I’ve noticed many times on taking my recycling to my floor’s trash room, that nearly everything in the recycling bin is beer bottles, wine bottles, and liquor bottles. And they aren’t all mine.
Tag Archive for 'wine'
This week for our Cabernet Sauvignon wine tasting, we had our largest group of people and our biggest selection of wine. Regions represented were California, Chile, France, Italy, South Africa, and Australia. We had a difficult time finding any wines outside the $8-$13 range.
For the evening, our hobo bag theme was lackluster blockbusters, or blockblunders, or just plain crappy box office hits: Titanic, Wild Wild West, Speed 2, Men in Black, Armageddon, The Phantom Menace, Waterworld, and Pearl Harbor.
We discovered that in general, Cabernet was a lighter, fruitier red wine, and ranged from extremely dry to nearly dessert wine sweet. In several wines, the alcohol taste came through rather obnoxiously.
Last place went to a $14 bottle of Avalon from Sonoma, California, 2004. In a near-tie for last place was a $9 bottle of Bolla from Italy, 2006. A few weeks ago, Bolla won first place for Chianti.
A $13 1-liter box of French Rabbit from France got second place. It was very sweet and light, but easy to drink and approachable. It had flavors of honey and strawberry.
When we pulled the first place winner out of the brown paper bag, the room was full of gasps and groans as we learned that it was Yellow Tail, Australia, 2007, $6.50. Much to our dismay, its rich christmas-like flavors of vanilla, licorice and cloves earned it the highest score we have given to any of the twenty-seven bottles we have tasted so far.
For dinner I made Emeril’s recipe for ratatouille as well as sage roasted potatoes. David made a dessert with poached meringue floated on a martini glass of custard and garnished with a wafer of caramel.
If we learned anything that night, it’s that consuming food at unnatural speeds and set to music is hysterical.
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- Casa Lapostolle, Chile, $14
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- Bolla, Italy, 2006, $9
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- Justin, Paso Robles CA, 2004, $33
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- French Rabbit, Orange France, 2004, $13/1L
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- Our hobo bags, used to hide the labels.
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- Yellow Tail, Southeastern Australia, 2007, $6.50, the unexpected winner of the pack
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- Avalon, Sonoma CA, 2004, $14
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- Lindemans, South Africa, 2004, $9
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- Yalumba, Southern Australia, 2004, $13
This past Sunday our wine tasting was Shiraz (also known as Syrah). We went in with low hopes, but came out pleasantly surprised.
All the Shiraz(es?), even the lowest rated, still scored higher than any other class of wine we had before: Chianti, Zinfandel, and Merlot. The biggest surprise was that the box wine (which was classily strapped to the rack on the back of my bike for the trip home) scored the highest! Coming in at an extremely close second was the $45 bottle from Australia.
From my research, it appears that shiraz pairs well with spicy foods such as Mexican, Cajun, and barbecue. So some of our visitors prepared beans and enchiladas. For dessert, David made flan that turned out amazing!
Next week: Cabernet
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- Black Box, Central Coast CA, $22 box (equivalent to $5.50 per bottle)
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- Bridlewood, Central Coast CA, 2003, $35
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- Leasingham, Australia, 2005, $45
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- Tall Horse, South Africa, 2004, $8
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- Our hobo bags, used to disguise the wine
The results are in: Chianti was a bust. And our blind taste tests showed that the $8 bottle of 2000 Bolla Chianti was our favorite, while the $44 bottle of Tenute Marchese Antinori Chianti Classico was barely drinkable. A rather common taste that kept coming up was latex glove. I’m pretty sure that’s not a desirable attribute. Pretty sure.
For dinner we had pizza with homemade crust, fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese, and ridiculous amounts of fresh basil. For dessert David made zabaglione with fresh fruit.
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- Angelicus, 2005, $15
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- Da Vinci, 2005, $22
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- Bolla, 2008, $8: The clear winner! (not to mention the cheapest)
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- Nozzole Chianti Classico, 2004, $28: runner-up for last place
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- Tenute Marchese Antinori Chianti Classico, 2000, $44: The loser and most expensive
Last weekend, we took a break from wines to do beers. We chose stout, sometimes interchanged with porter. We had Irish, oatmeal, imperial and chocolate. No one was able to meet my request to find a milk stout or an oyster stout. Because it was a night of pretty much just frozen pizzas, mashed potatoes deep fried into smiley faces, a few tequila cocktails, Alien, and Walk Hard, we didn’t stick to our rigid whole-number-only rating system. Instead, we only remember that Trader Joe’s has an AMAZING double (or was it triple?) chocolate stout, and that Guinness in a can was the least favorite. But it was beer, so it was drinkable.
So I’m a little late with posting our review of red Zinfandel. About two weeks late.
Zinfandel is grown world-wide, but the vast majority of Zinfandel available in the US is from California. As a matter of fact, we were unable to find anything outside of California to taste. Also difficult to find was any bottle over $20. It pairs well with barbecue and spicy food, so I made Emeril’s vegetarian chili.
We had five bottles, and not one scored well. The more we drank, the more we realized that Zinfandel did not sit well with us. They reminded us of the Argentinean wine from the previous week. The tastes were all tar, petroleum, and dirty socks.
At least the chili was a hit.
Last night several of my friends got together for the first in a series of wine tastings that will span the next several weeks. Each week we focus on a particular type of wine. No, wait, let me work on my oenological terminology: each week we focus on a particular wine varietal. Each person brings one bottle. We try to coordinate so we get wines from different countries and for different prices.
Last night was merlot, a grape native to France, but grown virtually worldwide. We served it with fresh red sauce on linguini, with an assortment of French-seasoned olives and robusto cheese, stella gorgonzola, and brie. For dessert David made chocolate mousse with whipped cream, shaved dark chocolate, and orange zest.
Our least favorite was Trumpeter from Argentina, for $10, which was complex in a rotting chocolate sort of way. Coming in at nearly the same score was a $22 bottle of Château Marcadis from France which tasted as though it was aged in green wood barrels. Third place went to an $11 bottle from France called Red Bicyclette. While unremarkable, it would work well with a simple meal such as spaghetti. The light petroleum finish wasn’t enough for any of us to not consider this wine again considering its price class. In second place was Kendall-Jackson from California for $24. And first place goes to a 1997 Philippe Lorraine from California, $35. It was by far the most complex and interesting wine. Not that the taste was complex at any given point, but the taste always seemed to vary from sip to sip, with new flavors coming out throughout the glass.
Next week: Zinfandel.
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