Such were the trees on the road on the way to Lexington, North Carolina, whose Barbecue Festival my friend James (of The Eaten Path fame), our friend Nick (of the US Patent and Trademark Office) and I attended this past weekend.

(Thank you to the Lexington BBQ Festival for this poster!)

For those of you who do not know of James by this point, he is one of my good friends from Berkeley who has for the last year called Brooklyn, New York home.  While his more regular contributions to the blogosphere can be seen on The Eaten Path, he also is a huge aficionado of all things barbecued, once spending a few weeks traveling through the Smoky Crescent and eating and observing the best the South had to offer.  It is one of his goals to publish a comprehensive and awesome book on barbecue–a noble goal, indeed.

Thus, when he said there was a barbecue festival in North Carolina I asked if I could go.  I figured I wouldn’t have very many more chances to have a purpose to go to North Carolina, and besides, any reason to get out of DC is reason enough.

James has an excellent post–with pictures!–about our journey, so I won’t try to recreate the wheel.  Suffice it to say that North Carolina BBQ is pork, sometimes cooked over wood, and either sliced or finely chopped, sometimes with the delicious crackling, and served in trays or sandwiches, usually with “red” (BBQ) cole slaw and hush puppies.  The sauce, which arrives sometimes infused in the meat or sometimes on the side, is vinegar-based, unlike the sauce in parts of South Carolina which is predominantly mustard-based.

Some other items of note: we saw a lumberjack contest with three separate events–the chainsaw, the traditional hand-ax, and–get this–the throwing ax!  The throwing ax was crazy.  One of the competitors was an 11-year-old girl.  Seeing her throw that double-bladed ax fifteen or so feet into the center of a banged-up wooden target made me feel sorry for the soldiers of the Union Army.  Another item of note was a series of races involving pigs, Vietnamese potbellied pigs, and billy goats.  Good ole’-fashioned fun if ever I’ve seen it!

(Thanks to James for this picture–note the 11-year-old girl in red and the ax, which you can see at top-center of the picture.)

Keeping with the theme of my blog, however, we did have a few wines, two of which we picked up at the beginning of our journey at a Whole Foods in Virginia:

2008 Borsao Viña Borgia garnacha: I bought a bottle of this for the low price of $6.99 because it has a cool, modern-looking label and is from the man, Jorge Ordoñez, a very well-known and respected importer of Spanish wines.  I’ve had a number of his wines before and they’ve all been great.  This particular one, however, was a wash for me.  It was relatively light and had a LOT of fruit.  I found the tannins to be a bit weak and the acid to be a bit, well, underwhelming.  This wine was unoffensive and still a decent deal for the price.  James and Nick liked it more, calling it “vibrant.”  I think other Ordoñez selections such as the Juan Gil (mourvedre), a powerful and expressive red wine, or the Botani (moscatel seco), a unique and refreshing white, are better examples of his portfolio.

2008 Trapiche malbec: from the Mendoza Valley of Argentina, it clocked in at a price of about $8.00.  James had previously had their pinot noir, which he liked.  This malbec was decent–nothing to write home about, and it didn’t really exude “malbec-ness” to me, but it was drinkable and pretty good with the barbecue from Lexington No. 1 BBQ.  And it was infinitely better than the wine we had opened for that particular meal, a wine that in retrospect showed all the warning signs of a horrible, horrible bottle.

This wine was the 2009 Childress Vineyards Fine Swine Wine, which was 40% syrah blended with cabernet franc and “residual sugar.”  A few things should have alerted me to the possibility that this was going to be bad.  First, the name…?  Granted, it was created specifically for the Lexington Barbecue Festival and for eating with BBQ (this was the second year in a row it was made), but really?  The label boasts a pig stomping grapes in a big wooden vat, which I suppose is another sign.  Also, it’s bottled with “residual sugar,” which isn’t necessarily bad in of itself but is probably going to be bad when the vintage is this year.

(Thanks to The Eaten Path for this great picture!)

James and I each purchased a bottle for $15 from a stand at the festival, where the owner/proprietor of Childress Vineyards, NASCAR driver Richard Childress, was signing bottles.  I was pretty excited–hey, it was a festival!  And hey, I like wine!

Ugh.

I mean, there are probably people who like it.  It did well enough last year that they made it again–500 cases of it–this year.  I’m assuming it probably sold out or is close to sold out.  But it’s just not good wine.  It tastes like jug wine: it’s thin, lacks any semblance of tannin and acid or structure, and is super sweet.  It tastes like Manischewitz, but at least Manischewitz is (1) fuller bodied, so you can fool yourself into thinking it’s almost a dessert wine, and is (2) Kosher.  I would much rather drink Manischewitz, Charles Shaw, or even Franzia.

The winery says it best itself.  Says winemaker Mark Friszolowski: “It’s like sweet tea with a kick.”  A very big, unpleasant kick.

Do not get this wine.  If you should find yourself at the Lexington BBQ Festival, spend the $15 on the delicious North Carolina-style BBQ pork sandwiches, or smoked turkey legs, or deep-fried apple pies, or funnel cakes, or anything else.

That bad wine experience aside, North Carolina was great.  There was so much good food and the trees and countryside were beautiful.  But this is where James and I differ, perhaps.  I like traveling, but at the end of the day, after 1000 miles and countless dirty bathrooms, it is nice to come back and sleep in one’s own bed.  James is still there in North Carolina (Nick and I dropped him off in Raleigh, where he spent a few nights couch surfing) doing more research for his book.  He revels in the journey, in the exploration and the paths–beaten, eaten, and otherwise.

Having lived in DC now since August, I feel like I have a sense of the city.  True, I haven’t really explored too much, but enough to realize a few things.  First, DC is a nice city–to visit.  Second, there are nice restaurants–in the $$$ range.  Third, there are some good cafes–if you’re willing to take the Metro and walk a while.  Fourth, there ARE some good wine shops, though the District of Columbia isn’t exactly the Bay Area.  I am pretty certain that I will be returning to California after law school.

I really do like certain aspects of DC.  I do like the cold weather, for instance, and the snow (although it can be a real pain when you’re trying to walk in slush and frozen ice).  I do like that you can generally get around using public transportation (traffic today in LA brought back some bad memories).  But, after all of this, and despite LA’s problems, LA is still home to me.

The temperature in DC when I left for Dulles was around 20 degrees; when I got to LA the temperature was 59 degrees.  It rained today in LA, a lot in the morning but tapering off in the early afternoon.  It was actually so nice during this respite from the rain that my parents and I decided to stop by the Farmer’s Market on 3rd and Fairfax.  Bob’s Donuts and coffee, a beef shawerma wrap from Moishe’s for me and fish ‘n’ chips and clam chowder for the ‘rents.  Awesome–relaxing and delicious.

Afterwards, I went to Mission Wines to say hello.  And left with six bottles of wine:

• 2007 Francois Chidaine | Touraine, Loire Valley, France | sauvignon blanc | $11.99
• 2007 Pascal Bellier | Cour-Cheverny, France | romorantin | $14.99
• 2007 Borsao “Tres Picos” | Campo de Borja, Spain | garnacha | $14.99 ($16.99 – $18.99 regular)
• 2007 Domaine les Grands Bois “Cuvee Maximilien | Cairanne, Cotes du Rhone villages, France | blend | $19.99
• 2005 Domaine de Piaugier “Sablet” | Cotes du Rhone villages, France | blend | $15.99
• 2007 Atalaya | Almansa, Spain | prim. monastrell, garnacha tintorera | $14.99

Though LA and DC are pretty dissimilar, I was still able to find one of my favorite “DC” wines at Mission Wines: “Tres Picos” from Borsao ($14.99 on sale, $16.99 regular price as compared to $18.99 in many DC locations).  This is 100% garnacha, grown from the Campo de Borja D.O.  Trey from The Wine Specialist recommended it to me and I am certainly glad he did: a powerful, expressive garnacha redolent with dark berries and leather.  I wasn’t really a fan of garnacha/grenache in general because I felt it made too much of a light and inconsequential wine, but man–Tres Picos knocked my socks off and those of the friends who tasted it.

This is my third bottle of Tres Picos–absolutely terrific and well worth the price.  It went really well with roquefort, in case you wanted to have it for a wine tasting.

The Francois Chidaine is hands-down my favorite sauvignon blanc–a must-have, especially for the upcoming spring and a steal at $11.99.  The Cour-Cheverny is also a white wine: the sales associate at Mission Wines raved about it and gave me a pour.  It had a nose like a big unoaked California chardonnay–tropical fruits–but was significantly dry and minerally, with a bit of pepper like a grüner veltliner.  I felt compelled to buy it.

Another wine I feel compelled to write about is one I had in DC: the 2005 Vacqueyras from Domaine La Roubine, a blend of 70% Grenache, 20% Syrah and 10% Mourvedre.  Vacqueyras is a lesser-known appellation in the southern Rhone–sort of a third fiddle to Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Gigondas.  This means, however, that wines from Vacqueyras are available for good prices (the Domaine La Roubine was $25.99).  I had earmarked the bottle to drink with a nice hanger steak I had purchased from Eastern Market.  I meant to cook the steak on Monday right after the journal competition but couldn’t wait that long to try the wine–I opened it and had a little bit late Sunday evening.  Really good, prunes and “stewed cherries” on the nose, pronounced tannins but lighter bodied than I thought it would be, more of an earthy-minerally character to it than fruity.  It was even better the next day with the steak.

Altogether, I’m pretty happy with the wines I’ve been able to try in DC and am looking forward to trying some more in LA.  Mind you–the six bottles aren’t all for me: ostensibly, I bought them for my mom who always tells me how neither my brother nor sister will buy her any 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.

These past two or three quiet weeks have been filled with drinking. I can’t say I’ve had anything too spectacular to drink: however, I’ve had some solid, easygoing, and inexpensive bottles. Even better–I was joined by my family, who have slowly started to look at wine not as a drug, per se, but as something that can have health benefits in moderation.

I lied about not having spectacular wine. Around the time of my last post I had a bottle of the Sean H. Thackrey “Pleiades XVI”, a wonderful, remarkable, idiosyncratic wine. At the Mission Wines tasting I loved the small taste I received, and I was especially pleased that it tasted even better at home. The menthol/eucalyptus was still there; at times, it bordered on tasting like Crest or Colgate toothpaste, and yet, even teetering precariously over the edge, the Pleaides soared like some sort of mythical bird into the upper palate and into the outer reaches of oenophilic ecstasy. My mom loved it, my notoriously hard-to-please brother liked it, and even my sister enjoyed it. This bottle lasted less than 24 hours–no mean feat in the Song household!

Even beyond the Pleaides, I had bottles such as the Chateau Ste. Michelle merlot (at $10.99, a delicious, easy-drinking, affordable wine); the Onix Priorat 2005, a blend of garnacha and carineña from the Priorat region of Spain–dark, dusky, generally enjoyable though I have found in the past and even with the latest bottle that there’s a certain element keeping me from enjoying this wine completely; and the Louis Martini Sonoma County cabernet sauvignon, which was passable.

What I’ve found is that there are so many decent wines out there–it’s rare that I’m 100% disappointed. Even the Louis Martini, which was my least favorite of the trio of reds I bought recently, was something I could have with a good Italian meal or over a nice novel. And the best thing is just having an open bottle at home, waiting for me along with hot food and smiling family.

For next time (and just in time for spring!): I will review the François Chidaine Touraine sauvignon blanc and a nice rosé I bought the other day from Farmer’s Market!

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.