There are great examples of California Pinot Noir–for instance, the illustrious Sea Smoke and the much more affordable Belle Glos “Meiomi”–but I have found that too many are high-alcohol, big-bodied wines that hurt my palate.  I mean, of all wines Pinot freakin’ Noir is supposed to be easy to drink, right?

Enter, stage north, Oregonian Pinot Noir to steal the show and save the day.

As a general rule, Oregon winemakers subscribe to Old World virtues such as restraint and elegance.  Their Pinot Gris is more Alsatian in character than Italian, and their Pinot Noir is positively Burgundian.

Part of this has to do with Oregon’s cooler, wetter climate, which lends itself to the more classical French style of winemaking.  But much of this also has to do with the winemakers’ philosophies on what wine should be.

I had the chance to taste some of this philosophy in action at a tasting of Stangeland Vineyards & Winery, held at Planet Wine.  Also at the tasting was Larry Miller, the president and winemaker at Stangeland.

Stangeland is a pioneer of Oregon wine, having planted a vineyard at the current Eola-Amity Hills AVA in 1978.  Eola-Amity Hills, which is contained entirely within the larger Willamette Valley AVA, is a very new AVA, having been designated in 2006.  Stangeland focuses on Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris.  I tried a number of the winery’s Pinot Noirs, in addition to one of their Chards and a Pinot Gris.

• 2008 Chardonnay | very racy, clean, with bright lemon notes.  I loved this wine because it had only a trace of oak (from large, neutral oak barrels) and was simply refreshing.  A steal at around $18.
• 2009 Pinot Gris | this was the hands-down favorite white among the ten or so female tasters that evening.  Fruity-sweet, with good acid and medium body, this Pinot Gris gives American Pinot Gris a good name.
• 2009 Oregon Pinot Noir | the winery’s basic Pinot, this is a solid wine on par with a good Bourgogne.  Floral aromatics, red fruit.  A bit of bitterness, however, that I couldn’t place.
• 2008 Miller’s Vineyard Pinot Noir | a single-vineyard Pinot, this was light, with savory notes and red cherries.  This was one of my favorites of the evening, and it showed even better at a dinner to which I brought a bottle.
• 2009 Vermeer Vineyard Pinot Noir | named after the artist, this vineyard yielded the grapes that made this wonderful wine.  A sauvage wine–with earthy, gamy notes and darker red fruit.  This was my favorite wine of the evening.
• 2008 Eola-Amity Hills Pinot Noir | oakier and bigger than the other Pinots, with a good tannic grip.

All of the wines were restrained and balanced and would not be out of place in a Paris bistro.  If you want to “buy American” you would be well-advised to seek out Stangeland’s offerings.

But the wines weren’t the only highlight of the evening.  I managed to talk to Larry about his wines, about the land, pruning techniques, global warming, soil composition, and how he came to winemaking.  It seems his parents, both schoolteachers, had purchased the land back in the ’60s.  Interestingly enough, his mother doesn’t drink, though she did enjoy a glass of her son’s wines from time to time.  If they tasted then as they did at Planet Wines, I can see why.

For instance, I spent four and a half years in Berkeley, and it wasn’t until my last year that I truly started to enjoy it.  Suddenly, its wonders started presenting themselves to me like a blossom of gastronomic joy.  Where the hell was Gregoire all my life?  Why didn’t I go to Kermit Lynch before?

I am also a native of the Los Angeles region–Alhambra and South Pasadena, to be exact–but I can’t say I truly loved LA until I left for law school here in DC.  Now I love LA; every moment I spend there on break is a little blessing.

You might have heard me railing on DC.  I’ve always had the feeling that it’s trying to be like many different cities but failing.  I hate the crazy humidity of the summer, and I don’t like the absolute lack of tall buildings.  I hate how the Metro closes early–or at all–and how the bars close early.  I also don’t consider myself a very political person, which considering the town is not such a good thing.

However, DC has begun to grow on me.  There are little pockets of DC, a coffee shop here or a restaurant there, an alleyway here or a circle there, that I love.  Of course, one can choose to explain this cynically by pointing out that every city has its charms.  Still, I think I’ll be missing Amsterdam Falafelshop a lot once I leave DC.

There are other places, too.  Last Saturday Ansonia Wines was having a special open house where they were pouring old favorites and new selections they had picked up on their recent trip to Southern France.

Ansonia Wines is a boutique wine shop that specializes in French wines, putting a particular emphasis on Burgundy though they do have a good Southern Rhone selection, as well as a few offerings from Bordeaux, Alsace, and Italy.  It’s a family-run affair, with the father Mark (a Philadelphia lawyer for over twenty years) having run a successful wine importing business for years and years, providing wines to such high-end DC restaurants as Komi, CityZen, and Citronelle, and the son Tom (recently graduated from college) opening up the retail location just this past December.

They import wines from small but renowned producers like Michel Gros and Roger Belland, who produce red and white Burgundies that will take your breath away.  Two of their wines were recently reviewed quite favorably by The Washington Post, and I personally have had the opportunity to try many of their wines because I am now their manager-on-retainer (this being a one-person retail store, I fill in whenever Tom needs to take time off).  But I was looking forward to the open house because they were pouring some new wines from their buying trip.

My law school friend Giri–a oenophile who besides working as an engineer in Detroit’s automobile industry worked in wine retail for man years–and I met up at Ansonia where, among teeming throngs of people, we were served a new Cremant d’Alsace made from Chardonnay.  Delicious, rich, and full–a Champagne masquerading as a Cremant.  We were then served a number of other wines, such as the excellent 2004 Chateau Destieux, a Grand-Cru Bordeaux that offered seducing notes of plum, cedar, and graphite, a simple but refreshing Chardonnay from Domaine Albert Sounit, and the 2007 Domaine les Goubert Sablet, a pure, mid-bodied red that went down smooth.

However, the big standouts from the open house were two Gigondas from the same domaine.  Honestly, I love Domaine les Goubert–their L’Inedit (the “unedited” or “original”), described by the winemaker as a “man’s wine,” really is, with assertive dark fruits, flannel, strong yet balanced tannins, and warm spreading finish–and its offerings.  Goubert has two different styles of Gigondas, one made traditionally with no oak (no oak!) and the other, its “Cuvee Florence” (named after the winemaker’s daughter), seeing upwards of 24 months in 50% new French oak.

Ansonia offers a number of different vintages in both.  I had picked up the ’89 Gigondas ($42) to try on a special occasion but managed to get a little taste of it.  Intriguing, with a funky umami.  They were also serving the ’94 Cuvee Florence ($69), which had the same qualities but seemed brighter.  By this point Giri and I were joined by my friend Waiching and her friend Mark, not to mention the dozens of people who cycled in and out of the store.

Sufficiently soused up, we purchased quite a few bottles: a 2007 Domaine Annie Claire Forest Pouilly-Fuisse (one of my “Wines of the Week”), two bottles of a new Cotes-du-Rhone Village from Domaine Coulange, two bottles of Cremant, and–gasp!–a bottle of the ’94 Cuvee Florence.

We had already had a big evening, but the evening was about to get better.  The four of us stumbled back to my place, where my roommate Alex was recovering from a half-marathon he had run that morning.  I whipped together a relatively quick meal of mushroom cream chicken, cooked in my new enameled ceramic covered casserole, roasted brussels sprouts, and rice.  During the hour cooking and prep time, as well as during the meal and after, we had wine and more wine.

We downed the Pouilly-Fuisse–pretty as ever.  The Domaine Coulange Cotes-du-Rhone Village (around $15) was juicy, fruity, and gave the impression of sweetness.  Altogether a solid wine, especially for those who don’t like their wines too brooding.  But I was waiting impatiently for the Gigondas.  Both Gigondas.  Hell, if I wasn’t going to drink the ’89 now, I would never drink it.

So that was opened and poured into our glasses.  Swirl, swirl, and sniff.  Dark stewed prune on the nose.  Swirl, swirl, sip.  Prune, umami, baking spices, Japanese red bean jelly.  The color was almost brick-red.  I’ve seen older wines described as faded and brown around the edges, but I had never seen it before.  The ’89 definitely fit this description.  Altogether a pleasant wine but one that should be drunk now–I think it has reached its peak.

The ’94 was awaiting us.  Pour, swirl, swirl, sniff.  More of the same as the ’89.  Swirl, swirl, sip.  It had the same general qualities of the unoaked ’89, but this was simply brighter, juicier, and more vibrant.  There was a strong backbone as well from the oak.  There was a good undercurrent of acidity to it that kept things lively.  Very, very, very good and worth every penny.

I couldn’t tell whether I liked the ’94 better because it was younger, oaked, or just qualitatively different than the ’89.  I would like to try Goubert’s Gigondas from the same vintage to make sure.  However, I will stake a claim at this time and say that I would prefer the Cuvee Florence style versus the more traditional style.  Of course, this might change upon further examination.

The rest of the evening?  More wine, followed by glasses of German brandy and hand-rolled cigarettes on the roof courtesy of Mark.  I might not like DC as much as Berkeley or LA, but after a night like that it’s certainly growing on me.

I think a lot of people, when they think about Burgundy, see in their mind’s eye big jug wines labeled “Burgundy.”  (An aside: I was looking up Carlo Rossi’s Burgundy to see what grapes go in it but was unsuccessful.  I have no clue what goes in their Burgundy, and apparently no one on the Internet cares enough to do the research!)  This is horrible, and my hat goes off to those wine drinkers who appreciate well-crafted, artisanal pinot noir-based Burgundies from Burgundy, France.

But that’s not all this wondrous region has to offer.  I would argue that some of the world’s greatest white wines–and definitely the world’s greatest chardonnays–come from Burgundy.  Those white Burgundies I’ve tried have all been vastly superior–to my palate, at least–to those super-oaky butterballs that California seems to churn out with a vengeance.

To each his own, though, right?  This might be the case, but in my age demographic (20-30, generally) white Burgundies get ignored.  This can be chalked (heh) up to four broad reasons:

1. When people think of Burgundy, they think of horrible jug wines.
2. When people don’t think of Burgundy in terms of jug wines, they think that all Burgundies are red.
3. Many people are turned off by the “butterball” super-oaky style of chardonnay championed by Californian winemakers.
4. White Burgundies can be friggin’ expensive.

I’ve already addressed numbers one and two.  As regards number three, white Burgundies are as a general rule much less oaky than California wines.  However, they do exist on a stylistic scale ranging from lean and mean to round and supple, which makes Burgundy a veritable playground of chardonnay.

For instance, the Chablis appellation–the most northerly part of Burgundy and which is devoted entirely to chardonnay–is renowned for steely, minerally wines.  They are often described as having a “gunflint” characteristic which can be attributed to the limestone soil of the area.  As such, they are great with shellfish, particularly oysters, I’ve found, but also delicious on their own.  Many lower-level Chablis producers only age their wines in steel tanks or neutral oak, so these are good deals for those of you who don’t really like oak.  Other producers barrel ferment, but still, you won’t find Vaynerchukian “oak monsters” lurking here.

And so our first chard of the evening–not counting a blanc de blanc Champagne to start things off–was the 2007 Laurent Tribut Chablis ($25-$30), a basic Bourgogne blanc level wine that was tart and minerally.  It had good weight in the mouth, though its striking acidity convinced me that this would be best as a food wine.

The next was my favorite white, the 2007 Les Vins du Moulin Mâcon-Villages.  Just as Chablis is the most northerly part of Burgundy, Mâcon is in the broader region known as the Mâconnais, which is the most southerly portion (not counting Beaujolais, which most people wouldn’t consider part of Burgundy anyway).  It is primarily a white region, producing mostly basic Bourgogne blanc. For only a bit more money you could and should buy a wine with the much better Mâcon-Villages designation.  Les Vin du Moulin is Mâcon-Villages and is produced independently by Jean Pierre and Michel Auvigue (and not through a cooperative, through which model over 75% of Mâcon wine is made).  It was rounder and more generous than the austere steely Chablis; it had some oak but stayed away from tasting toasty or oaky.  Rather, it was well-integrated and reminiscent of honey.  This was a solid wine and, at $15.99, a great and affordable introduction to white Burgundies (and thus an answer to number four above).

Our last chardonnay was the 2006 Louis Jadot Chassagne-Montrachet ($50) (sha-san-ye mong-ra-she).  Chassagne-Montrachet is the second-most southerly appellation of the Côte de Beaune, which itself is the southern half of the famed Côte d’Or (“Slopes of Gold”), considered the heart and soul of Burgundy.  The northern portion of the Côte d’Or, the Côte de Nuits, is almost exclusively devoted to red wines; the Côte de Beaune produces both red and white though whites dominate.

I was excited about the Chassagne-Montrachet.  This appellation has (as of 2001) a whopping fifty-two premier cru vineyards, though with only one grand cru vineyard.  Louis Jadot is a négociant–a sort of wine merchant/producer that buys grapes from growers and vinifies them–with a good deal of cachet.  My excitement was tempered a bit by the fact that this particular bottle was not from a premier cru vineyard but from the more general appellation designation.  Nonetheless, I opened it and let it breathe for a while.

This wine was oily and viscous–good qualities–and redolent of lime.  Bright citrus, with a nice dagger of acidity.  It was fuller and rounder than the Chablis but less generous and oaky than the Mâcon-Villages.  It was sort of an interesting middle ground.  Although well-made, for an introductory white Burgundy I would recommend the Mâcon-Villages over this.  I would definitely like to try a Chassagne-Montrachet, however, from a premier cru vineyard.

Overall, the whole evening was a success.  I think the pinots showed better on average than the chardonnays, but I think the best value of the evening was the Mâcon-Villages.  Look it up and drink it up!

We had a spate of seven wines for the tasting, starting with the decidedly NOT Burgundian Drappier “Carte d’Or” Blanc de Blancs Brut Champagne which I included because, hell, it’s 100% chardonnay, and hell, who doesn’t like Champagne?  We went through three whites–a basic Mâcon-Villages, a Chablis, and a Chassagne-Montrachet–and three reds.

The first red, the 2005 Domaine René Leclerc Bourgogne, was a basic rouge I picked up at MacArthur Beverages for around $25.  However, it was really, really good, with nice acidity, some spice, and a hint of funk.  This is definitely something I’d pick up as a “house Burgundy” if I ever make that much money in the future.

The second was Kate and Rahul’s favorite red, the 2005 Domaine du Clos Salomon Givry Premier Cru (around $30-$35 on sale at MacArthur).  I have to say this was very impressive, just really well integrated with nice body, a bit of berry, a bit of mushroom, and a lot of pepper on the finish.  Though pinot isn’t the first varietal that comes to mind when eating steak, this particular wine would make a good match.  I could imagine lamb as well.  Watercress, escarole, or arugula would make good sides.

MY favorite of the evening, however, was the 2005 Nicolas Rossignol Pommard ($70 at the Wine Specialist).

Pommard was apparently the most popular Burgundian appellation in the US market back in the 60s and 70s.  This popularity may have led to some degree of complacency: as at least one commentator has noted, Pommard now has a reputation for being among the worst values in the Cote d’Or.

Nonetheless, there are always exceptions, and this offering from Rossignol was one of them.  I had tried his 2005 basic Bourgogne rouge a few months ago and was not impressed–it seemed thin and lacked focus–so I didn’t have any expectations for the Pommard.  I popped it open about an hour before the tasting and poured it into a decanter to open up… I took a sniff once it was in the decanter, and man… already it smelled wonderful.

So, the moment of truth.  It was the last wine of the tasting.  I poured a bit in everyone’s glass, we swirled and sniffed.  Gorgeous, gorgeous nose reminiscent of lavender, purple fruits, slight trace of earthiness.  Into the mouth.  OMG.  A stunning, shimmering mouthfeel, like velvet or silk.  Absolutely seamless integration.  Very fruit-forward, a basket of berries picked in the shade of flowering bushes.  Lingering hint of violets on the finish, like the footsteps of some forest-fairy.  Magical–one of those precious few wines that elicit a slow spreading smile upon tasting.

I would highly recommend the Rossignol Pommard to any Burgundy lover.  It would be a great wine with which to impress anyone.  I wouldn’t pair this one with food because it is so delicate, so utterly perfumed and graceful that drinking it with food would coarsen the experience.  If I HAD to pair it, however, I would do so with mousse pâtés, duck stewed with cherries, or with fruit/dark chocolate-based desserts.

Clark Z. Terry of KLWM wrote in the aforementioned post: “Burgundy fanatics often talk about their ‘Burgundy moment’: The bottle that flipped a switch in their brain and set them on a destructive path to buy all the Burgundy they can in search of more wine that will replicate that vinous epiphany.”  This wine is fully capable of inspiring any number of Burgundy moments.

Thus I wanted to get a decent bottle of wine with which to celebrate.

But what to get?  As my last post indicates, I’ve been on a big Burgundy bender recently.  I really enjoyed a very, very nice Meursault and also enjoyed a much less expensive bottle of Rully, so I went to The Wine Specialist and picked up a bottle from the same producer as the Rully.

I poured the 2005 Pierre Andre Saint-Aubin “Les Anges” Premier Cru chardonnay ($38.99) into the new Riedel glasses (I figured from the description of the wine that it would be less minerally and more richer and rounder like a Montrachet, which Riedel recommends being poured into a big-bowled glass similar to a Burgundy glass), swirled it around, admired its saturated straw color, and stuck my nose in the glass.  There was an almost tropical mango or peach nose, very appealing.

The first few sips were a bit closed, with more of a pronounced minerality than I was expecting.  It was also very tart.  There was just the faintest touch of oak, thank God.  I figured that the wine would open up and relax as it warmed, and I was right.  After about 30 minutes the wine was rounder and more “toasty.”  Alex noticed dried apricots.  However, there was still not a very substantial finish–the wine started beautifully but seemed to drop off pretty significantly.

We couldn’t finish the bottle that night so we resumed the next evening.  Initially, the wine was tart and a bit thin.  I was afraid this was because the bottle had been open for a while, but I hoped that it was merely because the wine was too cold.  The latter, thankfully, was true.  With warmth more of the rounder profile emerged, with a bit of minerality and citrus, almost evocative at first of a sauvignon blanc.  The finish was longer, in the mouth there was a persistence of chestnut or baked yam (yay for my Korean palate!).  I actually enjoyed the wine more the second day than the first.

Overall, the wine was pretty solid.  One could tell it was well-made, and it was complex and pleasing.  However, I still did not enjoy it as much as I did the Meursault, and I would actually recommend the Rully ($21.99) from Pierre Andre as a better value.

And now I might very well be older than they were at the time.

(My torts professor summed it up quite nicely when he quipped, “It’s a strange feeling when both the president-elect AND the chief justice are younger than you are.”)

Now that I’m a quarter century old, I feel as if I should be an adult.  I certainly feel adult-like at certain moments–for instance, when I cook dinner, or when I go to the Ritz-Carlton for drinks (that one time!)–but sometimes feel as if I’m a child playing grownup. I think many of my peers feel the same way.

All that aside, it IS nice to get together and do grownup stuff–like hold wine tastings.  My roommate and I decided to throw a wine tasting; I decided also to throw a wine tasting before that wine tasting to get the feel of things.

I’ll spare you (and myself) the details of the parties.  The first coincided with the arrival of Margie’s friend Ruth from Michigan and Alisa’s friend Kami from Arizona.  The second coincided with Margie’s birthday.  All in all, fortuitous timing.

This was the first wine tasting event I hosted, so I was anxious to do it right.  To that extent, I went to the Wine Specialist and talked to J.C. (their Spanish wine buyer) for over an hour, picking out wines.  The combined wines over both tastings were:

• 2007 | Visión “Cono Sur” | Sauvignon Blanc | Casablanca Valley, Chile
• 2007 | Verget du Sud | Chardonnay | Vin de Pays du Vaucluse, France
• 2007 | Mulderbosch | Chenin Blanc | Stellenbosch, South Africa
• 2006 | André Lorentz | Riesling | Alsace, France
• 2007 | Jean Descombes | cru Beaujolais | Morgon, Beaujolais, France
• 2007 | Maipe “Rosé of Malbec” | Malbec | Mendoza, Argentina
• 2006 | Domiciano de Barrancas “Cosecha Nocturna” | Malbec | Mendoza, Argentina
• 2007 | Oracle of the Stars | Pinotage | Western Cape, South Africa
• 2007 | Thorn-Clarke “Shotfire” | Shiraz | Barossa Valley, Australia
• 2007 | Cueva de las Manos “Bonarda Old Vine Reserve” | Bonarda | Mendoza, Argentina

I bought a few repeats, as well.

There was also a Chilean cabernet sauvignon that I wasn’t intending to serve (and so didn’t write down) but ended up serving after the first tasting; we also went through a few other bottles from my own “collection” and from others.

The theme for both tastings was “1.5 Generation Wines: Between the Old and New Worlds.”  Many of the varietals–sauvignon blanc, syrah/shiraz, and malbec, especially–have had great success after being transplanted to different parts of the world.

The first tasting was a bit more improvised–I didn’t have any food to go along with the tasting, but we more than made up for that by drinking a lot of wine.  The second tasting was more planned–Alex and I made appetizers such as pork sausage fried with apples and cider, lox with chevre and green garlic on melba toast, roasted Hungarian peppers with Greek goat cheese on sliced baguette, hummus, dark chocolate drops with raspberry, etc.  Daphne brought some spicy tuna rolls and vegetable rolls, as well.  Delicious.

I won’t comment on all the wines, but only the notable ones.

The Visión “Cono Sur” is an excellent sauvignon blanc–midway between the Old World (minerals, concentrated) and the New World (lush, grassy) styles, this was a real crowd pleaser.  The Maipe “Rosé of Malbec” was an intense blood red, almost as dark as the Beaujolais or a pinot noir.  It had a bit of a rubber boot nose, but this gave way to some nice berry fruit that ended on dried notes of raisin.  The Oracle of the Stars pinotage was a favorite–smoky, nice acid–and a steal at $7.99.  It’s definitely a wine I’d keep around for dinner or easy drinking.

Jordan and Margie donated a bottle of 2005 Bodegas Arrocal tempranillo from the Ribera del Duero region of Spain.  We poured it in a decanter and swished it around.  I happen to love tempranillo from Ribera del Duero (Tinto Pesquera, anyone?)–they’re intense and dark, with earth and tobacco.  “This is going to be evocative of a dry, dusty riverbed,” I announced drunkenly as I poured out tastes from the decanter.  Yup.  It WAS like a dry, dusty riverbed.

Overall, I really enjoyed the process of hosting a wine tasting, and people seemed to like it.  Then again, who wouldn’t like to pretend they’re adults and get drunk off of good wine?

I work on the sales team for the business department; there are other departments with their own sales teams. The estate planning sales team recently moved into the ground floor suite with my team. To “facilitate” this move, the LegalZoom administration funded a wine and cheese mixer in one of our conference rooms for Wednesday.

Needless to say, I was very keen on who, exactly, would be choosing the wine. I was delighted to hear that Heather from HR was the one assigned to purchase the food and wine. Heather knows her wine: in the days leading up to the event I e-mailed her repeatedly about her wine preferences and what she thought she would purchase. Tempranillo? Some sort of Rhone-style blend? As for whites, she settled on an unoaked or at least neutral-oak chardonnay.

Fast forward to Wednesday. I was in a foul mood from work and ready to just pack my bags and go home. And yet, deep down inside, I felt a pull (probably from my liver) towards the conference room. At 6:20 pm I decided to just get a quick glass (or cup, rather) of wine and get back to sending out a few more e-mails.

As is often the case when alcohol is involved, I never did get back to my work that night.

There was a huge cheese, cracker, and fruit spread and a sliced vegetable spread. Sparkling apple cider (which later was delicious mixed with jug wine, but I’m getting ahead of myself here), water, and wine wine wine! I’m not the biggest fan of chardonnay so I didn’t catch the name of the example on hand, but there were bottles of rosé and red.

I started out with rosé because I love rosé and hell, it’s spring. We had bottles of the Marqués de Cáceres rosé, which is made from 80% tempranillo and 20% garnacha–er, grenache, depending on where you’re coming from.

I’ve seen this wine often at Trader Joe’s and other stores but had stayed away because I wanted to avoid that terrible cheap plastic taste endemic to inexpensive rosés and whites. I should have known better. This rosé was wonderful! Upon the tasting I was hit by its bracing acidity, which was balanced by a relatively full–for a rosé–body and unctuous mouthfeel. (Unctuous is such a nasty-sounding word, isn’t it? But sometimes, you gotta make do with the best word for the job.)

It was clean, fresh, refreshing. Very fruity–berry, as in strawberry, red berries–and dry. I was very happy with this wine and ended up drinking maybe four plastic tumblers of the rosé. At around $7.99 a bottle, this is PERFECT for spring and summer. I’m thinking picnics, with roast chicken and French bread. It was a good match for the mild, soft cheeses on the spread, too.

I transitioned to the red–another denizen of Trader Joe’s–the 2006 Pont du Rhône from the Côtes-du-Rhône appellation of–you guessed it–France. Côtes-du-Rhône is a huge area of land that technically encompasses the entire Rhône valley but usually refers to the Southern Rhône. (I’m going to stop putting the accent or circumflex over the o–it’s taking forever to put that thing into my text!)

According to Mr. Mark Oldman, “Given [the] variation in geography, and the wine’s blend of different grapes, it’s difficult to pin down an exact profile for Côtes-du-Rhône [JOON'S NOTE: gotta be true to the text here despite what I said in the previous paragraph!]. It will often be medium-bodied red with varying degrees of blackberries or raspberries, smoke, pepper, and other spices.”

The Pont du Rhone was a great example, then, of this style. I couldn’t find its exact composition, but it seemed to be primarily grenache, which meant it had berry and pepper and a lighter body. The nose had a bit of herb, a bit of cherry. It was surprisingly smooth, very gentle, and also a great match for the cheeses at the event. I could imagine having this wine with some good steak frites, maybe even with a goat cheese pizza.

The best part of this wine was its price: $4.99! It is a huge steal and a good everyday wine.

My teammates were there, as were others from the new sales team as well as the customer support team, which also sits in the same room. Heather was there sharing stories about tasting wine with her husband. James, the manager of the estate planning sales team, was relating how he is in a band and how his knack for motivating lazy bandmates is relevant to his day job.

Then the event started winding down. People started leaving, but there was still wine left to be drunk. The evening was about to get even better, though from a wine perspective you might say it was going to get a lot worse.

I shall spare the minute details of the rest of the three hours we were there in that conference room. Suffice it to say that Jonathan Lewis from LegalZoom yore dropped by, that we pooled money to buy packs of cigarettes and wine, and somehow Jonathan P. managed to finagle two jugs of wine and three packs of cigarettes from the big, black cashier at Long’s (for the price of one jug and one pack of smokes). 11:30 pm, with about eight glasses of wine, eight cigarettes, a Big Mac combo, and six Chicken McNuggets in me, I finally called it a night.

At that moment, saying bye to my coworkers, I told myself that maybe LegalZoom wasn’t so bad. If only they institutionalized Wednesday Wine Night–might be good for morale.

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.