A Command Performance

Now, I want to talk about Elderton Winery. Elderton is located in the Barossa Valley in Southeastern Australia. It is without question one of the finest wineries in all of Australia. Recently, actually last night, I guess that is recent, I was able to taste 16 wines from the Elderton Winery at Mario’s Place in Riverside. It ranks as one of the great wine dinners I have attended.

The dinner began with the Elderton Chardonnay as the aperitif wine. This wine was fruit forward with a crisp finish. This wine showed daps of minerality and apple fruit. A very nice way to start the dinner.

We then moved into a pairing of Shiraz and a couple of Cabernet, Shiraz Merlot blends. The 2005 Shiraz was an elegant wine. A mouth filling wine, with a great texture. The finish was long and very pleasing. The 2006 Shiraz was a bit more hedonistic. It is more in your face with ripe fruit.

We then had the 1999 CSM that stands for Cabernet, Shiraz and Merlot. The wine is called Ode to Lorraine. Lorraine is the mother of the current winemaker. As fate would have it this was either corked or oxidized. The worst part is this wine came from my cellar. Oh, the humanity!

The 2005 CSM was youthful, and complex. It had many layers of flavor and a very long finish. All of these wines had excellent finishes, a good sign for those who cellar wine. I really enjoyed this wine

Our next flight of wine was predominately Cabernet Sauvignon based wines.
This is a Shiraz Cabernet blend. This is a very typical blend in Australia but is not done too often state side. It had the sweet cherry fruit of a Shiraz as it crossed the tongue the black fruit nuances of cabernet dominated the finish.
The 2004 Estate Cabernet is lively and rich. It has some tobacco, sage and cedar elements on the palate. It has a long and pleasing finish. This is really a first class cab. The grapes come from 45 year old vines.

As good as the 2004 Estate Cabernet was the 2006 Ashmead Cabernet is spectacular! This is mammoth wine, yet not a tannic wine. The fruit flavors just want burst from this wine. The vines for this single vineyard wine were planted in 1944. If you like big, bold Cabernets, you will love this wine.

The last flight was the Command Shiraz. The Command is one of the great wines of Australia. If you go to Australia they talk about their Iconic wines. They would be Penfolds Grange, Henschke Hill of Grace, Jim Barry the Armgh and Eldertons Command. These are wines with a track record of greatness. This group of wines did not let us down.

We began with the 1997, a beautifully balanced wine. Delicious, ripe berry fruit slip across the palate and a cranberry flavor sneaks up in the finish. Next up was the 1999 vintage; this wine was chosen by a few as their favorite. It was a little more complex than the 1997. It did offer many of the same fruit flavors. The 2000 was a bit different in the nose then many of the other Command wines. It had notes of bacon and roasted meat, very Rhone in style. The 2002 offered some notes of sage and coriander. It had a rich berry fruit flavor on the finish. The 2004 was another outstanding wine in a group of stellar wines. It had layers of flavors, a touch of smoke and that long lasting finish. The 2005 is the current release of the Command Shiraz. It is a humongous wine. Rich and deep in flavor and a long lasting finish. It is rare to have a wine so young and structured but still eminently drinkable. In ten years this may turn out to be the best Command.

One member of our dinner party said the group of Command wines was the best group of wines he has ever drunk.

With our dessert we had the Botrytis Semillon from 2003 and 2007. I admit I have a sweet tooth. In my cellar I have more than my fill of sweet wines, actually the 2003 came from my cellar, and theses two hit the spot. A delicious finish to an amazing dinner.

Value

This may a good time to write a little bit about value. Our present economic condition is making many of us rethinking our wine purchases. What is a value wine? Is it just a cheap wine? I don’t think so. I have had many $5 bottles of wine, that I thought were worth ….$5. There was no value in many of these wines. For me a value wine is one that delivers more taste then the price would dictate. I have a few wineries that I think offer good value.

Bogle Vineyards are considered one of the best value brands in the market. Don’t take my word, the Wall Street Journal, Wine Spectator and the Wine Advocate, all have proclaimed Bogle as a great value brand. Bogle produces a Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet and an Old Vines Zinfandel. The latest addition to the Bogle line is a Riesling. This is an intensely fruity wine, with just a kiss of sweetness on the finish. The Bogle wines are all around the $10 price point. I would compare these wines to other brands priced in the $20 range.

Another winery, I think gives good value is Rutherford Ranch. Rutherford Ranch is a Napa Valley producer. There is not a lot of value that comes out of Napa Valley. There is a lot of ego that keeps prices high. Rutherford Ranch has been in the grape business for 70 years. They are not concerned about putting their name on the bottle. They are concerned about putting good wine in the bottle and charging a good price for the wine. Rutherford Ranch wines are in the $12 - $18 a bottle. Their Napa Valley Cabernet is a particularly delicious wine. They also produce a Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Merlot and Zinfandel, all well worth the price.

I think you cannot go wrong with either one of these brands. You will fine quality in these wines that you would normally find in wines double the price.
Now go try them!

In the last few weeks I have had several wine tastings with my friends. It has made me realize how important wine has been in my life. Almost every one of my friends, became my friends, do to our mutual interest in wine. These friends come from many different backgrounds. If not for our interest in wine, our paths might never have crossed. That would have been sad.

As many of you know I have a Pinot Noir club. We started in 2001. The plan was to have a group gather and discuss wine. We would try to form a lexicon on wine. This way we would know what each other was saying, when we described what we tasted. Well, eight years later we still don’t know what the other guy is talking about. But you know, it does not matter. What has happened is a bunch of guys have become good friends. These friends get together monthly; we laugh and tease each other unmercifully. Most of the time is spent talking about things other than wine.

When I think about it, I would not want it any other way.

I have been hearing from several sources how good the 2007 vintage was in Spain. They are calling it the best in 30 years. I always take this with a grain of salt. Wine makers tend to be in love with their latest vintage. Then the wines started to come in and the fact is, they are delicious.


One of the tasty ones I have had is Nekeas El Chapparral Grenache. This wine comes from the Jumilla region of Spain. This wine has a bright ruby color. It has an extremely rich nose with wisps of black raspberry, plum and flowers. You call this wine juicy, with a hint of pepper on the palate. The wine finishes with red and dark berry flavors. If you like big, bold, red wines you will love this wine.

So, you are going to order a pizza tonight and you want a wine to go with it. What is a good pizza wine? It is a red wine, with a nice fruity character (we all now people like this, but I am talking about wine). You want a little bit of tannins and a little bit of acidity; these factors will let the flavor of the wine cut through to the palate. You also are having pizza, not exactly breaking the bank on dinner, so obviously you don’t want to spend a fortune on the wine.

Anyway, here are a couple of choices. First up, is Rutherford Ranch Zinfandel, this is a quintessential pizza wine. Zinfandel has a cherry/berry flavor profile. The Rutherford Ranch is a well rounded, even supple wine, but there is enough oomph (oomph is a technical wine term) to it, so it can stand up to a pepperoni pizza. Track it down should cost you about $15 bucks.


Another winner is the Bogle Petite Syrah. The Bogle wines have always been a favorite of mine. The wines are full and fruity (you expect me to make a crack here don’t you?) and the prices are great. The Petite Syrah is no different, it begins with a raspberry character then segues (segues for those who are products of the California school system, means to move into or through) (now calm down, this is just a crack at a good friend who is a teacher. I know he gets this e-mail, so I am just having a little fun) (Of course I know other teachers get this e-mail so I guess there goes those sales) into a rich texture and smooth and pleasing finish. This wine will go down easy. And priced at around ten bucks it will be easy on the wallet. It is probably cheaper then your pizza!

Cheaper will be very good in 2009!

A quick blog.

I had the Star Lane wines. They are the best line of Bordeaux varietals I have had from the Central Coast. These are rich multi layered wines. The Merlot is outstanding. Yes, I said a Central Coast Merlot was outstanding. Star Lanes wines come from Happy Canyon in Santa Ynez.

Find them, try them, and thank me.

Wine and Physics

Physics and wine are not often in the same blog. This is an exception. When I go on vacation, I try to bring a book that will tax my mind. I am vacationing this week and my book is “The Black Hole Wars, or how my battle with Stephen Hawking made the world safe for Quantum Mechanics.” It was written by Leonard Susskind.

One of the building blocks of Quantum Mechanics is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The gist of the principle is that by observing something you change it. So, even though you think you have devised an experiment that covers all the variables, you can never be sure of the outcome. Everything must be rated in probability not definitive results.

Now what does this have to do with wine? As I was studying this Principal, I thought of wine evaluation. I wish I could tell you I was pondering a fine wine when it came to me, but I was drinking a Daiquiri by a pool. Besides that incongruity, I thought of how often, someone has told me what I should think about a certain wine. I may say the color is purple and another may correct me and say “no it is garnet”. We in the wine business make it a habit of judging wine and telling you what to think. This gets in the way of peoples enjoyment of wine.

By applying Quantum Mechanics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, we can say that a wine is not necessarily what the expert says it is. Another quirk of Quantum Mechanics is that things can be in two states at the same time, such as light i.e. waves and photons. So you both can be right at the same time.

So, the next time someone tells you are wrong about a wine, tell them to bone up on their Quantum Mechanics