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Archive for April, 2010
The last wine of the evening was a shiraz by Hope. I really love shiraz or syrah wines at the moment. This particular shiraz was quite delicious. As expected, it had a jammy, blackberry smell and flavor. It was relatively smooth with a bit of pepper. The pepper was where this shiraz seemed to be a bit different.
I noticed that the pepper was spicy and sweet at the same time. I’ve described wines to be like this before in my blog, but with the Hope Shiraz, the contrast was more extreme in my opinion. It was almost as if there were two types of pepper in it – maybe three. It was like the spices changed as they went through the tasting of the palate. I really did enjoy this wine, but it just caught me off guard how the spices were so different. This also could have been a result of the southern fried chicken sushi! But nevertheless, it was a great wine on its own and even more interesting with food.
Tiamo Pinot Grigio was a fun white wine from the event. Pinot Grigio is one of the first wines I ever started drinking, even before I worked at the wine shop and didn’t know anything at all about wine – so it’s always fun to come back and revisit it. And also, the ones I am tasting now are much more tasty than the ones I was buying previously. This particular one was incredibly light and sweet.
Much like the Il Cuore Chardonnay, this wine had a bit of honey and musk in taste. It wasn’t quite as musky as the Chardonnay. I really liked the balance of honey/musk with the citrus. Sometimes I feel like the citrus flavors in white wines can make for an acidic wine that is hard to swallow, but this one was absolutely perfect. It had a bit of variety and complexity in flavor, but was still sweet and very drinkable.
I was really excited for this wine. For one I’ve never had an X-Winery wine and I’ve always seen them in the shop, and I love Cabs. X-Winery Cabernet Sauvignon did not disappoint. The flavor was very deep and bold, like many cabs. It had the smell and flavor of a deep berry or plum, and of course, pepper and spice was very evident.
This particular cab was a tad different than most I have had in two ways. The tannic acids seemed to be vamped up a bit. It was still delicious because of all the flavors, and I appreciated how complex it was. Also, there was a bit of strong cocoa in the finishing which made for a fun and interesting end. I definitely liked this wine and am very eager to try some more from X-Winery.
The Il Cuore Chardonnay was very interesting. With most chardonnays I have tasted, they have been very smooth, buttery, and fruity. This chardonnay still had some of these characteristics, but overall, it wasn’t as fruity as others. There was a bit of honey and musk in the scent and taste.
The sweetness was muted when the wine was by itself. However, when paired with the ham salad, the sweetness was brought out of the chardonnay. The musky flavor was still present in the finishing. I enjoy wines that have a honey taste, so this wine was very good to me. It was just intriguing to find that this chardonnay didn’t taste like most of the apple/pear flavored ones I have had previously. It shows me that I still have a lot of exploring to do.
I’ve had a few different wines from the Napa Cellars vineyard before and they have all been exquisite. The Napa Cellars Sauvignon Blanc was no different. It was smooth, just as I would have expected. The major scent and flavor was citrus. The wine was a mixture of sweet and dry, which is what I have noticed with sauvignon blanc, or at least in my opinion.
This wine was very intriguing when paired with the Eggs Rockefeller. It finished with a soury, spicy taste. The citrus was still there, but the finishing was quite different. I would say it enhanced it since the finishing without the food was kind of dull. A great wine on its own still.
The first still wine of the night was a red called Domaine De Chateaumar Cuvee Bastien. The smell was a bit of a berry, not quite a dark berry like most red wines, and there was also a bit of an herbal scent. These flavors were mimicked in the taste. Overall, it was a very smooth wine.
It brought out the pepper and spices of the Eggs Rockefeller, the clam-filled deviled eggs. This was also reversed – the wine tasted spicier after having tasted the eggs. The pepper in the wine was not very powerful unless paired with the eggs. There was a small hint of cocoa in the smell and the finishing of the wine. Overall, it had a great balance but was still flavorful and complex – one of my favorites of the night!
We started the cooking demo off with a sparkling wine, which is what we usually do. While I am partial to the blush or red sparkling wines, the Brut Champalov was still quite an interesting starter to the evening. I believe the last sparkling wine I had was the sparkling sake, and this was quite different obviously. The yeast was very present in taste. The smell was hard to gather; however, there seemed to be a bit of a faint cherry smell and flavor.
Unfortunately, since this was a sparkling wine, I felt like the bubbles overtook what small cherry scent and flavor was evident. It was still a good, interesting start to the night and it was nice to try another sparkling wine since I haven’t had one (besides the Sake) in quite some time.
Last Friday’s event was a cooking demo that featured what would normally be Easter leftovers, but in a creative and delicious way. We had clam-filled deviled eggs, a ham salad, and southern fried chicken sushi. The food was interesting and the wines were amazing. As any cooking demo we’ve had in the past, it was fun to see how the different spices of the food brought out different characteristics of the wines, and vice versa.
Despite the food being amazing, this event had some of the best wines I’ve tasted thus far in my internship. Check back later in the week to see what 7 delicious wines we sampled!
This week we launched www.onewineonedeal.com – a Social Buying service for wine set up along similar lines as www.groupon.com – people can ‘opt in’ to a deal on wine (approximately 50% retail) by helping to spread the word among their social circle to take advantage of group buying power.
We’re working with our wineries and distributors who want to get the word out there about the products we carry – they’re agreeing to give us extra special pricing in exchange for a minimum purchase of 10 or more cases at a time that we can offer for 24 hours only. If the minimum number sells, the deal is on and we ship out some fantastic bargains. If not enough are sold, there’s no deal and none of the people get charged for the wine.
Christopher's Wine & Cheese Blog 