Category Archives: Price: 16-20 bucks

Price: 16-20 bucks, Tasting Notes

6th Sense Syrah 2007: I See Fruit Bombs

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Producer: Michael~David Winery

Grapes: 84% Syrah and 16% Petite Sirah

Appellation: Lodi (AVA, California)

Vineyards: no info

Vintage: 2007

Winemaking: The wine spent 20 months in French oak (% new unknown)

Alcohol: 15%

Price: $17 at the online store

My tasting notes: The wine starts off with sweet blueberry and blackberry cobbler aromas along with smoke and tobacco notes. It actually reminds me of a cobbler you’d buy at a BBQ restaurant here in Texas, which always ends up permeated with the wood smoke from sitting around the restaurant. The wine is soft in the mouth, almost flabby, with very ripe berry fruit and sweet oak flavors. There is an interesting slightly earthy note at the end, but not enough to keep this from coming across as a definite fruit bomb.

Overall impression: This wine has some yum-factor, but is just not a style I want to drink very often. But I could see a lot of people liking the fruit-forwardness of it so it might be one to serve at a backyard BBQ or party. For me, tonight, it’s a C+.

Free association:

SXSW Salt Lick BBQ Trip by CC Chapman.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cc_chapman/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

More info:

Other reviews at Wine Harlots, Gabe’s View, and The Wine Snob.

I received this wine as a press sample from the winery.

Price: 16-20 bucks, Tasting Notes

Chateau Raspail 2007 Gigondas

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My apologies in advance for the sketchy details on this bottle. There’s not much info on it to be found online. I’ve had a draft of this post sitting around for a while and I didn’t think I’d bother posting it, but I’ve been sick for a while and haven’t been drinking any wine so you, dear readers, get the dregs.

Producer: Chateau Raspail

Grapes: The blend is not noted on the bottle or the website. But according to chateauneuf.dk (a very comprehensive Danish website on Rhône wines) it is 60% Grenache, 30% Syrah and 10% Mourvèdre. Let’s consider that as approximate.

Appellation: Gigondas (AOC, France).  Gigondas is in the southern Rhône valley region, and was originally entitled to just the Côtes du Rhône name, but in 1966 was upgraded to Côtes du Rhône-Villages, then in 1971 to it’s own AOC.

Vineyards: I can’t really make much from what’s on the chateau’s website about the vineyards. Some hillside vineyard land and some in the plain.

Winemaking: Chateauneuf.dk says it’s aged in tanks.

Alcohol: 15%

Price: I paid around $15-16 at Costco

My tasting notes: Deep, eggplant-purple color. It starts off a bit closed (to be fair, I did pop-n-pour), but with time it opens nicely to display some bright red fruit, dusty floral notes and a hint of green algae (reminding me of my dad’s tropical fish aquarium). In the mouth, it balances high-toned red fruit with a meaty/earthy character and finishes with grippy tannins and some heat (note the 15% abv).

Overall impression: Nice stuff. Somehow I’m feeling a little disappointed though. I was expecting more from the step up to Gigondas. But a good bottle, nonetheless. B-

Free association:

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60852569@N00/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

More info:

Other reviews at  CellarTracker.

Here’s the chateau’s website if you want to try to read it. The black text on dark maroon background was not a great choice, mesdames et messieurs.

Price: 16-20 bucks, Tasting Notes

Two Angels Petite Sirah 2006

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Producer: Two Angels

Grapes: 100% Petite Sirah

Appellation: High Valley. This is an AVA within the Lake County AVA in California.

Vineyard: The grapes are sourced from Shannon Ridge Vineyards at nearly 2200 feet, which they claim are the highest in California. (It’s not called High Valley for nothing.)  Soils are volcanic and gravelly. A nice bit of vineyard chest-beating here from the Shannon Ridge website.

Vintage: 2006

Winemaking: 10 months in 30% new French oak barrels and the rest in 1-3 year French and American.

Alcohol: 14.3%

Price: $15.99 at Costco in Austin (though it’s $24.99 from the winery)

My tasting notes: The wine is an inky black-violet in the glass, as expected from Petite Sirah. On the nose, I get mixed berries, with blueberry standing out. Also a bit of tar. In the mouth it’s more blueberry joined by blackberry and some spice/black pepper notes, but also a slight savory character, like roast beef with herbs. This is definitely a background note though, the berry fruit predominates. It’s a bit hollow to me in the mid-palate, though. And the tannin profile starts off softer than I expect in PS, then later in my notes I wrote “green woody tannins”.

Overall impression: It didn’t deliver quite the oomph I expected from Petite Sirah, but it’s not a bad bottle. Probably not something I’d recommend at the price, though. B-

Free association: The Two Angels name put me in mind of Charlie’s Angels. This wine is like Kate Jackson – clearly not the top choice, but you could do a lot worse. (Jaclyn Smith was always my favorite. Which was yours?)

Kate Jackson is on the left for you Millennials.

More info:

90 points from Wine Enthusiast

Here’s a photo from the Shannon Ridge Vineyards website of the Petite Sirah block (prior to planting). Notice the slope.

Price: 16-20 bucks, Tasting Notes

Oddball Wine of the Week: Petite Petit

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Michael~David Winery Petite Petit 2007 Lodi

This wine was a press sample provided by Michael~David Winery.

Which came first the name or the wine? That’s what I wonder when see that this wine is called Petite Petit for it’s combination of Petite Sirah and Petit Verdot (and oddball blend to be sure). Clever name, but is that the best reason to blend these two grapes? Does it make oenological sense? Let’s find out.

Producer: Michael~David Winery

Grapes: 85% Petite Sirah, 15% Petit Verdot

Appellation: Lodi (AVA, California)

Vineyards: no info

Vintage: 2007

Winemaking: The wine spent 14 months in French oak barrels.

Alcohol: 14.5%

Price: $18 (though I’ve seen it at Whole Foods for $14)

My tasting notes: Deep purple-black color. On the nose, I get blueberry, sweet tobacco, baking spices and just a touch of fresh earth. The palate delivers nice blackberry and vanilla cream flavors (maybe a little black cherry, too) with a bit of spice. It’s smooth-textured, almost plush in the mouth with fine-grained tannins and decent acidity.

Overall impression: I’m not sure any magic came from the Petite + Petit combination (I didn’t sense much from the Petit Verdot), but this is an enjoyable bottle of wine, firmly in the “fruit & oak” camp. B/B-

Free association: Speaking of odd combinations, the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual was full of them. Here’s a favorite.

More info:

88 pts. Robert Parker

More reviews at Gabe’s View, Wine is Life, What’s New in Booze, CellarTracker, Snooth and Cork’d.

If you ever played Dungeons & Dragons as a kid (or even now – hey, no judging here) you’ll love this series of Monster Manuel comics from one of the funniest people alive: Lore Sjöberg over at BadGods. The Owlbear one is here, though my favorites are: Orc, Chimera, Ear Seeker and Kobold.

Price: 16-20 bucks, Tasting Notes

Oddball Wine of the Week: Prieto Picudo

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Pardevalles ‘Gamonal’ Prieto Picudo 2006

Pardevalles_Gamonal_2006Producer: Vinedos y Bodega Pardevalles

Grapes: 100% Prieto Picudo – Google Translate converts this to both ‘acacia weevil’ and ‘billfish’. However, the importer’s website says it means “bunched and peaked” for the way the grapes grow in a very tight cluster and the bunches taper sharply at the bottom. I prefer acacia weevil.

Appellation: Tierra de León (DO, Spain)

Vineyards: Gamonal – a 16-hectare (about 40 acres) dry-farmed, hand-harvested vineyard of alluvial and clay soils.

Winemaking: The wine underwent malolactic fermentation in new French and American oak, then spent another 9 months in new oak barrels (50% French Allier and 50% American oak). Unfiltered.

Alcohol: 14%

Price: $19.10

My tasting notes: A dark purple color, though not especially dense. A complex nose with scents of dusty flowers, red berries and (just like it says on the back label) “fallen leaves and freshly turned earth”. It is lively on the palate, with Luden’s-like cherry and blackberry flavors predominating with an herbal and mineral edge. Modest tannins and plenty of acidity, but it maintains a nice, polished mouthfeel. It has good length on the finish. I’m finding this wine is growing on me with each sip.

Overall assessment: Not necessarily a value play at nearly $20, but a very nice wine. B/B+

Free association:

ludens

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bessicajach/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

More info:

Only 2000 cases of this wine were produced.

This wine was rated 90 points by Wine & Spirits and Wine Advocate, and 87 by Wine Spectator.

Reviews at CellarTracker and The Spanish Table in Berkeley.

An acacia weevil:

AcaciaWeevil

Price: 16-20 bucks, Tasting Notes

Oddball Wine of the Week: German Pinot Noir Rosé

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KesselerRose07_snapshotMost people, myself included, think of white wines almost exclusively when they think of Germany. But they do make wine from red grapes – in particular Pinot Noir, known there as Spätburgunder. In fact, according to The Oxford Companion to Wine (3rd edition, 2006), Spätburgunder is Germany’s third most planted variety and totals over half of the acreage of Riesling. This bottle is a rosé of Spatburgunder.

Producer: August Kesseler

Grapes: 100% Spätburgunder (aka Pinot Noir)

Appellation: Rheingau (Germany)

Vineyards: Assmanshäuser Höllenberg – The vineyards are on south- and southwest-facing slopes with soils of “heat-storing slate-phyllite.” The vineyards includes vines that are up to 100 years old.

Winemaking: This rosé wine is produced via the saigné method. During the production of the winery’s normal Spätburgunder, some of the juice is drained off during skin contact to improve the quality of the red wine. That drained-off juice becomes a rose – a lovely byproduct.

Alcohol: 12.5%

Price: $16.78 at Spec’s in Austin

My tasting notes: The unusual color is one of the things that drew me to this bottle on the shelf. It’s very pale and I wouldn’t describe the color as pink so much as ‘light brown’ – okay maybe copper is nicer way of saying it (sorry no pics before the bottle was empty!).  The nose was rather closed, I had trouble picking up much beyond a general sweetish-wine smell and maybe some strawberry. On the palate, it offers up a pleasant candied apricot flavors and a bit of lime, with an undercurrent of stony minerality. It has 24.4 g/l of residual sugar, so it is sweet, but for me the acidity balances it well and it finishes clean.

Overall impression: A perfectly nice medium sweet rose. Definitely worth a try if you want to experience a different side of Germany, though I’d be more enthusiastic if it were $5 cheaper. B-

KesselerCork_snapshot_cropped

Free association:

Kramer's ASSMAN plates from the Seinfeld episode "The Fusilli Jerry"
Kramer's ASSMAN plates from the Seinfeld episode "The Fusilli Jerry"

More info:

The importer’s tech sheet.

Price: 16-20 bucks, Tasting Notes

Haka Tempranillo 2007 Paso Robles

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I was turned on to this wine by Sam Scarpari, an Aussie winemaker (Seraphim Wines), wine vlogger and Twitter-friend (@SeraphimWines). One night, I had just tasted a not-so-good Tempranillo from California and tweeted something to that effect, asking the Twitterverse if anyone had had a good example of the grape from the Golden State. Sam pointed me to this bottle, the Haka Tempranillo 2007 Paso Robles. I hadn’t heard of it before and I sort of assumed it would be hard to find and wasn’t sure if I would make the effort of trying to order it online. But as luck would have it, within a week or two I saw it on the shelves at Spec’s here in Austin.

HakaTempranillo07_snapshotProducer: Haka, by Labyrinth. Rick Hill is a Kiwi winemaker who makes Pinot Noir in both Australia and California under the Labyrinth label. Haka is his second label.

Grapes: Tempranillo

Appellation: Paso Robles (AVA, California)

Vineyards: no info

Winemaking: no info

Alcohol: 14.5%

Price: $18-20

My tasting notes: On the nose I get Pepsi fizz, coffee grounds, red fruit and a bit of fig. On the palate, this wine has good density with strawberry and mixed berry jam flavors. The oak is sweet, but there is a high-toned minerality keeping everything in check. It finishes long and cool, with grippy tannins.

Overall assessment: Very nice wine. I don’t know that I’ve had a better Tempranillo from California (though I haven’t had many). It has New World fruit intensity that gets a tad overripe for me, but the overall tightness and complexity of this wine impressed me. B+

Free association:

More info:

Sam Scarpari’s Wine Passion TV episode reviewing this wine. It’s funny to me that I called out the Pepsi/cola notes… In Sam’s review of the wine, which I watched once a couple of days before opening the bottle, he mentions “cola” a few times, but I didn’t know that’s what he was saying due to the Aussie accent. It wasn’t until I rewatched after tasting the wine, that I understood him (or at least I think that’s what he said – correct me if I’m wrong, Sam!).

An article on the winemaker and the Labyrinth brand (from City Beat/Cincinnati, of all places).

Info on the haka genre of Māori dance at Wikipedia.

Price: 16-20 bucks, Tasting Notes

Lodi Old Vines Zin Part 5: Plungerhead 2007

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This is Part 5 of my Lodi Old Vines Zin series. Part 1 was Spellbound 2005, Part 2 was Ravenswood 2006, Part 3 was Gnarly Head 2006 and Part 4 was Campus Oaks 2007. In the next few days I’ll post my overall takeaways (pardon the corporate-speak) from this series.

The last wine I picked up for this Lodi Old Vines Zin series turns out not to be from old vines (I just read the label wrong), so I needed to pick up a replacement. (I didn’t want to end on that Campus Oaks.) I ran into Spec’s and scanned the Zin selection for something that fit the series and wound up with this bottle. It’s a little over the initial price range I specified ($10-15), but I wanted to check this odd closure and was hoping I’d be able to end the series on a high note.

Plungerhead Old Vines Zinfandel 2007 Lodi

Plungerhead_bottleshotProducer: It’s actually a little confusing. The brand is obviously Plungerhead, but it’s from Don Sebastiani & Sons and also sits in their The Other Guys sub-brand.

Grapes: Zinfandel (no indication on label or website whether it’s 100% or a blend)

Appellation: Lodi

Vineyards: No info other than they’re old vines.

Winemaking/aging: No indication on label or website.

Alcohol: 14.9%

Package: Cool label and funky name, though certainly pushing the gimmicky angle. It has a Zork closure. This was my first encounter with a Zork. I must be dense, because I had a lot of trouble with it. You tear off this wraparound piece then you’re left with a plastic cap and a short little plastic “cork” sticking into the bottle neck. I don’t know what you’re supposed to do then. I tried just pulling it off to no avail. I tried wiggling it back and forth – nope. I resorted to jamming a knife under the lip of the cap and prying it up. Uh, if you aren’t going to use a cork, just use a screwcap, please. [Gary V. at WLTV did an episode on wines with a Zork closure and he had a much easier time than I did. Apparently, I’m just a doofus.] Also, since I hadn’t seen a Zork closure before, I assumed it had something to do with the brand Plungerhead. I mean, it’s a red rubbery cap – it seemed to be a part of their shtick. So I accepted it in that context, but I don’t think I’d like it, aesthetically, on any old bottle.

Price: $17 at Spec’s in Austin

My tasting notes: This wine has an aggressive nose of creamy red berries, cedar and sweet tobacco. Very oaky. The palate is loaded with more vanilla creaminess, like a cream soda mixed with dark cherry juice. Some spice shows up at the end and some heat, like cinnamon red-hots soaked in vodka.

Overall assessment: I’m going to coin a new term for this wine: it’s a “froak bomb” [fruit + oak – restraint]. Having said that, it’s tasty. It’s like deep-fried Oreos: you may not serve them at a dinner party (do people still have dinner parties?), but you don’t mind scarfing a few down at the fair. B-

Free association:

deepfriedoreos

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vidiot/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

More info:

Winery’s tech sheet.

Other reviews at: Wine Drank By John Jaster, Tastings by Gary and Allison, Good Juice Bad Juice and Corkd

Price: 16-20 bucks, Tasting Notes

Kenwood Jack London Vineyard Zinfandel 2006

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Kenwood JackLondon Zin bottleI’ve really liked this wine in the past and saw it for a good price recently and picked it up. I’m always intrigued by single vineyard Zins (though I don’t think these are particularly old vines). Let’s see what this vintage is like.

Producer: Kenwood Vineyards

Grapes: 100% Zinfandel

Appellation: Sonoma Valley

Vineyard: Jack London Vineyard (on Sonoma Mountain with southeasterly exposure, red volcanic soil)

Aging: 18 months in French and American oak

Alcohol: 14.5%

Price: I think I paid around $18

Production: 6,335 cases

My tasting notes:  Right off the bat I’m noticing that the color is rather thin for a Zin. Hmm. Not what I expected. On the nose, I get sweet pipe tobacco accenting the red fruit cherry/berry aromas. I’m smelling the alcohol a bit too, which is worrying. In the mouth it feels pretty plush, which isn’t what I expected after seeing the color. Flavors are red fruit, like in the nose, but with an appealing note of fruit skin — like cherry or plum, or even peach maybe. There is a meatiness coming through as well.

Score: All in all, I enjoyed this wine.  It took some time to open up — the second glass was much better than the first — but it came through in the end. Not a stop-the-presses value, but a nice bottle.  B/B-

Free association:  Amy Winehouse (thin and high in alcohol)

amy-winehouse-newswire-335a062707

Packaging:  It’s a pretty cool-looking bottle. There is no paper label; the image and text is printed right on the bottle. The big wolf-head apparently was Jack London’s bookplate logo for many of his books, including the middle-school classic Call of the Wild. Also on the back there is a cool quote from Jack London writing about this very vineyard land in 1913:

“I ride over my beautiful ranch. Between my legs is a beautiful horse. The air is wine. The grapes on a score of rolling hills are red with autumn flame. Across Sonoma Mountain, wisps of sea fog are stealing. The afternoon sun smolders in the drowsy sky. I have everything to make me glad I am alive…”

Jack London Vineyards (Photo by Lance and Erin via Flickr)
Jack London Vineyards (Photo by Lance and Erin via Flickr)