Archive | tasting notes RSS feed for this section

Note: Grüner Veltliner–the Perfect Accompaniment to Dinner At An Austrian Cafe

16 Sep

A very quick post on a wine I might forget otherwise. I took a friend out to dinner at Leopold’s Kafe a week or two ago.  Leopold’s, which is a modern Viennese-style cafe/bar/restaurant, is one of my favorite places in DC: it offers very well-executed, delicious food at reasonable prices, as well as outside seating and the best Euro eye-candy you can find in Georgetown.  It is especially good for brunch or dinner and is a great place to take a date, parents, or people you wouldn’t want to entertain at a TGI Friday’s.

I had the steak frites, medium rare.  The “steak” in question was skirt steak, which is often used to make carne asada.  It wasn’t the most tender cut of meat, but it was tender enough and very, very flavorful.  It came with what I took to be caramelized shallots and a sort of creamy chimichurri on top, as well as Leopold’s breathtakingly good frites.  She had the roasted chicken which came with potatoes, warm escarole, and some sort of mustard sauce.  Both dishes were very good and very filling.  After dinner we shared a topfentorte (cheesecake with passionfruit gel, mango, and berries) and each had a kleiner Brauner, which is basically like an Austrian machiato.

Continue reading →

Tags: ,

Note: 2005 Pierre Andre Saint-Aubin “Les Anges” Premier Cru

2 Sep

I have had much to be thankful for this past week.  For instance, classes started up again and, strangely enough, they’re all pretty interesting (though the amount of reading I have is daunting at times).  I finished up the main portion of a Student Bar Association (SBA) program I was in charge of which consisting of pairing 1Ls with upperclassmen mentors.  I got two more Riedel Vinum Burgundy glasses, and my friend Sharon got a sweet part-time job at Banana Republic (which will result in sartorial benefits for m, I hope!).

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

Continue reading →

Tags: ,

Some Whites We All Can Love: Bourgogne and Bordeaux Blanc

21 Aug

Short posts, short posts.  That’s what law school–and reality–will do to you!

A few posts earlier I rhapsodized about a mesmerizing Meursault I had at Mission Wines.  For some reason I’ve been on a big Burgundy bent for the past couple of months (which probably has its genesis in my trip to Berkeley and the delicious basic Bourgogne I drank there), and more recently I’ve been interested in white wines–specifically, chardonnay.

To celebrate my friend Justin’s arrival in DC from Austin by way of the Pacific Northwest, I am cooking a simple dinner of turkey burgers with guacamole and fries.  I thought that a chardonnay would be a good match for this meal, which is why I took Patrick Deaner of The Wine Specialist’s advice and purchased the 2006 Rully chardonnay from Pierre Andre.  A “Grand Vin de Bourgogne,” it was reasonably priced at $21.99.
Continue reading →

Thoughts: DC and LA / Cremant d’Alsace / Beauty / God / Life

17 Aug

I am in a certain mood right now that defies exact transcription into words.  Surely you’ve been in those moods before–everyone has, if they’ve cared enough to notice.  Perhaps I could define the parameters of that mood by listing some of the songs I’ve been listening to this early morning, this not altogether-unpleasant warm and humid DC early morning.  For instance, on the lighter side I’ve been listening to Oscar Peterson, in his Big 4 incarnation (“You Look Good to Me”) and supporting the “Montreux Kings”–Eldridge, Gillespie, Terry–trio of horns (“(There Is) No Greater Love”).  Charles Mingus (“II B.S.”) has verve but also a dark foreboding to it, something menacing that feels right right about now.  Nick Drake and Elliot Smith.  I haven’t decided on my old standby, Van Morrison.  It doesn’t seem like a Van Morrison type of morning.

———–

I have been incredibly fortunate.  I think that this could be assumed just by the very fact that I even have a wine blog.  At the same time, it is a truth of life that there are struggles, disappointments, and tragedies.

Continue reading →

Another Reason Why I’ll Miss LA

4 Aug

A while back I wrote that there wasn’t a sauvignon blanc that I liked.  How much has changed!  Now sauv blanc is, if not my favorite, one of my favorite white wines.

Now my white grape whipping-boy is chardonnay.  I could swear that I’ve not met a chardonnay that I’ve liked, though that’s not technically true.  Quite a few years ago I had a delicious Carneros chardonnay from V. Sattui at their St. Helena tasting room–so delicious, in fact, that it was priced above my budget.

Not that I ever wanted to dislike chardonnay, what with sentimental memories of Remy from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles drinking the wine with wonderful abandon.  But more recent memories of horrible cheap chard from the I-House at Berkeley (where 1.5 L bottles of it were kept above room temperature for God knows how long) and horrible, more expensive chard wiped out any affinity I might have had for this most noble of grapes.

Continue reading →

Tears of Morro, Tears of Joy

13 Jun

I’ve been back here in LA for a few weeks now and it’s great. We’ve been having a long spell of overcast, mild weather–perfect light sweater weather. That’s fine with me, especially since I escaped the heat and humidity of the East Coast so recently (as well as the steaming crucible of law school).

Thus, I’ve been able to go to Mission Wines, my favorite local wine spot here in little South Pasadena. I rounded up a crew of the usuals–William, his friend Sam, Chris M. and his gf, Sasha and his gf, and Jack M. from days yore–and we hit up the wine tasting this past Saturday. Manning the bar were the always dependable Dave and Matthew; Kirk from the Rose Bowl committee was there along with a spate of regulars.

The tasting started off with a 2008 Pierre-Marie Chermette “Les Griottes” Beaujolais rosé, made from gamay.  A Beaujolais rosé?  I mean, much Beaujolais is darn close to rosé, anyway.  Nonetheless, this was a nice wine with a vibrant pink color and an austere, slightly coppery taste.  It wasn’t sweet and not overtly fruity.  It was my first Beaujolais rosé, so I was delighted to have it be a positive experience.  

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I Love LA, Part One: Bacaro L.A. Wine Bar

31 May

LA*: what a world of possibility; what a world of great food and places to go!

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.)

(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.

Continue reading →

Tags: , ,

How French Women Are Great for a Wine Blog and for Champagne Sales

21 May

One of the cool things about being the administrator of a blog–at least powered through WordPress–is that I am able to see what search phrases people are using to get to my site.  Some of the most direct are phrases like “joon song wine blog” or “vinicultured.”  Others are things like “wine blog” or “hip wine blog” (since when did my blog become hip?).  The most popular phrases involve “pinot noir” or “best pinot noir”–my most popular entry, actually, is suitably titled “Mission Wines Tasting: The (Second) Best Pinot Noir I’ve Ever Had.”

Then, others are… well… not what I would have ever anticipated for a wine blog.  “Wisdom teeth coffee” has come up–presumably for my entry on how getting my wisdom teeth pulled temporarily ended my wine drinking career.  “LegalZoom sucks” has come up 24 times since I started my blog–and I can assure you quite readily that LegalZoom does not, in fact, suck.  A morbid series of phrases deals with how to throw a party for a dying person–which is somehow derived from my post on the psychology of a dying party (as in a party that is winding down, not a party for… well… dying).

But perhaps one of the most enjoyable series of phrases shows how the Internet is truly being used: the second most popular search phrase on my site is “French women,” the fifth is “women smoking,” and somewhere lower on the list is “French women smoking.”  My post isn’t really about drinking per se but is about the relatively recent ban on smoking in France.  (Look out for the nasty comment comparing me to a Southern slaveowner!)

Continue reading →

Tags: ,

Beautiful Berkeley

19 May

What a beautiful place, Berkeley.  I didn’t really enjoy the place until late in my college career–perhaps starting my fourth year, definitely my fifth year.  I have been back up numerous times, but through a number of reasons was unable to do so for nearly the past year and a half–far too long in my book.  Thus, I planned to visit the Bay Area for a spell of a few days after my exciting and rainy adventure in New York the previous week.

The concrete reason for my trip was to visit two of my former residents (and current friends), Semra and Kana, and their awesome apartment up in the hills on North Side.  There was a sentimental reason, too–namely, that all of my residents and thus the vast majority of the people I knew in Berkeley would be graduating and leaving for the big vast world after college.  

There was a oenological reason, too: I wanted to drink a lot of great wine!

Again, as in my New York post, I’m going to just write down phrases that will hopefully serve to jog my memory when I’m looking back after a few decades.  =)

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Hakutsuru Superior Junmai Ginjo Sake

17 Apr

When many Americans hear the word sake they usually hear another word in quick succession, followed by a loud banging on tables, a volley of splashes, and quick chugging.  Sake bombing is not only a big source of income for lower-end Japanese restaurant/karaoke bars but also an introduction to this drink–perhaps, then, it is sort of like white zinfandel, serving as a gateway to the world of alcoholic pleasures waiting just beyond.

Continue reading →

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →