the lack of tannins- but he’s a tannic man. I definitely liked it, but I also prefer my wine with less alcohol.

Overall a great wine!

The score: ★ ★ ★½

I thought I needed to leave Europe for a while and try some New World wines, so I honed in on the Southern hemisphere. A friend suggested, and then it became obvious, that I should choose a region in Australia. For those of you that actually read my first post (if not, find it here), you know that I came of age with wines in an Australian wine shop. I always felt that Australian wine offered good consistency for very reasonable prices (as long as you don’t buy Yellowtail Chardonnay- bleck!), but for few exceptions couldn’t ever afford to buy much from the shop, instead I purchased at the grocery store. Now that I’m not 22 anymore, I can afford to try some of the good stuff.

I arbitrarily chose Victoria first. Victoria is full of small wineries, but still hasn’t recovered from phylloxera in the late 19th century when the government encouraged the destruction of vineyards in an attempt to wipe out the pest. Production is now only half of what it is in South Australia, that has never been affected by phylloxera. The area is the smallest and coolest region on Australia’s mainland for grape growing, and kangaroos apparently like to snack on the grapes.

With fourteen wine zones (i.e. appellations), I couldn’t possibly taste a wine from each (even if I could get a wine from each). The best known region is Yarra Valley, which is so close to Melbourne, its a northern suburb. Pinot Noir is one of the wines done best here, so I picked up one of those. Victoria being such a cool region, they are also known for chardonnay, so I grabbed one from the Mornington Peninsula. This little strip of land is due south of Melbourne, jutting out into the water.


Jasper Hill, a winery credited for putting Heathcote on the map is the maker of the third wine. Although my book mentions the Shiraz grown here, I opted to save that variety for another time and instead picked up a grenache, one of the varieties I had specified I’d like to try from Australia. My fourth wine is one for fun. Low alcohol, a bit of sugar and some fizz, it seems. It’s the only “reasonably priced” (read: in the amount I used to spend on Australian wine) wine I purchased.

Cheers, Mate!

Here’s what I picked up:
2004 Yeringberg Pinot Noir Yarra Valley Victoria $39.99
2005 Yabby Lake Vineyard Chardonnay Mornington Peninsula Victoria $24.99
2009 Frisk "Prickly" Riesling-Muscat Gordo Victoria $9.99
2005 Jasper Hill "Cornella" Grenache Heathcote Victoria $34.99

Given the below average performance of some of the Friulian wines I’ve tried over the last few weeks, I was beginning to wonder if I was going to regret spending $50 on this wine. Its not like Picolit was on my master list, I just simply gave in to the uniqueness of this wine described by K&L as ‘very special’ and the fact there were only a handful in stock.

What really was the deciding factor was reading about this unusual grape variety. The Wine Bible describes it as the wine that “probably shouldn't even exist”. Because of a genetic mutation many of the flowers simply fall off instead of becoming grapes, this is caused by a super low pollination rate. Thus a very small, or piccolo, amount of grapes are produced. Those that do exist are then dried on mats to concentrate the sugars and turned into this rare, and pricey, dessert wine.

Like so many Italian wine grapes, Picolit is a regional one, this wine is made in the Friuli region. Period. It's a very golden honey color in the glass. It very nearly looked like a wine bottle full of honey.

On the nose it smelled of honey (as was rumored), and sweet. I also thought it smelled a bit like peach pie with fresh whip cream, which while incredibly specific, was specifically what came to mind. There was a hint of nuttiness, I thought hazelnut, likely only because I associate sweet, yet nutty things with hazelnut because of products like hazelnut coffee flavoring and Nutella.

Enough anticipation already-- how did it taste?! It was fantastic! It was lighter than I expected (perhaps because it could seem like one was about to drink a glass of honey). It was sweeter than honey, which when eaten straight up has a bit of tang to it, more like a light caramel. There were also peaches and some floral overtones. Just as the K&L description promised, however, it wasn’t too sweet, but very balanced. So good! Way to come out ahead in the end, Friuli.

The Score: ★ ★ ★ ★½

I have some buyers remorse on this wine. While Franconia (the Friuli name for the grape) is somewhat common, this grape is supposed to be one of the best red varieties in Austria, where its called Blaufränkisch. I should revisit it when I visit Austria at some point in the future. Its also grown in Germany (Lemberger), Bulgaria (Gamé), Hungary (Kékfrankos) and the Czech Republic (Frankovka). Its a grape with an identity crisis.

Naturally, I was super nervous to open this wine. The other Blason wine was the one that went down the drain, and this one cost $2 less! So, we chose to open it on Labor Day when it was about 90 degrees out, while we were barbecuing steak. Low expectations and still some of the Friulano left in the fridge as a consolation prize.

It had that awful bright yellow synthetic cork again and was quite a bit too warm (it didn’t get one of the coveted spots in my wine fridge and had been sitting on the sideboard since purchase). It was dark purple in color. So far so good. I simply drank it during dinner, as we were at a friend’s, and didn’t “taste” it and take notes until we got home. It was deemed drinkable at dinner, “not that bad”.

Back at home I put it in the fridge for a bit to try and get it back to an appropriate temperature (as I doubt 85 degrees is preferable). It smelled of dark fruit, cherries and blackberries, and a hint of mint.

It was pretty light-bodied (and thus why we were able to drink it in 90 degree weather without suffocating) and very acidic. It was spicy, lots of black pepper, but pretty one-dimensional. The finish was ‘earthy’, in not that great a way, or maybe it was just ‘cheap’. It was much better in its overly warm state alongside our dinner than alone after dinner. Myles did the honors of finishing off most of this one.

The Score: ★ ★

I had much higher hopes for this white wine after the debacle with the previous Friuli white wine. When I pulled out a real cork, I knew we were onto something. The wine was a bright golden yellow in the glass and smelled good, but would it taste good?

The name Tocai Friulano sounds tropical to me, for some reason I think tropicana and then the Chiquita banana lady. Maybe that’s why I smelled bananas as the first, and most powerful, scent on the nose. It had an overall tropical vibe, with just a hint of peach.

It tasted like bananas too. I’m starting to wonder if all white wine is going to taste like bananas! This one tasted like alcoholic bananas, almost like a banana flavored liquor. There was also a bit of honey and vanilla, as well as a woody flavor that may have actually been almonds, which is supposed to be one of the more pronounced notes of this grape. It was pretty acidic, which balanced the sweet flavors.

I noticed that the label on the bottle actually only says Friulano. According to the Oxford Companion, the grape Tocai Friulano is actually Sauvignonasse. Tocai Friulano is the Friulan name for it. Apparently, a renaming was necessary, no explanation is offered as to why. Under consideration were Sauvignonasse, Friulano and Vert. Looks like Friulano won out. This grape consists of 30% of white wine grape acreage in the region and is meant to be drunk young. Mission accomplished there, we even used the last glass-worth in the sauce for our chicken a few nights ago, which means even Connor got to enjoy it!

The Score: ★ ★ ★

I finally got around to trying a red wine! I decided to try this wine for a couple reasons. First, I thought I should drink and blog about a red wine since I’d done all white wines, but mostly because refosco is an indigenous varietal to northern Italy (so it has history there). And being a unique varietal, I get another notch on my belt for the Century Club.

Refosco is apparently a group of distinct red varieties. This wine is specifically Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso (translates to ‘the red stalk’), which has a long history in the Friuli region. According to the Oxford Companion, it was used to produce the favorite wine of Livia, Augustus Ceasar’s second wife. Well there you go.

This wine, from Ermacora, was dark purple with bright pink hues around the edges (rather than brick colored, as this wine was young). It had a fruity and fragrant nose, smelling of cherries and blackberries with a bit of black pepper.

It was a pretty easy drinking red, the tannins were very mild, though at first I thought it was a bit hot down the throat. That sensation went away fairly quickly. It also tasted of berries and black pepper, and I thought a bit of tobacco. The finish was very earthy. I’d describe it almost of tasting like dirt, but not in a bad way. K&L’s description described it a bit more appealingly as “gravel”. They said coffee, not tobacco, but otherwise it seems I was right on. Being that I don’t smoke or drink coffee I’m not particularly familiar with their tastes!

I really enjoyed this wine, and if I didn’t have a seemingly endless list of new wines to try and wine in my collection to drink, I’d certainly go out and get more. Since is was a medium-bodied red with low tannins, its a good summer red and would probably go great with dinner on the grill.

The Score: ★ ★ ★½

I was very excited to make it to wine club last Thursday. Three WHOLE hours out of the house sans kids. Amazing. The theme for the evening was Chardonnay from around the world. We seem to be a group that likes to guess things about what we’re tasting and see who gets the most right. Sometimes that means we do a blind tasting, others we try to guess where the wine is from or how much it cost. This time we had the descriptions of all six chardonnays we tried, but we didn’t know which wine was which. I’ll be up front and admit that I got every last one wrong. Oops! But, I have some excuses.

So here’s what we tried (in no particular order):

2005 Talley Vineyards Chardonnay Oliver’s Vineyard (Edna Valley)
2007 Bodega Catena Zapata Chardonnay (Argentina)
2008 William Fevre ‘Champs Royaux Chablis’ (France)
2007 Trevor Jones Virgin Chardonnay (Australia)
2007 Carmody McKnight Free Run Chardonnay (Paso Robles)
2005 Iron Horse Vineyards (Sonoma)

And here’s what I thought of each one (adapted from my vague notes taken whilst conversing with my wine club friends- my aroma wheel at home):

#1: I thought this wine was light, citrusy (like fresh-squeezed limes) with a bit of green apples. Very acidic and tart. This was my favorite one of the evening. I guessed this was the Bodega Catena and it was not.

#2: I thought this wine smelled very oaky, however it tasted less oaky. It was pretty fruity and the oak was nicely balanced against the fruit. I liked it. I guessed this wine to be the William Fevre Chablis. Of course, it was not.

#3: This wine smelled like a glass full of buttered popcorn. (Which is caused by diacetyl, a natural byproduct of fermentation). While there was some fruit flavor underneath, I found the wine way too oaky for my taste. I’m not one for oaked white wines, sometimes I just feel like I’m drinking a wood plank. I guessed this wine to be the Iron Horse. Wrong!

#4: This wine was acidic and smelled of green apples. It was refreshing to drink and had just a touch of oak. It was my second favorite of the evening. I thought it might be the Carmody McKnight. Nope!

#5: At this point in the night, my nose started to fail me, because my notes for the nose are “??”. I also noted that it tasted pretty oaky. Very descriptive, I know. I thought it was the Trevor Jones. Of course, I was wrong.

#6: This wine was an interesting experience for us. Immediately upon pouring it one thing was very obvious, it was oxidized. The color was like apple juice. As you might imagine, it smelled all kinds of horrible. We all tasted it to see what an oxidized wine tastes like. Let’s just say most of us needed a chaser (I chose bread smothered with goat cheese). I guessed Talley Vineyards for this one.

So, part of what made it so difficult to place the wines (and I did change my mind several times), was having one of them be oxidized since it clearly didn’t taste like the description. I also failed to notice that wine #2 was in a bottle that was a screw cap. Had I paid attention I almost certainly would’ve pegged it as the Australian wine and certainly wouldn’t have chosen France. I mean, c’mon, a French wine with a screw cap?!

So, here’s what the wines actually were:

#1: William Fevre Chablis
#2: Trevor Jones Virgin Chardonnay
#3: Talley Vineyards Chardonnay
#4: Iron Horse
#5: Carmody McKnight Free Run Chardonnay
#6: Bodega Catena Zapata Chardonnay

Better luck next time!

So two very unfortunate things happened this week. On Tuesday it was 107 degrees outside. This is an unreasonable temperature, especially when you live in a home without air conditioning AND the weather this summer had blessed us with the 5 weeks immediately proceeding this heat burst where the temperature rarely exceed 78. On Monday, when the temperature merely brushed up against 100 degrees, we decided we should open the Blason Pinot Grigio to help cool off.

Which brings us to the second unfortunate thing, though it happened first. The first sign that things might not be great was the bright yellow synthetic cork I pulled out of the bottle. I hate to admit it, but yes, I am biased against wines corked with synthetic materials, especially brightly colored synthetic materials. I just haven’t ever had a wine sealed that way that blew my socks off. (Please don’t confuse this with screw caps, however. I’ve had many a delicious wine sealed with a crew cap).

The wine was super pale yellow and actually smelled pretty good. It was fresh and light with a faint lemon scent. But, then I tasted it. Its not like it was God-awful, it tasted of minerals and hay or straw with a light taste. But, the finish was funky, and just tasted cheap. I did drink my initial 1/2 glass while making dinner, but when I poured the second half after the kids were in bed and took my first few sips I realized I wasn’t enjoying the wine at all. I turned to Myles and announced that I didn’t want anymore. Not from that glass or the bottle. Wine has calories and these just aren’t worth it. And while he finished the remainder in my glass, he didn’t want anymore from the bottle either. Before going to bed I unceremoniously poured the rest of the bottle down the drain.

I can’t help wonder, did K&L steer me wrong by stocking this wine? I don’t know enough to know whether or not the wine was “correct” according to typicity and place standards, so maybe it was fine, just not my thing. Who knows?! K&L describes it as being “sensational” and “extraordinarily drinkable for the price”, being really good in the price-to-quality ratio, and that its a lot better than most other pinot grigios that cost less than $10. All I do know is that we didn’t like it.

I should’ve spent a bit more $$ and gotten this one from a producer often mentioned in my wine books, or this one that received a good score. Perhaps they’re better examples of the grape in this region.

The Score: ★

It was really hard to choose my next region to taste. I’ve just begun so almost everything is left, and I can’t wait to try just about everything! Since it's summer (albeit a mild one. A glorious, glorious mild one), I decided I should stick with somewhere known for its white wines. One of the most sipped white wines in warm weather may be Pinot Grigio, so I decided on Italy. Friuli-Venezia Giulia [free-oo-lee ve-ne-tsyah joo-lyah] to be exact.



Though this region didn’t occupy much space on my to-do list, I found a good selection of enticing offerings at K&L and decided to expand my two wines to try (Pinot Grigio and Tocai Friulano) to five. As Myles put it, I’m a sucker for marketing. In my defense, the other wines are all made from indigenous grapes or are otherwise rare. The diversity of new experiences available from Friuli was too attractive. Besides, its not like K&L knows I’m going region by region and targeted me. Right?

Friuli is the very northeastern “ear” of Italy and part of the Tre Venezie (the others are Tentino-Alto Adige and the Veneto) because of the historical relationship the three regions share to the Republic of Venice. With a bit of nostalgia, I can remember the very first vineyards I ever saw in person (likely the Veneto) back in 1997 when I was (NERD ALERT) touring Europe with a band and choir. We did a day trip from Austria to Venice and I remember being just entranced by the rolling vineyards to be seen along much of the drive. I also recall a very grumpy Italian woman yelling at us at a rest stop in violent Italian. Undoubtedly we group of American teenagers did something wrong- I still don’t know what!

Friuli is best known for its white wines, although almost 50% of their wines are red. It's also prosciutto country where both prosciutto di San Daniele and prosciutto di Parma are made. White wines are what makes this region famous, and especially endearing to me since when the rest of the world began to focus on oaking their wines, apparently here in Italy they were focused on acidic, unoaked whites. I’m particularly looking forward to trying the Toaci (toe-ki, rhymes with hi) Friulano, after reading how hard it is to describe!

So, here’s what I picked up for the month:

2008 Blason Pinot Grigio $8.99
2008 Ermacora Friulano $14.99
2008 Blason Franconia $6.99
2008 Ermacora Refosco $19.99
2007 Ermacora Picolit $49.99

Being such a small region, you’ll notice that the five wines hail from just two wineries. And, with the exception of the Picolit, are very inexpensive. Yay for Italian wine bargains!


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