I will be in California for five more weeks, after which I will be headed back to DC for a few days, and then eight weeks in beautiful Wilmington, Delaware, known in legal circles as one of the locations of the Court of Chancery (where I’ll be interning) and known in pop culture circles as the nameless setting of Fight Club.  Hopefully during this time there will be wine, wine, and more wine.  If this past week has been any indication, there will be plenty of that this summer!

I have to write a few posts, one of Deep Sea Wines (which was gracious enough to send me two bottles to review), another for a great product known as the Wine Diaper (it’s probably not what you think it is), and yet another for a book by Matthew Frank entitled Barolo.  And, I’ll have to write about a very wonderful evening at Founding Farmers in DC at which a bottle of Riesling figured prominently–that’ll be coming soon.  All of these will take place in good time, but before I do I wanted to “clear the palate,” so to speak, by writing about a few of the wines I’ve had at home.

One of my habits while at home is to buy a few bottles with which to tide over my mom until my next visit.  I had purchased a few bottles during Spring Break, and to my surprise (and pleasure) I found that one of the bottles had not yet been opened.

This bottle was the Candidus from Malm Cellars.  Malm Cellars is a one-person show, helmed by Brendan Malm.  He doesn’t have a winery or vineyard, but he sources fruit from select growers to make his wines.  One such wine, his 2007 Sonoma County Pinot Noir, garnered a great review from the LA Times.  The Candidus, which is made from a bunch of undisclosed white Rhône varietals (but also apparently includes Chardonnay concentrate according to Dave from Mission Wines), is about $16.  It’s intensely aromatic–I’m thinking Viognier or Muscat (though I’m not sure if Muscat is a Rhône varietal)–with an assertive nose of quince and honey.  It’s pear-colored and appears on the viscous side.  Excellent: full of dried apricot and citrus, full bodied yet light, good acidity, very pleasant.

Forget the Pinot Grigio or Pinot Gris for the upcoming summer–this wine is a refresher for those who want more heft.  Think of a blond Christina Hendricks:

Yum.

The Candidus was good even on the second day, but alas, a 750 mL bottle only lasts so long.  My third day at home and there was nothing left to drink!  A trip to Mission Wines was in order.

One of the great things about Mission Wines–at least if you’ve gone there for years like I have, now–is that they always have a few bottles open to try.  Matthew was manning the bar and he poured me a few drinks:

• 2009 Torii Pinot Gris | Willamette Valley, Oregon | notwithstanding my Pinot Gris/Grigio bashing above, this was a wonderful example of the varietal.  Great acidity, lemon curd, flowers, and minerality.  Hits you right in front of the mouth and doesn’t let go.
• 2009 Bella “Special Release” rosé | Sonoma Coast (?), California | made from a blend of Grenache and Syrah, this rosé packed a serious color (almost as dark as a light Burgundy or Beaujolais, as dark as a rosé made from Malbec) and serious flavor: peach, watermelon Jolly Rancher.  Think of this as Domaine Tempier’s um, racier backwater cousin.
• 2007 Louis Jadot Côte de Nuits Villages “Le Vaucrain” | Côte de Nuits, Burgundy, France | a village-level Burgundy, tart but with a nice mouthfeel and a satisfying mid-palate.  Fig, membrillo.  A perfect bistro wine, served chilled with steak tartare on the side, and at the mid-twenties at the perfect price.
• 2004 Bodegas Luzon “Alma de Luzon” | Jumilla, Spain | more on this below.

Upon Matthew’s recommendation I picked up a bottle of the 2007 Weinhof Scheu Spätburgunder from the Pfalz region of Germany ($15.99) and, a day or so later, a bottle of the aforementioned Alma de Luzon.  The Spätburgunder, which is German for Pinot Noir, was fantastic!  Never mind the long, narrow Riesling-type bottle in which it arrives: this is serious red wine.  A light brick color, it is full of tart cranberry and has hints of earth, very light-bodied and excellent chilled.  This is serious value for the money: leave it to the Germans to deliver efficient, precise wine.

The Alma de Luzon is a Jorge Ordoñez selection, so you know it’s good.  The first release, this normally retails for $67 but given the poor economy, its distributors unloaded quite a few cases to Mission where it is going for $27.99 a bottle.  This is an insanely low price for a very good wine.  It’s rare that everyone in my family likes a particular wine: this had something for everyone.  Dark, inky color.  Tobacco and stewed dark fruits on the nose, a hint of graphite.  In the mouth it had prune, blackberry, fig jam, clove.  It reminded me of Madeira, or the 2005 Ridge “Paso Robles” Zinfandel I had a few months ago.

Although this blend of 70% Monastrell, 20% Cabernet, 10% Syrah spends 22 months in oak (60% French, 40% American) and has a very dark, extracted color, it is not a Vaynerchukian “oak monster”: the tannins are there, but they’re silky and well-integrated.  Indeed, the Alma de Luzon’s acidity is more pronounced than its tannins.  Altogether, this is a tremendous value and a crowd-pleaser.  Buy it, drink it with a meal (I’m thinking red meats or molé, even), drink it with dark chocolate-covered blueberries, drink it by itself–whatever you do, be sure to buy it and drink it.

So, I’ve been at home for a week and a day and I’ve been able to try some wonderful wines.  I would recommend all of them.  With selection like this, how can I not love South Pasadena?

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!

Thus, it stands to reason that I must drink a lot of wine to produce the material for the blog. (Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, and every other writer known to man would probably attest to alcohol’s magical creative properties.) I’m not an economist, but I believe this is what’s known as the “trickle-down effect.” Right?

Over the past week I had three reds I’d like to write a bit about:

1 | 2005 Piqueras Monastrell | Almansa, Spain | $9.99
Intense, deep. A bit closed at first, though it opened up tremendously in the glass (the second day was great!). The tannins were very pronounced. Tasted blackberries, spice, leather. The Korean in me tasted jujubes, which are dried red dates: these are sweet and bitter at the same time, and have a distinct mouthfeel I detected in the Piqueras.

Monastrell is also known as mourvèdre in France and is often used in Rhone-style blends. It is often blended with grenache, which gives the mourvèdre a softer edge.

I had the Piqueras a few weeks ago at a Mission Wines tasting with Erica and her bf Jack, Kat, and Jack’s friend, Liz, from New York. We liked it so much then that Liz bought three bottles. I went back three days ago and bought a bottle for myself. A great buy: affordable, with a helluva lotta personality.

2 | 2005 Chateau Festiano | Minervois, France | $8.99
The new Whole Foods on Arroyo sells a good deal of wine and beer. I spied this bottle in the “French” section and was instantly intrigued. It reminded me a bit of l’Esprit du Silene because it’s also from the Languedoc region of France–the Esprit is from the Coteaux du Languedoc appellation, whereas the Festiano is from Minervois. The Esprit is made from syrah, grenache, and cinsault, whereas the Festiano is 40% syrah, 40% grenache, and 20% mourvèdre.

I was expecting a lot. The Languedoc is one of France’s most exciting winemaking areas–long written off but now coming into its own as a source of wonderful, quirky, and affordable wines. A notable characteristic of many of the red wines of this area is “garrigue”, which is technically a type of scrubland common around the Mediterranean. According to the infallible Wikipedia, “The term has also found its way into haute cuisine, suggestive of the resinous flavours of a garrigue shrubland.”

The Esprit was wholly evocative of the garrigue. The Chateau Festiano, unfortunately, was not. In all fairness, I may have to try another bottle as I’m afraid that the particular bottle I picked up was baked. =/

3 | 2005 Chateau Coucy | Montagne St. Émilion, France | $10.99
Trader Joe’s tonight. Was looking for a new bottle to try and settled on this one when I saw “St. Émilion.” I should have looked harder at the word preceding those two: “Montagne.” Whatever. Montagne St. Émilion is considered a satellite of the better-known St. Émilion region of Bordeaux, and its wines may sometimes even be considered the same or better quality than that of St. Émilion.

I love wine from St. Émilion. Bistro de la Gare in South Pasadena has a few by the glass, and they’re great accompaniments to the steak frites or coq au vin. I love St. Émilion because its wines are predominantly merlot and thus, soft, luscious, easy to drink, and easy to drink NOW (as opposed to many cabernet-based Bordeaux wines having to be aged for years and years to open up and lose their tannic chastity belts).

The Chateau Coucy… thin, overly acidic. It might be better with food–maybe like a chianti or something–to take off the acidic edge. Not especially tannic per se but the acidity made it taste super-bitter. Definitely not a keeper, despite its apparent quaffability.

My track record for this week: 1 for 3. Pretty terrible, given the string of success I had the past two weeks in picking out good wines.

This is like Chinese food. You go into a restaurant–like Sam Wo‘s in San Francisco–and are confronted by a menu of what seems like hundreds of choices. You pick a “safe” choice like the orange chicken or Mongolian beef or shrimp fried rice. You really can’t go wrong and hey, for the most part those are satisfying. But man, you want to venture out into unknown waters (the water tank filled with fish and lobsters and shellfish on the right, say, instead of the one on the left) and decide to go with XYZ. Sometimes it’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted. Other times it’s like throwing up, except instead of throwing up you’re throwing down, if that makes sense.

This week, I think I’ll take a break from being “adventurous” and sit back with a bottle of the Ampelos Rosé of Syrah or “The Third Bottle” from GustavoThrace. My liver and wallet can’t take disappointment two weeks in a row!