2004 Greg Norman Shiraz Limestone Coast

2004 Greg Norman Shiraz Limestone Coast
Australia, South Australia, Limestone Coast

Wine Rating:  87     Wine Spectator Rating: 88

Uncorked: 2007.08.28

Bright color of a young wine — medium ruby tone. Very pretty. The nose is all fruit — juicy blackberry, ripe plum with very faint spicy hints. In the mouth it’s surprisingly silky with only a moderate tannin bump near the finish. Fruit again prevails with rich, deep cherry, blackberry, and dark plum. Just a little spice/pepper. Finish is a little hot. Very drinkable and a good value.

$15.00

2004 Ca’ Tullio Aquileia Friuli Aquileia Il Patriarca d’Aquileia

2004 Ca’ Tullio Aquileia Friuli Aquileia Il Patriarca d’Aquileia
Italy, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Friuli Aquileia

Wine Rating:  87

Rustic wine with bold aromas and flavors. Composed of 60% Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot. It needed some good time in the glass — improved greatly. Perhaps should have decanted. In the nose it was fruity and woody. Lots of flavors in the mouth — a more complex wine that I expected. Dark jam flavors, blackberry and currant, licorice, a bit of spiciness, and plenty of oak. Good wine to accompany grilled food or a bowl of pasta.

$14.99  Heinens Fine Foods

Great Wine Quote

While I didn’t much care for the movie, this quote is a keeper… 

“I like to think about the life of wine, how it is a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing. How the sun was shining, if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it’s an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I’d opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it’s constantly evolving and gaining complexity, that is until it peaks, like your ‘61. And then it begins its steady inevitable decline.”

–Maya, from the movie Sideways (2004)

Canadian Wine – Niagara Peninsula

Until this past April the only wine I associated with “The Great White North” was that oddity called Icewine.  My wife had never been to Niagara Falls, so we made the now-short trek to this amazing natural wonder.  If you’ve been there you know… the “wonders” don’t end at the edge of the water.  Niagara Falls has become home to some of the most bizarre tourist attractions of any place on earth.  From Ripley’s Believe It or Not to at least half a dozen wax museums.  Needless to say, we grew weary of the town surrounding the Falls rather quickly.  So we decided to explore a bit…

Niagara on the Lake is the next community north of Niagara Falls.  It is a different world.  “Bucolic” is an apt description.  Beautiful, open space, quaint, and VINEYARDS!!!  Not only that — WINERIES!!!

It was late afternoon following a visit to the cool butterfly conservatory.  We drove past a couple of winery signs.  So we stopped in.  To be honest, I had very low expectations.  Sure, we’d find some sweet and over-priced Icewine.  And anything else would be perfumy Koolaid-like juice.  Was I in for a surprise!  We tasted half a dozen very sophisticated varietals and blends.  This wasn’t just fun afternoon wine tasting — this was excellent wine!  How do they do this with such harsh winter on the vines???  And how come nobody has told me about these wines before?  And why is it already 4:30pm?!?  The wineries are closing!!!

So we trekked back the next day and spent the whole day exploring a handful of the dozens of wineries of the Niagara Peninsula (from Niagara on the Lake on the east to Grimsby and Beamsville on the west).  It was a successful trip indeed!  Lots of simply outstanding wines, tastings with the winemakers, and several cases to bring home with us.  It reminded me of the Santa Ynez Valley (California) wineries before they became a destination for tour buses.  People with passion growing terra-appropriate grapes and making the best wines possible from the rich fruit.  Some of these folks aren’t even producing a cash-cow Icewine!  (My favorite description of the process of making Icewine from one of the varietal wine makers:  “It’s like pressing ball bearings trying to extract enough juice to make something that shouldn’t be made from ball bearings.”)

Some of my favorite wineries from our April visit:  Kacaba, Creekside, Riverview, and Pillitteri.  There are several other wineries I can’t wait to visit.  And I’ll be going back to these, for sure.  I’ll post some tasting notes from these wines in the near future.  I reviewed the 2005 Riverview Baco Noir earlier:  Read Review

I highly recommend an adventure to the Niagara Peninsula and the wines of Ontario!

Check out the Niagara Peninsula on this website:  Wines of Ontario Website

2002 Gainey Cabernet Franc Limited Selection

2002 Gainey Cabernet Franc Limited Selection
USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Ynez Valley

Wine Rating:  92

Uncorked: 2007.08.22  Jeff’s Birthday Dinner – served with grilled steak
It wasn’t until I started drinking Gainey’s Cab Franc that I thought this grape could stand up on its own.  Usually used as a blending grape to make big Cabernet Sauvignons, there are only a handful of wineries making excellent wines with the Franc as the star.  Gainey is one of those wineries that has done something nearly spectacular with this grape.

Deep ruby in color, the wine simply looks inviting.  The nose is rich and complex with fresh blackberries, herbs, and smoke.  As it opened up more in the glass, the nose became lucious.  This is a seductive wine.  While I could easily linger at the nose, as I taste the wine it envelopes my mouth.  I don’t know how better to describe it than the flavors wash over my whole mouth.  It is smooth and silky.  The berries and juicy fruit flavors are balanced by a subtle spiciness and herbal flavors.  The wine is dark in almost every way, but it isn’t fierce — it is subtle, rich, balanced.  The finish is long and soft.

I’m sorry that there are only three bottles left in the cellar.  While they could probably last another 3 or 4 years, I think the 2002 is at its prime now.  It was a great value back in 2004 when it was $25 per bottle.  Unfortunately the 2002 is no longer available, but certainly check the winery for the current release.

$25.00  Gainey Cellar Club

Gainey Vineyard Website

2002 Peter Lehmann Clancy’s Red

2002 Peter Lehmann Clancy’s Red
Australia, South Australia, Barossa, Barossa Valley

Wine Rating:  90

Uncorked: 2007.08.22  Jeff’s Birthday Dinner – served with cheese course
I like this blend — 54% Shiraz, 29% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc. It’s nose is less than expected for this big blend — aromas of dark berries and cedar. But in the mouth it explodes with fruit and texture. The dark berries continue in the taste along with ripe cherries, cranberry, plum, and spice. There is definitely deep wood in the flavor along with a slight earthiness — a bit surprising in a more new world style wine. Very soft in the mouth and a medium finish. Many levels in the taste of this wine. Good value for this level of complexity.

$14.99  Costco

2005 Bridlewood Winery Viognier Reserve

2005 Bridlewood Winery Viognier Reserve Central Coast
USA, California, Central Coast

Wine Rating:  88

Uncorked: 2007.08.21
Citrus and flower aromas including honeysuckle. Bright in the mouth with gentle tartness. Slightly sweet flavors of peach, pineapple, and tangerine. Big enough to serve with food, but perfect for cheese and fruit. I like viognier as an alternative to Sauvignon Blanc, and this is a decent one.

$17.99  Heinens Fine Foods

2005 Bodegas Ada Navarra Red Guitar Tempranillo-Garnacha

2005 Bodegas Ada Navarra Red Guitar Tempranillo-Garnacha – Spain, Navarra

Wine Rating:  86

Ok, I’m not a “label shopper,” chosing my wine by the attractiveness of the label, but this bottle has got a VERY COOL label!  Of course, I am a guitar player…

This is a good, simple wine to drink while I’m cooking… Pretty dark ruby color. Cherry and dark berries on the nose. In the mouth it was bright, slightly fruity, and finished with soft tannins. Nothing extraordinary, but tasty and decent value.  It’s widely available.

$9.99  Heinens Fine Foods

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2002 Gainey Merlot Limited Selection

2002 Gainey Merlot Limited Selection – California, Central Coast, Santa Ynez Valley

Wine Rating: 90

Uncorked: 2007.08.19 – The Special Occasion of “Today”

See the note below about why I’m drinking this wine today. It’s a non-occasion special occasion!

I have to admit, Merlot is not my favorite varietal. Too often it is unexceptional and has become the “new pinot noir” for the masses. Gainey’s Merlot and Merlot Limited Selection defy that definition. This tastes like a wine that is “crafted” rather than “produced.” The color is stunning — ruby, almost garnet. The nose is interesting with intense dark berries, charred oak, and worn leather. In the mouth it is velvety with dark berries, licorace, and a slight minerality. It has a long, balanced finish with soft tanins and supple fruit. A very nice “special occasion” wine!

$35.00 Gainey Cellar Club

“Special Occasion” Wines

Most of us have a least one or two of these bottles laying in our wine stash — those bottles that we are saving for a “special occasion.”  I’ve got at least 200 bottles in the cellar that fall into this category.  We’re holding onto the wine for a dinner that is just special enough to bring out the “good wine.”  Or maybe it’s a dinner with just the right friends who will appreciate the wine, or a “power dinner” with the clients or boss who will be duly impressed.

     

Or it might be that we’re just so fond of collecting wine that we’re not wanting to part with the precious objects of our compulsion.  The wine racks look so nice filled with these expensive bottles of wine!

But the point is that with this kind of wine, we often find ourselves waiting to drink it.  Many of us have had the sad experience of waiting too long, only to open the wine to find it past its prime, or worse yet to discover that it is now rancid vinegar.

I was talking to friends at church this morning who just got a shipment of fine California wine, sent to them from the vineyard following a recent visit on their vacation.  I joked with them about whether or not they would be able to ever drink the wine, or if they’d be saving it for “special occasions.”  She mused that it would be difficult — that every bottle has memories attached to it.  Her husband, Ed, had the perfect line, though…

“The act of opening the bottle of wine is, itself, a special occasion.”

Amen, brother!

So here I sit on a rainy NE Ohio afternoon writing on my blog.  My wife and daughter are napping.  It’s a quiet afternoon.  Nothing special.  But I’ll tell you a secret.  I opened a 2002 Gainey Vineyard Merlot Limited Selection.  It’s a special occasion!

Here’s my invitation, dear readers.  Today is a gift.  Celebrate that gift with a “special occasion” bottle of wine!  Cheers!

2005 Riverview Cellars Baco Noir

2005 Riverview Baco Noir – Canada, Ontario, Niagara Peninsula, Niagara-on-the-Lake VQA

Wine Rating:  90

Uncorked: 2007.08.12 – Back deck with Neil & Heather
What a pleasant surprise when I discovered Niagara, Ontario wines. There is something special going on in this region with varietal wines. And this Baco Noir is no exception. Deep red color. Sweet berry aromas and flavors — cherry, red raspberry and even blueberry — mixed with spice and subtle earthiness. Soft tannins and a rich texture make a nice mouthfeel and a lingering finish. Multi-layered and interesting. Nice drinker.

$15.95  Riverview Cellars Estate Winery, Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada
www.riverviewcellars.com

2004 Cline Cellars Red Truck

2004 Cline Cellars Red Truck - California, Sonoma

Wine Rating:  85

Uncorked: 2007.08.03 – “Wine Ministry” at the end of Montreat Youth Conference
Nice Rhone-style table wine that’s a consistent drinker.  The nose presents some good fruit — cherries and plums — with some hints of tobacco and licorace.  In the mouth it’s a bit fruit-forward, but not unbalanced.  Round flavors of cherries, raspberries, leather and hints of earthiness.  Short finish, but very pleasant.  A good value.

$8.99  Cost Plus World Market

2004 Bonny Doon Vineyard Big House Red

2004 Bonny Doon Vineyard Big House Red - California

Wine Rating:  84 points

Uncorked: 2007.08.03 – “Wine Ministry” at the end of Montreat Youth Conference

This one is always a solid table wine — an easy drinker. The nose is very fruity with grapes and raspberries. In the mouth it’s a bit jammy with lots of fruit — cherries, raspberries, and plums. But it’s more than a mouthful of fruit — this wine has enough tannins to add some balance. Nothing fancy or comples, but always enjoyable.

$6.99  Costco