I was very excited about this wine, having had it shipped from invino to my home back in California.

We opened it up yesterday for dinner, which was New York strip steaks topped with caramelized onion, creamy mashed potatoes, and a nice green bean, tomato, and feta cheese salad.  True to form, I opened it up about an hour before dinner to drink while cooking.  Very dark, saturated color.  On the nose there was prune and blueberry, and herbs.  When my mom tried it she said it tasted salty–I agree: there was sort of a cured olive aspect to the wine.  I got the prune and berries, along with tar, tobacco, licorice, and stone–nicely integrated, soft tannins.  It had a long finish, resolving to lighter red fruit notes.

Overall, very good and an easy-to-drink wine.  It paired well with the dinner, too.  However, I’m not sure if I’d pay $70 for the wine; I got it from invino for about $40.  If I can find this wine for $40 I would probably buy it again.  I enjoyed it more than the 2005 Clos du Val “Stags Leap District” Cabernet Sauvignon (85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc, 3% Merlot and 2% Petit Verdot) I had purchased from invino a while back.

While similar in style (Bordeaux, not Blockbuster) to the Cinq Cepages, the Clos du Val was simply not well integrated.  There were good things–terrific fruit, for instance–but the elements were distinct and not part of a unified whole.  That being said, I would definitely try it again in a few years just to make sure.  The critics love it and there are good things going on in the glass.

I am a lucky man.  Not only do I have a home to go to for Christmas, but I get to try some terrific wines.  Not least of all, however, I have a very cute dog to keep my spirits bright!

Happy holidays, everyone!

I was meeting up for dinner with my friend Camille from high school and had to find a place to eat.  But where to eat?  I looked around the internet and scoured the annals of my own experience to come up with four or five choices, which I proffered to her to choose from.  She chose Bacaro, a wine bar in South LA.

(Thanks to Yelp! for the pic.)

Bacaro came recommended from one of my fellow bloggers, Horny for Food.  It was supposed to have a good, reasonably-priced wine list, and good, reasonably-priced small plates.  Note also the cool atmosphere–blackboard wall, wine bottle ceiling, good mix of yuppies, hipsters, and yupsters.

We arrived pretty late–around 9:15 pm, or 45 minutes before closing–but this wasn’t a problem.  We shared a 24-oz bottle of Fischer Amber Ale ($7 or $9, I believe) while waiting for a table.  We were seated promptly and we ordered a few of their small plates, or “cichetti.”

You can get one cichetti for $7 or three for $19.  We ended up getting five cichetti and one “dessert” item.  Santos, our server, recommended about three plates per person to actually get filled up, but you could probably order one or two per person if you were just looking for a light snack.

First up was the grilled hanger steak with fresh thyme, olive oil, and lemon.  It was cooked medium rare and was perfectly charred on the bottom.

(If you haven’t tried hanger steak, you should: it’s also known as butcher’s steak because butchers used to save this cut for themselves.  It “hangs” from the diaphragm of the cow, thus imparting to the steak a rich flavor and perhaps even a hint of liver or kidney.  Yeah, that sounds gross, but it’s really, really good.  If you go to a French bistro and they serve onglet (the Gallic name for hanger steak), get it.  It’s delicious, especially with some frites.)

Next up was the grilled rosemary honey chicken which came on a bed of mixed greens.  The chicken was very tender and very well marinated, overall very good.  There was also a plate of small squares of crispy polenta topped with a puree of eggplant–slightly tart, slightly salty, the cold soft eggplant contrasting deliciously with the hot crispy polenta.  Very, very good.

My favorite dish was the pan-seared scallops: two large scallops on top of a bed of sauteed spring onions and crostini.  The scallops were masterfully done, but the sauce, consisting of butter and lemon, was absolutely superb.  This was an incredibly rich dish, jam-packed with flavor.  Amazing, and a must-have.

We also ordered one of the day’s specials–the mussels in a tomato-pepper sauce–which was decent.  The mussels themselves were cooked very well but were overwhelmed by the sauce.  Still decent, but I’ve had better.

Finally, we ended with the “dessert”: a Nutella panino.  Two slices of grilled bread held Nutella and either bananas or strawberries.  Of course, you could do like we did and request BOTH bananas and strawberries.  I’m not a fan of Nutella per se, but this was very, very good and a perfect end to the meal.

Of course, this being a wine blog I have to write a bit about the wines we had.  I ordered a glass of the Three petite sirah and Camille had a glass of the Jenke Barossa rosé, made of cabernet franc.  The prices were pretty decent–I believe around $7-$9 per glass–but the pours were a tad small.  Regardless, the wines were excellent.

Three is a new project by Matt Cline of Cline Cellars, maker of some pretty excellent zinfandel.  His petite sirah is bright and juicy with blackberry, with a hint of duskiness and tannin.  Very enjoyable.  The rosé was one of the darker rosés I’ve tried, almost as dark as just a straight-up cab franc.  Very concentrated flavor, a nose redolent of strawberry, fruity but not necessarily sweet–a very substantial rosé and one I’d seek out again.

Bacaro has, from what I can tell, a good and diverse wine list at very affordable prices.  For instance, they offer an Irouleguy from Domaine Etxegaraya for $40 which isn’t a huge markup, and the “Cuvee Terroir” Chinon cab franc from Charles Joguet (a Kermit Lynch selection) for $42–again, not a huge markup at around $25 retail.  They offer a lot of Italian but back that up with good selections from France, Germany and Austria, and the New World.  Most bottles are around $32-$40, with the lowest being $24 and the very highest being the Vina Valora from Rioja, clocking in at $142.

I would definitely recommend Bacaro.  Excellent food, great wine, great ambiance, and great service.  The price was good, too, at $80 total for two people (six dishes, a 24-oz beer, two glasses of wine, and around 20% tip).  Bacaro is sort of in a ghetto area near USC, but that just means it’s a diamond in the rough.

BACARO L.A. WINE BAR
2308 S. Union Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90007
(213) 748-7205
www.bacarola.com
 

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* I just recently listened to the song from the last summer, “American Boy” by Estelle, which is on the whole enjoyable (and to my knowledge still my friend Megan’s ringtone) EXCEPT for something in the chorus:

Take me on a trip, I’d like to go some day
Take me to New York, I’d love to see LA.
I really want to come kick it with you.
You’ll be my American Boy, American Boy.

The way Estelle says “LA” irks me.  She enunciates the name so that it’s not Eh-LAY like most people I know say it, but pronouncing each letter distinctly and separately–sort of like EL-AY.  If you say it that way it ceases to refer to the city and is just two letters.  Does this bother anyone else?

For one, I’m living in a nice, comfortable apartment with great food.  I have a wonderful family that I appreciate more as I get older; great friends.  I am going to a good law school with outstanding professors and classes.  I have nothing to complain about, and I am going to try to be more appreciative of the incredible opportunities I’ve been given.

To kick off the new year, my roommate and I hosted a champagne and sparkling wine tasting, the details of which will be coming out in the upcoming Nota Bene (GW Law student newspaper); I will write up my blog observations on that evening a bit later.  Suffice it to say that the big winner in the tasting were a beautiful sparkler from France, the Charles de Fere Blanc de Blanc Reserve Brut ($12.99)–was, as I described it, “the group’s favorite, with a nose of hazelnut and toast, a light, almost ethereal mouthfeel, and notes of apple and pear.”

But I have to lay rest some unfinished deeds from the previous year, too.  I went to Mission Wines five times over break (1.33 times per week I was at home), during which I merely stopped by twice for bottles, attended a weekend tasting with some LegalZoom friends, drank some excellent wines with my high school friends, and visited with my roommate from DC, Alex.  Managed to catch up with people like Dave, Debbie, and Kirk; from high school, saw Billy–whom I haven’t seen for two years–Brian R.–who moved to Japan after Berkeley and had not been seen this side of the Pacific for quite a few years–Brian H.–UCLA film student extraordinaire–and Jen–soon to be lawyer extraordinaire.

Some notable wines were a 2005 Caymus Cabernet (approx. $70-$80), courtesy of Billy (whoa!)–intense, really really BIG–Robert Parker big–California big; vanilla and tobacco and earth throwing off crazy fireworks in the mouth.  Kirk let me try some of some fantastic zinfandel, and on another day Dave was kind enough to pour for us a bottle of the same, a 2006 Hartford Family Winery Zinfandel from the Russian River Valley (approx. $30)–spicy and full, one of the best zins I’ve ever had.

Alex and I shared a bottle of Casanova di Neri Rosso di Montalcino (approx. $25), from the Southern Tuscany–90% sangiovese and 10% colorino, pronounced acidity that wasn’t overbearing and actually well-balanced, cherry, a bit of spice.  An excellent food wine but also nice by itself, slightly chilled.  I managed to find and buy a bottle of this in DC at the Wine Specialist and got a $5 discount ($24 instead of $29) and am looking forward to drinking it with a nice meal.

And finally, a really wonderful wine from the Languedoc: the 2006 “Les Garrigues” from Domaine Clavel (approx. $12-$14)–everything you would ever want from a wine from the South of France: definitely a cold weather wine, with medium body, dark fruits, nice tannins, and a taste of–you guessed it–the garrigue.

All in all, I had some wonderful wines.  Oh, and before I forget, another wine I had here in DC at the end of the champagne tasting: the 2006 Domaine Joulin Saumur Champigny Rouge ($17.99).  A cabernet franc, it definitely was better than the “Cuvee de la Cure” from Charles Joguet (importer: Kermit Lynch) ($26), I felt–very smooth, very light.  It smelled like gamay and tasted a bit like strawberries, but there was a streak of minerality that separated it from a beaujolais.  Excellent, and a crowd-pleaser.

The wines I had at the end of last year and the start of this year have been very, very good indeed, and more importantly, I was able to share those wines with friends and family.  I have much to be thankful for and much to look forward to in 2009.

And settle in I have!  DC is a great place thus far–definitely more humid than I’m used to, and subject to strange liquor laws that prohibit my buying beer, wine, or liquor in markets or drug stores (what gives, DC?).  However, DC is home to a great deal of wine stores, bars, pubs, and restaurants with wonderful, wonderful happy hour bargains.  And I have met some good people here, both my future classmates and friends of my roommate, Alex, who works at a local think tank.

I’ve already been to a wine tasting and taken an unofficial tour of some of the wine shops in the area.  And I HAVE had a bit of wine, notably a 2006 Morgon beaujolais from Jean Descombes (Georges Duboeuf) that was tremendously thirst-quenching after a hot summer afternoon.  I also have a Julienas beaujolais–also from Duboeuf)–that arrived as a housewarming gift waiting in the fridge and a Rosso di Montepulciano from Avignonesi that I will be drinking tonight at a spaghetti dinner in Crystal City.

I wanted to talk about my last night in LA, however: maybe it’s the passage of years, but I am actually more homesick than I thought I would be.  I also miss my parents and family much more now as a 25-year-old than I did as a young naive 18-year-old shipping off to Berkeley.  It might be because I have a greater sense of mortality now given certain events in my life; it might be because my dad’s 65 and not getting any younger.  I find myself drawn back to California because that is where my family–and therefore my heart–is.

This last night we decided to open a bottle of Bordeaux my brother’s girlfriend had bought him when she visited the US.  It was a 2003 Chateau Talbot (from Saint-Julien), a fourth growth which consists chiefly of cabernet sauvignon and merlot, with smaller amounts of petit verdot and cabernet franc.

The issue with this wine was that, since it was relatively (much) more expensive than any of the wines I’ve bought for home, we couldn’t find any suitable occasion to drink it.  And we had it for over a year.  I figured that since we weren’t really capable of storing it properly for much longer we would just have to drink it.  Soon.

I wanted to take it to a restaurant, maybe have the staff decant it to beat up the youngish tannins, and have it with a nice, thick steak.  But alas, I was never in the mood to go out for a fancy meal for my last closing days, so we decided to open it up and drink it solo.

Man.  What a gorgeous wine.  Full and round, like a voluptuous, raven-haired woman.  Cherry and plum in the nose.  Subtle spice and tobacco were what I tasted.  But this wine wasn’t as much about the taste or aroma as it was about texture–just so smooth and yielding, so wonderfully structured.  It went down like a potion made of velvet, and once it got to the stomach it felt warm and soothing like a nice port.

And the finish?  Long, stretching out all the way from that moment, that evening, to the pages of memory.

Jonathan L., my erstwhile LegalZoom co-worker, poet, historian, and future Columbia grad student, was in the neighborhood. We’re both fond of wine, so we decided to have a bit to drink together before we again went our separate ways.

Where else than Lou?

Now keep in mind that we’re both going to be grad students in the near future; not only that, we’re both going to be living in rather expensive metropolitan areas. Personally, I had enough money that day for wine tasting or dinner but not both. Oh well. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

We met up at Lou at around 7 pm. The place was dead. There were, including us, seven patrons at that time. No matter. We had a job to do.

He had the 1989 Domaine Brunet chenin blanc I wrote about in a previous post. Then he moved on to the 2006 Coturri “Albarello”, which was a field blend of a number of different old vines. I had a nice, light verdejo from the Rueda region of Spain: the 2006 Garcia-Arevalo “Tres Olmo”. Then, I sampled the 2005 Giusti Lacrima di Morro and finished off with the 2004 Puiatti cabernet franc.

As for food, we got Lou’s “fish plate”, which consisted of smoked baccala, albacore confit, smoked trout, and house-cured wild salmon gravlax. It was tasty and a pretty good foil for the wines (the fish wasn’t too fishy… it was savory, salty, and good).

Jon’s Albarello was good (ha, simple enough, right?). He insisted that the taste of the wine changed in his mouth to reflect potentially the 11 different grapes in the blend. Some post-quaffing online research on the Coturri Winery website yielded the definition of both “Albarello” and “field blend”:

Albarello is Italian for low or head pruned vines. This wine is made from a “field blend” vineyard in the southeast corner of Sonoma Valley. A field blend is a vineyard that has a number of different varietals planted at random. The idea being the wine was blended in the vineyard rather than in the winery.

What an interesting concept! The Albarello field blend consisted of nine grapes, six reds and three whites. I didn’t get too good a taste of the wine, but from what I did taste it did seem like a pleasant, well-integrated wine.

My verdejo was crisp, dry, and refreshing. It wasn’t terrible complex, but then again, verdejos aren’t supposed to be terribly complex. Nonetheless, the Tres Olmo was delicious, well-built, with bracing acidity and clean minerality. Notes of citrus. Good.

The cabernet franc was served chilled, just like beaujolais. It was very light-bodied, with a low tannin-to-high acidity ration. The nose yielded cherry, and the taste yielded berries. This cabernet franc may just give beaujolais a run for its money in my book!

I wanted to focus a bit on the Lacrima di Morro. I mean, how cool is that name? Tears of Morro (Morro being the commune of Morro d’Alba in the Italian province of Ancona, which is on the Adriatic coast).

Lacrima di Morro is a wine whose grape (Lacrima di Morro d’Alba) is of an ancient and confusing origin–so ancient and so confusing, in fact, that its precise genealogy may never be determined.

This wine blew me away because it was like no other wine I’ve ever tasted. Sure, there are other wines whose nose may approximate flowers, but the Lacrima di Morro actually SMELLS like violets. It’s unmistakable. It’s incredible. And when you take a sip, those violets morph on your tongue into petals of rose. The aftertaste is evocative of rosewater–Turkish Delights, anyone? Light body, low-to-medium tannins, and medium acidity make for a playful, idiosyncratic wine.

I was about to write it’s a nice wine for a date, but on second thought it’s not. Despite all the flowers and mention of Turkish Delight the Lacrima di Morro does not strike me as a sweet wine, though it is not dry. There is a bit of funk below the waving blossoms, as if the winemakers had deliberately left some dirt and leaves on the petals when stuffing them into the bottle. =)

Now, what did Jon and I do about dinner? After tax/tip, we paid about $27-$30 each (keep in mind the glasses were not full glasses but two-three ounce tastes). I had like ten bucks in my pocket at that point.

We went to Flaming Patty’s, a hole-in-the-wall burger joint right next door, where he got a banana shake and a grilled cheese sandwich and I got a Coke and chili cheese fries. My bill? $7.00, after tax/tip. Not exactly as high-quality as 20-year-old chenin blanc and house-cured wild salmon gravlax, but hey, grad students are grad students, right? Thank God I wasn’t on a date.

Luckily, no one coming out of Lou spotted us sitting in our booth at Flaming Patty’s!

I really like the blue and white tile. (Thanks to the Times for the picture!)

At any rate, Intelligentsia’s space was designed by a woman named Barbara Bestor. I found that she had also designed the interior of a quirky wine bar / restaurant called Lou, which happens to be in a seedy strip mall–sandwiched between a Thai massage parlor and a 24-hour laundromat–off of Melrose and Vine in Hollywood.

I did some more reading on Lou and liked what I read: a fair-sized and eclectic wine selection? Check. Hip interior? Check. Good food? Check. All I needed was to actually go.

A friend and I went earlier today and, man, the outside was as seedy as I had read online. The marquee sign in front of the strip mall has the names of each establishment therein, and for the restaurant the sign was all of three letters: LOU. We thought the place was closed on account a full-length floral curtain that covered the entire front side of the restaurant; luckily, it was far from closed.

(Thanks to Lou for the pictures!)

We sat at the communal table in the middle. The only negative is that it’s a bit cramped, though this turned out to have its charms as it’s easy to strike up simple conversation–as I did–with some neighbors. Found out that the roasted fresh figs with Tilston blue cheese, almonds, and grapes were a good bet, as was the salad of farro, heirloom tomato, Dante sheep cheese, Bermuda onion, and pistou. To be safe, we also ordered a bowl of sweet corn and avocado soup.

I think the best part about Lou is the wine. They had two beer selections and twenty-nine wines to choose from. Each of the wines were available by the two-ounce taste, glass, or bottle. The bottle prices were pretty darn reasonable, with the most expensive bottle going for $64 and the majority falling within $40 – $50. Tastes were average $6 and were surprisingly generous.

The menu had different categories of wine: for instance, it started with “Sparkly” and went on to “Fresh, light-bodied whites” and a few others, then ended with “Fuller-bodied, meaty, and earthy reds”, “Sweet muscats”, and “Other sweeties”. The varietal or appellation was listed first for each wine, then the prices, the country or state, winemaker and vintage, then brief a description.

And, for you health- or environment-conscious out there, Lou lists identifies “organic” and “biodynamic” wines on their menu!

We started off with tastes of the 2006 Beausejour cabernet franc rosé and the 1989 Domaine Brunet chenin blanc. I like the setup of the menu in that it lists a few descriptive words on each wine. For instance, the Beausejour was described as tasting like “white peaches”, whereas the chenin blanc was advertised as a “fabulicious aged chenin, mellow-sweet but not sticky, perfectly balanced.” The rosé was decent enough–I’ve had better–but the chenin blanc, a demi-sec from the Vouvray appellation of France, was truly “fabulicious.”

I brought the glass to my nose and took a whiff: I could smell the oxidation–heck, it was almost 20 years old! It was off-dry, for sure, with hints of honey and toasted almond, and a viscous mouthfeel. It almost had a port quality to it. It truly was mellow, though with a plasticine pucker that skirted dangerously to unpleasantness. It avoided this pitfall with really nice green apple acidity that basically saved this wine from itself. The acid was not overbearing at all; there was fine balance, as advertised, between the acid and the sweetness, the texture and the body. Tremendous, and well worth the $7 taste and even $56 per bottle price. It complemented the figs, grapes, and almonds, which were cooked slightly in what I felt was a port or balsalmic reduction.

For our second round of tastes, she had a Beaujolais (made from the gamay grape) cru, the 2006 Piron Chenas to be specific. This was billed as having hints of “black cherry”. I’m a fan of Beaujolais, so I was all for it. I tried a strange Austrian varietal, the blaufränkisch, a varietal I had been meaning to try ever since Eric Asimov profiled it and its cousin, zweigelt, in the Times. The specific wine I tried was the 2005 Moric blaufränkisch.

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the blaufränkisch. As Mr. Asimov notes, blaufränkisch can make full and delicious wines, but many examples of this varietal are clumsy and poorly executed. I felt this to be the case with the Moric. There was a fair amount of acidity and a bit of a tannic bite, which could have been balanced with some good body–but the body never developed. It felt a bit flabby and overly acidic at the same time, which is not a combination one should ever see in a wine.

But I was quite happy with the results of the wine “tasting”. I got to try a 20-year-old chenin blanc–one of my favorite white varietals–and blaufränkisch, a strange wine I had been meaning to try now for a while. I also got acquainted with a nice rosé from a varietal–cabernet franc–I had never before experienced as a rosé, and got reacquainted with a lovely, light Beaujolais.

Lou: a hidden gem. Wonderful service, wonderful atmosphere, and a serious, serious wine list that has something for everyone. A must-try for any budding oenophile!

There. I’ve said it. Maybe it’s because I’m a “neo-oenophile”, but almost every red wine smells like cherry. Almost every wine is evocative of cherry. I suppose this is somewhat understandable, given that wine = fruit = cherry (I got a B- in second-semester calculus, so you can be sure the transitive property applies here!). However, oft is the time I’ve opened a new bottle, poured a bit of its content into the waiting glass, swirled the liquid around and around, and raised the globe to my nose to smell one and but one thing: cherry.

One recent wine stands out as an exception to this rule. The Pleiades from Sean Thackrey, one of the wines I had at the Saturday tasting, smelled overwhelmingly of menthol–as in eucalyptus–and anise–as in biscotti. Cherry, it was not. Delicious and unique, it was. More about that particular wine in the promised post!

Speaking of unique wines, or, more properly, wine regions, there’s an obscure little appellation in Southwestern France–just by the Spanish border–called Irouléguy. This runs into the Basque area of Spain, and many people here speak Basque in addition to French and Spanish. The majority of red wines produced in this area is made of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and, most importantly, tannat.

Wine from Irouléguy is supposed to be rustic, deep, and brooding. I previously had an Irouléguy from Domaine Etxegaraya a few years back and remembered that I liked it a lot. Thus, when I saw an Irouléguy–this one from Domaine Ilarria–at Mission Wines at the last tasting, I picked it up for home:

Its composition: 70% tannat, 20% cabernet franc, 10% cabernet sauvignon. Tannat, with its firm, tannic grip and dark, purple color, predominates in this wine.

I opened it yesterday right before a Korean meal of rice, kimchi, pollack roe, spinach cakes, fish–pretty much a wine pairing nightmare. I knew I only had a few minutes to enjoy the wine unsullied by the sledgehammer tastes of red pepper, shrimp paste, vinegar, roe… I opened the bottle of Ilarria, poured some into a glass, gave it a long, hard swirl, and brought the globe to my nose.

Again, cherry. Damn it. But more, too. Was that… oregano? Blackberry, maybe. I was really grasping at straws here.

The taste: straw! Earth. I tasted the sweet, bitter, slimy taste of persimmon. Some herbs. The tannins made themselves known, though they weren’t at all unwelcome. Musky, meaty–the wine definitely reminded me of the Japanese concept of umami (read this interesting article on umami here that I had linked to a few posts back)… salty, sweet, savory. Mostly savory. Something meat-like. Gamy, even.

[ UPDATE from 2/29: Late last night I hit upon the EXACT taste the wine reminded me of--umeboshi, or Japanese pickled ume (sort of a cross between a plum and apricot). Specifically, the taste was that of purple perilla, a plant related to mint, which is used to make ume and can be found, in pickled form, along with umeboshi. ]

Then, I started dinner. I don’t care how self-reliant, fierce, and proud the Basques are, but their wine was no match for my native cuisine.

Today, I had leftover “gourmet” pizza from Heirloom for dinner. This pizza had some strong mozzarella, strong tomato, strong sauce, and strong oregano and thyme. Perfect for the wine. I poured myself a liberal glass, had a bite of pizza, washed it down with wine–ah. A wonderful match! The herb profile of the wine was a superb complement to that of the pizza. The pizza brought out a latent acidity I had not previously noticed on the first tasting. Very, very good.

I’ve been wondering about which wine, if any, matches with Korean food. I love off-dry riesling with Thai or some Chinese, but Korean food is not especially known for being sweet. I love dry riesling or a nice bubbly with Japanese–sushi or sashimi–but the thought of champagne with bean paste soup makes me want to throw up. Traditionally, Koreans have had soju or beer with their meals, but could we possibly reconcile wine with kimchi?

The only one pairing I know goes well is zinfandel with kalbi jim (err… braised shortribs). The shortribs are braised in a sweet broth, complete with mushrooms, carrots, potato, and radish. It’s a hearty, filling dish, and one that goes very well with the slight sweetness and acidity of zin.

Any thoughts, my Korean brethren?

Joining me in the 25-and-under group were some fellow “Zoomers”: Jonathan (not Jonathan Lewis from entries past), a film major from USC; Will, the Guatemalan martial artist who can squat-press over 1,000 pounds; Erica, of Coloradan extraction; and her boyfriend, Jack, the New Yorker accountant.

We were in for a treat: a wine broker was present for the tasting showcasing wines from his portfolio. This portends well because importers, winemakers, and brokers are pretty keen to put forth their best; Saturday was no exception. The five wines on the “official” tasting list were:

1 | 2006 Lioco Chardonnay | Sonoma, California | $19.99
I hate to admit it, but my palate’s not very refined. I sipped this chardonnay and thought I detected vanilla and oak. Hell, I was dead certain I detected vanilla and oak. The broker came over and told us some more about the wine, including the little fact that this chard had not been aged in oak. At all. It had not even touched neutral oak. All stainless steel. I did taste a lot of fruit–very tropical–and some nice acid. A bit of butter–not a big butterball like many other California chardonnays I’ve had. Overall, one of the better chardonnays I’ve had, though I would have to say that I still have never encountered a chardonnay I wanted to take home with me.

2 | 2005 Miura Pinot Noir Silacci Vineyard | Monterey, California | approx. $60.00
Leave it to a woman to say it: Erica, upon tasting this pinot, declared, “Ooh, it tastes expensive”, by which she meant this was a very good pinot noir. Black cherry. Smooth, velvety. Like sleeping on satin sheets, except instead of sleeping you are drinking and instead of satin the sheets are waves of intense fruit flavor. Pretty darn good, though it still has not usurped in my mind the supremacy of the Sea Smoke Southing.

3 | Barrel 27 Grenache | Paso Robles, California | $22.50
Grenache is a grape I feel I should like, for some reason. It originated in Spain, where it is called garnacha. It is generally spicy and berry-flavored. It is light–it is low-tannin, somewhat low in acid, and of a thin color. You can probably find a lot of wines made from grenache in the supermarket aisles, either alone or blended. Some of my favorite wines–including the Charles Cimicky Trumps–include grenache. Grenache is also the dominant part of wines from the Southern Rhone in France, including Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

And yet, I had not up to this point really encountered a good, solid wine made solely of grenache. I’ve had Little James’ Basket from Chateau de Saint Cosme, which is a blend of fruit from both new and old vines, but I wasn’t enthralled: I think the lack of heft was a bit off-putting for me. The Barrel 27, however, was substantial, with cherry or cranberry, spice. It started smooth but ended with a mouth-puckering note of tannin. This may be because 2006 marks the first vintage of this wine from Barrel 27. Nonetheless, pretty solid wine and one I would definitely purchase again.

4 | 2004 Tejada Tempranillo / Grenache | Lake County, California | approx. $40.00
I didn’t really like this one, unfortunately. I found it extremely tannic–even more so than the Barrel 27. According to the broker, the vineyard from which the grapes of the wine were picked is relatively young, leading to the high levels of tannin.

5 | 2004 Worthy “Sophia’s Cuvee” | Napa Valley, California | $29.99
The real winner of the “regular” tasting. Smooth, lush, sweet (maybe from oak?), the scent of roses and fruit wafting from the glass. I especially enjoyed the moderate level of tannin in this wine after the last two tastings.

This cuvee is a blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, petit verdot, and merlot. This was probably the regulation consensus favorite among the tasters. A very powerful, yet feminine wine. Memorable. I would probably take this wine to any important romantic dinner.

Now, for the first round of overtime.

6 | 2004 Egelhoff Cabernet Sauvignon | Napa Valley, California | $75.00 +
Being an older guy at a fraternity had its perks. For instance, I hosted people in my room during any of the many parties and get-togethers thrown by the chapter. Of course, there were meek, excited undergraduates who were fresh from Cow Town or Overprotected Suburb U.S.A. and looking for fast times and free booze. At that period in my life I was a big fan of Early Times whiskey, which came in a plastic bottle, yes, but I thought was delicious and gave Jack Daniels a run for his money. (Hindsight has corrected me of that erroneous line of thought, thankfully!) Before parties I would take the plastic bottle of Early Times and pour it into a fancy glass decanter, then serve the five or six underclassmen who were lucky enough to find themselves in my IKEAd-out room. I still remember the look in their eyes as they accepted this precious liquid from a real glass decanter!

Well, same story for me, now. I’m the naive “freshman” and am thrilled to be served wine from a decanter, especially if the wine being served is the Egelhoff cab. This cabernet was brought by the wine broker and was a special “bonus”–another reason to try to go to tastings at which brokers or importers or winemakers are present.

Man. The bouquet was incredible–flowers and black fruit, a veritable cornucopia of aromas. Big, yet refined. I found that the wine started full but lightened in body once in the mouth. Double cherry, dusty, dusky cherry. Wood and spice. A long, long finish. Smooth and well-balanced tannins. The decanting probably helped a lot in this regard.

This was actually my favorite wine out of the six I had tried thus far–however, “Sophia’s Cuvee” would still probably be my choice as it’s a delicious, accessible, and sexy wine–and heck, it’s less than half the price of the Egelhoff.

I was thoroughly impressed and thankful to have been exposed to some very good wines. But, much to my delight, I wasn’t done. Our party had two more bonus tastings courtesy of Mission Wines, one more bonus from one of the regulars, and two bottles we bought to continue the buzz. We had 11 wines on Saturday, and in the interest of some semblance of brevity I will review the second five at a later time.

It’s a bit sobering to chip in five or ten bucks each for a $20 or $30 bottle of wine–nothing to shake a stick at–and watch as silver-haired gentlemen wearing well-worn L.L. Bean vests and Eddie Bauer sweaters carry out cases (CASES!) of $50 wine to their idling sports cars.

That’s why I love going to wine tastings. For $10 I can try five different wines. Nothing’s worse than spending good money on a vaunted bottle of wine and finding that it’s terrible. (I guess the same goes for first dates, eh?)

The five wines at the tasting today were:

• Juve y Camps Brut Rosé | Sparkling Pinot Noir (Sant Sadurini D’Anoia, Spain)
• Breggo Ferrington Vineyard | Sauvignon Blanc (Anderson Valley, California)
• Luzon | Monastrel/Syrah (Jumilla, Spain)
• Chateau Puygueraud Cotes de Francs | Merlot/Cabernet Franc/Malbec (Bordeaux, France)
• Graves | Syrah (Paso Robles, California)

The Juve y Camps cava was wonderful. It had a cherry bouquet and a taste that reminded me of cherry soda–minus the sweetness. There was a lively bit of acidity with a dry fruit finish. I wrote a previous post about rosé sparkling wine in which I talked about the merits of the Korbel Brut Rosé–I would far recommend the Juve y Camps version.

The sauvignon blanc was good. I’ve stated often that I’m not the biggest fan of white wines but I’ve lately been exposed to some very decent ones. This sauvignon blanc, according to the pourers, was more like a sancerre (think austere, smooth) than a California wine (think big, oaky, sometimes a bit rough). The Breggo was very smooth, had a light body, and good minerality. The only fruit I could detect was a hint of melon. There was only a little bit of oak, suggesting aging in neutral oak barrels. Unfortunately, its relative merits would not warrant my shelling out $24.99 for it.

The Luzon was a strange wine. My three companions agreed. Strange nose whose components I couldn’t really make out. My first sip elicited an “ugh” from me–the wine hit my mouth awkwardly. It was like a Stravinsky composition or something. As for the taste–I could only make out prune. Not such a good wine… maybe the monastrell (mourvedre in French) was too young… young monastrell tends to be gamey.

The Chateau Puygueraud was decent (especially after the Luzon!), very well-balanced, a well-crafted wine.  The best thing about this one was that it had a very, very long finish–one or two minutes.

The Graves syrah was the crowd favorite in the red category.  Lighter body than most of the other syrahs I’ve had, though full of the characteristic chocolate and plum.  This wine was utterly smooth and easy to drink.  Pretty good wine, though at $36.99 a bottle I think I’ll stick with the Cimicky Trumps or the Shotfire Ridge shiraz.

We ended up splitting a bottle of the Juve y Camps after the tasting, then getting a taco each at La Fiesta Grande across the street.  Eddie, Jonathan, and I then went to Fair Oaks Cigars and watched part of the Patriots – Giants game while puffing away on stogies.

Hedonistic fools as we are, Jonathan and I then went to Lucky Boy and split a coke and a large order of chili cheese fries.  Good end to a good night.