And So It Begins

Hey all, good morning.  Its 7:20 AM and I am sitting at the amazing Sacramento International Airport, (haha), getting ready to board my flight to Philly to Rome.  A wonderful life opportunity I am greatly anticipating.  I plan to try and chronicle my journeys through my blog page here, and hope to do so at least weekly.  I have no clear picture of what is ahead, but it should be quite the adventure finding out.  Let the journey begin.  Salute!

Syrah by Another Name

http://www.saintcosme.com/en/wines.php

Happy Friday everybody, how's it going?  Only 2 more days of work including tonight, I can almost taste the freedom, now there is a fun topic: Patriotic WInes, hmmm for another day perhaps.  I had a thought today, more a question to myself.  I love Italian wines, I think they are great in general, especially with the quality movement as of late.  How long will it take me to say I wish I had a bottle of California wine?  Let the wagering begin.  Let us progress.

I think I said recently that I wanted to make syrah a hip new wine to drink, and with fall and cold weather coming, whats better than a glass of syrah and some braised meat.  Mmm Mmmm Good!  Well a few years ago, has to be at least 2 now, I purchase a $15 2004 Cotes du Rhone.  This is a basic level appellation wine for the Rhone Valley in Southern France.  Good values can often be found in good vintages, like 2004, from top producers.  The big thing here with this bottle is that it is 100% SYRAH.  Almost all Cotes du Rhone wines are Grenache based.  I did not realize this upon purchase.  Let me just say it was one ofthe better $15 wines I have had in a while.  What a wonderful thing a bit of cellaring can do!

Saint Cosme Cotes du Rhone Syrah 2004 Rhone Valley France

Bright Garnet clear with a medium concentration.  The wine is transparent with a light rim variation.  No gas but sediment was thrown while dacanting.  Medium tears with light staining
The wine is clean but is faint with hints of Brett.  Brambly raspberry and dark cherry, fresh blackberries and blueberries.  Mild pepper and violets with warm stone minerality.
Medium bodied with great balance.  The fruit stays dark and the pepper is firm.  No notice of oak and the fruit drives a bit with good minerality on the finish. 

Roasted Game or Braised Beef.  Mmm Mmmm Good!  Salute!

A Wonderful Surprise!

Hello all and welcome back for another taste of my tasting blog.  Sorry for the lag the last couple days but I am getting really busy with all the arrangements that go with moving to Italy.  I'm excited today, let's jump right in because very now and then you find a wine that just plain out surprises you.  This has happened to me a couple of times in the past few days.  It can go both ways though, from the perplexed and disappointed to the amazed and well excited.  Its very easy to do this too, and like I always say its great to try new things to experience new wines.  Sometimes this doesn't work out so well, but sometimes it does. 
For myself, it is usually in the case of a rare obscure varietal or bottling which can definitely go both ways.  The best thing to do is to take something you like, for instance California Pinot Noir, and branch out a little at a time-baby steps.  Oregon, New Zealand, Burgundy, Italy, Alsace, Germany, Australia, we get the point.

The wine we are looking at today is an Italian white wine.  When I say Moscato most people think sweet.  It is a grape that produces good levels of sugar and is most famously made into sweet sparkling wines, Asti (Spumanti) and Moscato d'Asti.  These wines are both from Piedmont in the Northwest of Italy.  Todays Moscato is from the Alto Adige in Northeastern Italy, way up in the Dolomite Mountain range.  The fun thing is this wine is dry not sweet!  I received the bottle in a wine club for organic/biodynamic wines out of Soif WIne Bar in Santa Cruz.

http://www.manincor.com/en/winecellar

Manincor Moscato Giallo Alto Adige 2008

This wine is starbright with a bright golden color clear with a high concentration.  Very youthful with no gas or sediment with moderate coating of the tears and very faint rim variation.
Clean with a high intensity of aromas.  The wine smells sweet based on how intense the fruit is.  Asian pear and peach syrup, hints of kiwi and some lime leaf.  There is some florality and faint minerality of cool rocks.  Very fragrant indeed, this wine was a hit with all those who tried it.
The palate is rich with similiar fruit flavors medium bodied with moderate plus acidity.  The finish is long and the wine was complex and I had this great candy lemonhead finish.  It even developed a touch of that florality across the palate also.  It was dry though and the acidity really drove the finish, transforming greatly on the palate.

I was recommending people to try this with a prosciutto, peach, and arugula salad dressed with a whole mustard seed vinager dressing.  The ripe sweetness of the peaches and the saltiness of the prosciutto was great. 

Also check out this link to an amazing small production Syrah I got to taste on Tuesday:
http://www.ambullneovineyards.com/wine.php?wine=red&vin=2006&id=6
Salute!

Sorry All

hey sorry everybody, the beginning of packing has consumed me for today.  Still researching my notes to bring a full report on Merlot vs Syrah.  See you all tomorrow for some wisdom I promise.  Go drink something Italian in celebration of me moving there!  Salute!

Ijalba Graciano Rioja 2005

Hi everybody and Happy Monday.  How did everyone's Fantasy Football teams debut over the weekend?  Haha, the jurry is still out on mine.  But that's alright because my Green Bay Packers got their season started right with a victory.  And how about those 1st place San Francisco Giants?  I'm pumped too. 
Also got the confirmation that I am moving to Bari, Apulia, Italy because I got accepted to a work program.  I am so excited to be beginning this path in my life and look forward to sharing it with everyone through my tasting page here.  T minus 10 days, September 22!
 http://travel.yahoo.com/p-map-485848-map_of_bari-i

I wanted to start today by saying thank you for the stream of comments that are starting to come in, I really appreciate it and they are helping a lot.  Tomorrow I will tackle the issue of Merlot vs Syrah and how to distinguish the 2 varietals in a tasting panel.  So stay tuned.....

The topic today though is one of a more unique route, because I want to continue to support my idea about experimenting with wine drinking.  It is of course most important to know what you like, but remember how you got there, by figuring out what you didn't like too.  I could make a broad stroke statement like 'I don't like Zinfandel' but that is ignorant.  More truthful should be 'I don't like the Zinfandels I've had' because you really never know what the next one could be like.  I am constantly analyzing wines and although I do not like them all I have to step outside of my box and think of others.  This is the great thing about wine bars, you can try tastes of things without committing to something you aren't sure about.
Take for instance today's featured wine, a true rarity:

Ijalba Graciano Rioja 2005

This is one of the only bottlings of pure varietal Graciano in all of Rioja to my knowledge, and possibly all of Spain.  Graciano is famous for its blending with Tempranillo and Garnacha (Grenache) in the Rioja region of Northern Spain. 
From looking at this wine it was noticably darker than Tempranillo and is blended to darken Rioja wines.  Medium concentration with a garnet color and some staining to the tears.
Aromatically speaking, the wine showed why it is considered a blending grape.  There was not a lot of complexity to the dark fruits and the subtle earth.  I found the wine to be balanced but it never really turned the corner for me personally.  I remember remarking that its a good burger wine, it will hold up to the flavors without going over the top.
Although I was  not blown away by this wine, it was good for a couple of reasons.  First off now I know what Graciano actually tastes like, a first for me.  I think just as important is the concept of trying new things.  This wine was selected for me in an off the wall wine club, a bottling that for $23 I probably would have passed on, but I am glad to have had the opportunity to try it now.  So next time you go to your local trusted wine shop, ask a trusted employee there to recommend a good value wine of something that's off the wall too.
Salute!

Chalet Fleur de Lys El Dorado Syrah 2002

http://www.fleurdelyswinery.com/

Hello all and welcome back to the internet's best little kept secret, for now anyway, my wine tasting blog.  I am Jeremiah Morehouse and these are simply my thoughts and flavors that I like to bring to you to help ease the headache that can be wine these days.  Remember my 2 most important rules though, HAVE FUN WITH IT, we are exploring and discovering, so don't be upset if you try something and don't like it.  Which leads into rule 2, drink what you like-eat what you like- and like it!  I can preach all day about how Petrale Sole in lemon butter sauce does not go with Napa Cab, but if that's what you like then enjoy it.  I mean one of my most memorable pairings ever was Pan Roasted Chilean Sea Bass over fall vegetable ragout with a 2000 Brunello di Montalcino (if you don't know anything about this wine, well here is your homework for now haha).  Would I recommend that to someone, probably not, but was it amazaing most definitely.  I am making an effort to expand the selections each day and find things that might be new and exciting, but I need your feedback.  Whether it's a simple question or request to explore a certain thing, shoot.  Tell me the last great wine you had!!!!
So with that said let's talk Syrah, a new grape to our tasting blog. Personally its a grape that I really enjoy, and is very underrated.  Its also a very wide spread, with great syrahs from France, California, Australia, Washington, Italy, Spain, ... I think we get the point.  Also look at the cost to rating scale.  It is ridiculous how good the value is here.  For the 2007 California Cabernets you are going to pay at least $130 for a 95+ point wine.  For a 95+ point   California Syrah you are paying around $75.  That's wicked good.  I've always said that if it weren't for the movie 'Sideways' than Syrah could have been the hot grape that Pinot Noir was during the rise of the economy there for a few years.  I'm going to follow up with this grape, I'm making it a hot grape to watch list for this fall/winter.  I like this grape in the colder weather because it is a full bodied wine.

 The first thing to notice about this wine is its concentration.  The wine is opaque in brightness with a very heavy concentration, you definitely cannot read through this wine.  Dark garnet with tinges of purple, the color is solid to the edge with a slight rim variation where the color softens.The wine stills appears to have some youthful qualities here and the tears are heavy and darkly stained.
The nose has a moderate intensity, a bit lighter than I was imagining.  Its clean with lots of black fruits, both fresh and dried.  Nuances of warm dark earth, somewhat loamy, and a touch of smoky oak rounded with a touch of menthol/eucalyptus.
The wine is dry with a medium body and a medium finish.  The tannins are Medium plus, and balanced by moderate acidity.  The flavors are all there again, black fruits, loamy earth and a touch of oak.  Also a bit of cigar tobacco flavors emerged on the palate.  Also note the warmth of this wine on the palate, at an alcohol of almost 15%, it definitely leaves a warm lingering down the throat.  Remember we are tasting a big wine from a warm year from a warm area sothis is not surprising.  All in all I like this wine and feel its a good representation of a California Syrah with a little bottle age.

Pair this against some red meat to be safe.  A syrah is very good with grilled meats like at a BBQ, but I would really like some smoked Beef Ribs with a tangy style BBQ sauce.  Mmm Mmmm good!  Salute!

Lesson 3: Can You Smell That?

Seabright Beach Santa Cruz California
I can definitely smell you in my heart

Ok hey everybody, happy hump day.  Yep its Wednesday, which for me is usually my Monday, and today is no different.  I figured since I missed my normal Saturday tutorial that I had started, I would follow up with Lesson 3 today, smelling a wine.  If we really think about it, this part of the experience could be the most important of all.  Really, I mean we can all probably look back in time and remember a wine that we thought was so good we didn't even want to drink it, but rather just be encompassed by it.  Champagne bubble bath anyone, haha. 
In all truth though smelling a wine correctly is extremely important to the whole of the experience of a wine.  And in all seriousness, which I promise to keep at a minimum, one of the best parts of drinking good wines is their great aromas.  Also this will be one of the easier lessons regarding wine, which is backwards because its one of the most important aspects. 
The fun thing here is that within reason there are no right or wrong answers here.  For example, lets take the Roessler Savoy Vineyard Pinot Noir (8-31), and note that I smelled Red Cherry, Strawberry, and Cinnamon Stick.  Now you tasted it and smelled dried cranberries and clove; who is wrong here?  The beauty of it is no one.  Now if you had said green apples and black currants then I might give you the googly eye.  So remember to have fun with it.  All grapes/wines have profiles of what they generally smell/taste like.  As you taste and learn more you will inevitably get closer to being a great wine taster!

When I smell a wine I look for a few things in a few differents passes.  In the first pass I like to see if the wine is clean (no faults/taints) and how intense the aromas are.  Are they fruit forward or more subtle and nuanced?  Does the wine smell hot (climate indicator)?  On that first pass try and pick the most dominant fruit and the most dominant non-fruit (earth, floral, spice, etc).  Now on the second pass smell from a different part of the rim of the glass and try to confirm your aromas but also look for new ones.  It may take you a little while to get comfortable analyzing wines like this, but in the long run will assist you exponentially in finding wines you love.  Take this lesson and apply it to a small group of friends, its always a great idea to taste with people because you will find more flavors in each wine by bouncing ideas off each other.  Also don't be afraid to say what you smell, I find one of the biggest wine fears with people is being perceived as unintelligent or incorrect.  Who cares its all subjective and the ultimate goal is to drink wine that you love, so start smelling and smell you next time.  Salute!

Labor Day Extravaganza

Ah glorious country, thank you for the wonderful 3 day weekend! Hahaha!  It gave me the opportunity to roll out to Napa Valley and am happy to report that the grapes are starting to come around.  It was hot today in the valley, no breeze to chill us out.  At all 3 places it appeared that fruit was being harvested!

Spot 1 a constant for me Domaine Carneros.  Owned and opened by the Taittinger Champagne house, it produces some of the best sparkling wines in all of California.  I will stay todays experience was a bit hmmm, well twilight zone and I will elave it at that.  I do enjoy the wines here and recommend it as a stop on the tasting trail.  Located in Carneros in the Southern end of Napa, it took only 75 minutes from downtown Sacramento.

Spot 2 is Artesa, another Carneros estate.  A really fun tasting room for its art and its view, the wines are good here too for the price.  A very concentrated Merlot and a good value pinot noir. 
Spot 3 Taylors Refresher, now known as Gott's Roadside Tray Gourmet.  Different name, same game.  Delicious, enough said.

Spot 4 one of my favorites Grgich Hills.  Rutherford estate, completely organically/biodynamically grown.  One of the best California Sauvignon Blancs (Fume Blanc) and the Cabs are awesome too.  Oh yeah, by the way, Mike Grgich was the winemaker at Chateau Montelena for the 1973 Chardonnay, the 'Bottleshock' wine. 

There are so many good places to taste in Napa I recommend justing getting there, going somehwere, and get lost.  Take recommendations and don't be afraid to spot at a random unheardof spot.  Salute!

Congratulations!

Taking the weekend off to pass on the good word
Congratulations to my buddy Teddy Lambert and his beautiful new wife Kristina.  Hope you enjoyed your day yesterday as much as the rest of us did.  Have a great life together you two.

Salute!

Hewitt Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford Estate 2002

Well everybody, I thought it would be good to keep it going strong for California wines for wine month here in California.  Yesterday was actually a pretty fun day at work wine wise.  I opened an Umbrian Sangiovese/Montepulciano blend, which was decent indeed-very youthful and fruity.  What made the night was the wine tastes that were traded my way amongst customers.  First to go in the Italian theme was a great Tuscan red-Isole e Olena Cepparello 2002.  A Sangiovese from a producer located in the heart of Chianti.  A wonderful example of good fruit from a moderate vintage.  Tart red cherry and warm crumbly earthy components with green olives and leather. 
And now we move on to California, and we revisit the 2002 vintage.  This has been whacky, a lot of 02 Cab lately, and way different styles and such.  Tasted side by side was the:
Hewitt Rutherford Estate
Silver Oak Alexander Valley
Both are about 100% Cabernet, one from Napa, Hewitt, and one from Sonoma, Silver Oak.  Both wines were given 86 points upon release by Wine Spectator.  Both wines in my opinion are showing better than 86 points right now, but I am featuring the Hewitt because I found it to be the better of the two.  The Silver Oak was showing well, very recognizable on the nose with the smoky American Oak and ripe fruit flavors.  Bottom line was I thought the Hewitt will continue to mature nicely for a few years whereas the Silver Oak is at its peak now, which is what Wine Spectator had predicted for both these wines.

Hewitt Rutherford Reserve 2002

Daybright Garnet clear with a Modertae plus concentration.  The color stays firm and only begins to fade towards the rim, with the meniscus beginning to form.  Some sediment is being thrown with this wine, as it was not decanted, and the tears had a high viscosity with some firm staining to the tears. 
This wine was very clean on the nose with a high intensity of aromas.  The purity of the dark fruits were profound: Currants and black plums great spices and tobacco elements.  The oak is well integrated indeed, toasty but creamy at the same time.
The palate is long and intense here.  The few years in the bottle has softened the firmness of the tannins trememduously, and the acid is moderate.  The fruit continues to stay dark, and the warmth of the vintage year turns the fruit a bit fleshy/chewy.  There are many layers of flavor and everything is in balance.  The wine is drinking well and is available on the wineries website as a library selection for $120 a bottle.  I agree more with Rober Parker's rating of 92 points, but I don't know if I could do $120 a bottle here.

Grilled Meat Grilled Meat Grilled Meat.  Is there and echo?
Salute!

Mount Veeder Winery Cabernet Sauvignon 2005

Howdy all, welcome back for another installment of your favorite little wine blog.  I just want to start by saying Happy California Wine Month to everybody.  Gov. Terminator passed a bill? I guess and passed on September as California Wine Month, so drink up!  As some of you may know, or figured out by now I like old world wines and I like Pinot Noir.  But I grew up in California and love a lot of the juice that comes out of this place, see exhibit A: California Family Winemakers Tasting.  But let us move forward and visit the grape that really put California on the map, Cabernet Sauvignon. 
After Prohibition the wine industry in the US was looking pretty brim.  Only a few wineries satyed open growing grapes and even those were not doing too well.  But it was Cabernet that got the ball rolling again in the 60's into the 70's.  Remember now that the Paris Wine Competition of 1976 ( Bottleshock movie) was a success for whites and reds, Stags Leap Wine Cellars.  Nowadays the grape is by far the dominant grape in California and is known worldwide for its quality.  Screaming Eagle Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon sells for about $1800 a bottle if you can get any.  Of course its the most extreme of the examples, but expect to pay well in excess of $100 for the more rare bottles. 
Today we look at Mount Veeder Winery in Napa.  Originally founded and planted in the 1960's, it is now a property owned by Franciscan WInery and still produces quality Cabernet.  The think to remember here is that this wine is 100% Mountain fruit, which is more stressed than valley floor fruit.  This means deeper darker flavors.  For usually under $40 a bottle on the retail side and its wide avaliability I like the quality that is delivered here.  Its 82% Cab and 15% Merlot, with Cab Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec rounding out the blend.  French Oak for 2 years with a lot of new oak.

This is a wine that I tasted a few months ago and recently revisited the 2006 vintage

Day bright with a deep garnet color, deep pigmented concentration and the wine is clear.  The rim variation is focusing with a bit of softening to the color there.  The tears are high viscous with heavy staining to them.
There is a ripeness to the fruit here, which definitely leads the high intensity of these aromas.  Blackberry and currants, very warm at the same time.  An array of spices are wrapped in the vanilla from the French oak with a bit of black tea lingering with oak shavings on the back.
The wine is dry with big tight tannins.  Again the fruit here is very big and ripe and dark, a little dehyrdrated red currant kind of lingers.  The spices and the oak influence softens and integrates and the wine is in balance.  My feeling about this wine when tasting the 2005 and recently the 2006 is that this is a classic example of a Napa Valley Cabernet based blend that needs time to soften in the bottle.  It is tasty, but I would be willing to bet the 1994-2003 vintages are drinking wonderfully here.

http://www.bevmo.com/Shop/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductID=776

I also opened and shared a 2002 Burrell School Santa Cruz Mountains Estate Reserve Cabernet last night.  100% Cab matured in American oak.  It was good, aging quite well.  Very spicy and the fruit here was very ripe and fleshy.  Wonder what their Bordeaux blend 'Valedictorian' 2002 is tasting like???....

If drinknig a young vintage of this wine, like the 06 on shelves, then be rough with it and don't be afraid to throw lots of flavors its way, but AVOID a lot of heat/spice.  Grilled meat anyone?  An older vintage of this would like more of like lamb and a mint/chimichurri sauce to accompany.  Salute!

The Mysteries of Burgundy Uncorked

Well I can't promise eternal life and I won't take up the hundreds of pages it would take to explain the region of Burgundy but I can say with great certainty that to many wine lovers the region of Burgundy is home to some of the most holy land on earth.  I long for the day when I will be walking throughout these vines and digging my hands nto their soil.  But why is this place such a complex and misunderstood place, almost the Forbidden Garden of Adam and Eve.  Let's start at the beginning...

Vineyard studies began in the 12th C. by monks who lived in the region of Burgundy, on the eastern ridges of France North of Lyon.  It is a temperate climate much affected by the continental weathers and each year can be a guessing game as to whether the rains will cooperate and yield ripe proper grapes.  On the surface the region is very straight forward, white wines are made entirely from Chardonnay and red wines are made entirely from Pinot Noir.  The exception would be the Gamay grape which is the grape of Beaujolais in the southern end of the region of Burgundy.
There are quality levels to Burgundy, from bottom to top:
Bourgogne: Basic wine from all over the place.  Simple quality and complexity.  Think of it as the same as a basic California label.
Appellation Wine:Wine from a specific town/subregion.  This would be like Carneros in Napa/Sonoma.  Good quality wines can be found at this level
Vineyard Wine: Producers/Negociants buy grapes from specific vineyards just like in California and bottle them seperately.  And just like in California they can start to get pretty pricey.
Premier Cru: These are 1st class vineyards that consistently producer high quality grapes.  These wines are what really good Burgundy can start to taste like
Grand Cru: These are the grandest of all the vineyards in all of Burgundy.  7 in Chablis and 22 in Cote D'Or, that is it!  These are wines that most people cannot afford and can age crazy long.  Go out one less day a week for a couple months and take that saved money and buy a good grand cru burgundy.  It is worth it!

Louis Latour Montagny 1st Cru La Grande Roche 2006/2005
Domaine Joblot Givry 1st Cru Clos du Cellier Aux Moines 2002

These are the two pictured, I tasted a few more that were delightful.  This is light my indulgence, it needs no pairing.  On that note though, there were a few whispers of Meiumd Rare duck breast once the reds came out.  Salute!