Monthly Archives: March 2009

I’m on record as saying Rhone Rangers is the best annual wine event going, and once again the event failed to disappoint. Yes, it was smaller than last year — as you’d expect given the economy — with both the number of wineries and attendees obviously down a bit. (Prices, curiously, have not fallen.) Still, there was plenty of wine to go around — far more than one man could experience in the roughly three hours I spent on the floor — and most of it very good.

Most wineries were pouring from the 2006 vintage, but I saw everything from 2003 to 2008 barrel samples being poured. Overall thoughts: It’s a very good year, but quality is going to vary widely based on the producer and, more importantly, the location of the vineyard.

Visited some old friends. Olson Ogden didn’t disappoint: though its 2006 Unti Vineyard wasn’t showing as well today, its just-bottled 2007 Unti was a highlight of the show (and an amazing value). Four Vines didn’t bring its Amador County Syrah this year, but I greatly enjoyed the company’s other single-vineyard syrahs from One Tree Hill and Killer Canyon. And as usual, Peay’s La Bruma was a standout, though I like the Les Titans less this year.

Also made some new wine friends this year, with L’Aventure, Saddleback, and Skylark making strong impressions with ripe, fruit-forward syrahs and Rhone-style blends.

My detailed notes are lacking, but I tried to make up for that with volume, hitting 45 different bottlings this year. Full report follows!

Rhone Rangers 2009 Complete Report

2005 Bink Wines Hawks Butte Vineyard / $32.00 / B+
2006 Eric Kent Wine Cellars Syrah “Kalen’s Big Boy Blend,” Sonoma County / $42.00 / A-
2006 Eric Kent Wine Cellars Syrah Dry Stack Vineyard, Bennett Valley / $40.00 / A-
2006 Four Vines Syrah One Tree Hill Block, Los Alamos Vyd, Santa Barbara / $40.00 / A
2006 Four Vines Syrah Killer Canyon Vineyard, Paso Robles / $40.00 / A
2006 Four Vines Red Blend “Peasant” / $40.00 / A-
2006 Four Vines Red Blend “Anarchy” / $40.00 / B+
2006 Four Vines Petite Sirah “The Heretic” / $40.00 / B
2006 Four Vines Tempranillo “Loco” / $NA / B+
2006 Harrison Clarke Syrah “Cuvee Charlotte” / $55.00 / B+
2006 Justin Syrah / $26.00 / A-
2006 Justin Red Blend Savant / $45.00 / B
2006 L’Aventure Winery “Cote a Cote” Estate Red Blend, Paso Robles / $85.00 / A
2006 L’Aventure Winery Red Blend, Estate Cuvee, Paso Robles / $85.00 / B+
2006 Olson Ogden Wines Sonoma and Napa Syrah / $28.00 / A-
2006 Olson Ogden Wines Unti Vineyard Syrah / $38.00 / B+
2006 Olson Ogden Wines Stagecoach Vineyard Syrah / $52.00 / A
2007 Olson Ogden Wines Sonoma and Napa Syrah / $NA / B+
2007 Olson Ogden Wines Unti Vineyard Syrah / $NA / A
2007 Olson Ogden Wines Stagecoach Vineyard Syrah / $NA / A-
2007 Outpost Wines Grenache / $40.00 / A-
2006 Outpost Wines Petite Sirah “The Other” / $NA / B
2004 Palmeri Syrah Mountain Fruit / $53.00 / A-
2004 Palmeri Syrah Stagecoach Vineyard / $53.00 / A-
2005 Palmeri Syrah Stagecoach Vineyard / $53.00 / B
2004 Palmeri Syrah Van Ness Vineyard / $53.00 / A-
2005 Palmeri Syrah Van Ness Vineyard / $53.00 / B
2006 Peay Syrah La Bruma Estate / $45.00 / A
2006 Peay Syrah Les Titans Estate / $45.00 / B+
2006 Joseph Phelps Le Mistral / $45.00 / A-
2006 Prospect 772 Wine Company Syrah “The Brawler” / $36.00 / A-
2006 Prospect 772 Wine Company Red Blend “The Brat” / $36.00 / B+
2007 Saddleback Cellars Viognier Clarksburg / $23.00 / B
2006 Saddleback Cellars Syrah Carneros / $45.00 / A
2007 Skylark Wine Co. Red Blend “Red Belly” / $20.00 / B
2007 Skylark Wine Co. Red Blend “Les Aves” / $29.00 / B+
2006 Skylark Wine Co. Syrah Unti Vineyard Dry Creek Valley / $26.00 / B-
2006 Skylark Wine Co. Grenache / $NA / B+
2007 Skylark Wine Co. Syrah Rodgers Creek Vineyard / $NA / A-
2007 Skylark Wine Co. Syrah Stagecoach Vineyard / $NA / A-
2008 Villa Creek Cellars White Blend / $24.00 / B
2006 Villa Creek Cellars Red Blend “High Road” James Berry Vineyard / $60.00 / A-
2005 Zaca Mesa Winery Syrah Estate Santa Ynez Valley / $22.00 / B
2006 Zaca Mesa Winery Red Blend “Z Cuvee” Estate / $20.00 / B
2005 Zaca Mesa Winery Red Blend “Z Three” Estate / $40.00 / B+

One day it’s a B-, a week later it’s a solid A.

Rating wine, spirits, and just about anything else is a dicey affair, and assigning consistent scores day in and day out is nearly impossible. That’s not just anecdotally true, the science backs it up:

A four-year study published last week in the Journal of Wine Economics revealed that only 10 per cent of judges were able to consistently give the same rating, or something very close, to the identical wine sampled multiple times in a large blind tasting.

And frankly, those 10 percent were probably just lucky.

Julianna Hayes writes about how difficult it is to remain objective and consistent when tasting wine — sometimes 100 wines in a sitting — how the tastebuds get tired, how you grow weary of the process, and (I’d add) even if you’re spitting, alcohol can take its toll.

I find invariably that the first wines of a tasting never taste that good to me, as my palate needs warming up. I now start out at wine events with something I’m not all that interested in or that I already know fairly well.

Bottom line: Tasting all this stuff is a tough job, really it is… but someone’s got to do it, right?

Spent some of the afternoon tasting “today’s Bordeaux,” which it turns out is a lot like yesterday’s Bordeaux, only cheaper.

Hit hard by the worldwide recession, the days of $1000 bottles of Bordeaux are rapidly coming to an end. And while the first growth chateaux still command hefty prices (just not quite as hefty as before), the guys at the bottom of the scale are getting squeezed even harder. Today’s Bordeaux featured only bottles of wine costing $35 and under… which is primarily names you’ve never heard of.

Since the vintages poured here (100 were available, I tried just 15 to get a sampling… and, this is St. Patrick’s Day after all… gotta keep something in reserve) are all over the map, it’s hard to draw any broad conclusions. Generally, though, I preferred the older vintages, which had softened up a bit. The younger stuff was old-school, textbook Bordeaux — thick, inky, tannic, and dusty, full of the earth and far too new to drink. Across the board, I preferred these wines with food — a bite of cheese will do just fine. They need a touch of fat to cut through all that tannin.

Some favorites: Ch. de Suduiraut’s second-label Sauternes, a $23 Castelanau de Suduiraut (2003), which I could drink all day and night. Among dry wines, Ch. La Fleur Bibian’s $15 Listrac-Medoc (2005) is an amazing value, a lighter, easygoing red, and the well-balanced 2003 Ch. Yon Saint Martin. At all of $30, it’s one of the pricier wines I tried.

Full report follows.

Today’s Bordeaux Tasting Report

2003 Castelanau de Suduiraut Sauternes $23 / A-
2005 Château Clarke Listrac-Médoc $28-$30 / B
2006 Château d’Agassac Haut-Médoc $30 / B-
2005 Château La Fleur Bibian Listrac-Médoc $15 / A-
2004 Château Greysac Médoc $15 / B+
2006 Château Haut Vigneau Pessac-Léognan $22 / B-
2005 Château Jean Faux Bordeaux $23 / B
2004 Château La Chapelle de Lafaurie-Peyraguey Sauternes $NA / B+
2004 Château Larose-Trintaudon Haut-Médoc $18-$20 / C+
2005 Château Lestrille Capmartin Bordeaux Supérieur $23 / B-
2005 Château Leydet-Valentin Bordeaux Supérieur $23 / B+
2006 Château Magnol Haut-Médoc $25 / B+
2003 Château Reignac Bordeaux Supérieur $35 / B-
2005 Château Trimoulet Saint-Emilion Grand Cru $35 / B+
2003 Château Yon Saint Martin Saint-Emilion Grand Cru $30 / A-