Blind Tasting: Bordeaux Varietals Part 2

In a world...where all wine is served blind from paper bags...four friends are about to embark on a journey...that will change their lives forever.

If you re-read the above nonsense in your best movie-preview-guy voice, it sounds better. So maybe it wasn't quite that dramatic, but we had a lot of fun with the Bordeaux varietal blind tasting. We lost a few people, as it was the first truly cold night of winter in Brooklyn, and things just come up some times. So it was only Deetrane, Mike, BrooklynLady, and I who tasted 6 wines blind, made notes, and ranked them in the order of preference.

We didn't tell each other anything about the wines we brought - no one knew the full lineup of wines until after the bags came off. I had so much fun smelling and tasting the differences in these wines, grouping them by color or by aroma. It's silly to make generalizations because the wines were from all place, and from many vintages. Yet I noticed that many of the wines had an herbal minty-ness in the aromatic profile. In fact, I enjoyed the aromatics very much, more than the flavors in most cases.

We assigned five points for a 1st place vote, three points for 2nd place, and one point for 3rd. Here are the results of the voting:

First Place - 2003 Roxy Ann Winery Claret, Rogue Valley, Oregon $25: two 1st place votes, 1 2nd place vote = 13 points. A blend of 47% Merlot, 34% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 19% Cabernet Franc. This wine comes from south west Oregon. I have enjoyed this wine on many occasions, yet I was a little surprised that it won the tasting. My notes: Dark garnet color. Interesting nose of candied cherries and mint, some chocolate too. Silky velvet in the mouth, sweet fruit with nice acidity on the finish. Makes me think of chocolate cake. I put this wine in 2nd place.

Second Place - 2001 Sterling Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, Napa Valley $68: one 1st place vote, one 2nd place vote, one 3rd place vote = 9 points. A blend of about 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, and the rest Petit Verdot. This is an expensive wine, and I was curious to see how it would compare to the others. My notes: Herbs on the nose, expressive palate of eucalyptus and cassis, a little cedar on the finish. I liked this wine and picked it 3rd.

Third place - 2000 Jason's Vineyard Meritage, North Fork, Long Island, $13: one 1st place vote, one second place vote = 8 points. I really liked this wine when I tasted it a few weeks back, and I knew then that I would enter it into this tasting. My notes: lighter red than the others, more translucent. Huge nose of wild animal fur, some mint. Silky mouthfeel, complex flavors of cassis, cherries, and earth. The more I sipped and smelled, the more I liked it. I had this wine as my top wine of the tasting. And at 13 clams per bottle - you gotta be kidding me! Order it online if you have to (and if you like gamey Bordeaux style wine). I wonder...what would Lenn say about this wine?

Fourth place- 2001 Bodegas Caro (Barons de Rothschild / Catena), Mendoza, Argentina, $33: three 3rd place votes = 3 points. A blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Malbec, this wine is made in collaboration with Barons de Rothschild Lafite. My notes: dark purple, reserved nose of olives and dark fruit. Simple palate of dark fruit, with an interesting high toned finish of herbs. I found this to be an interesting wine, but I didn't like it enough to want bottles of my own.

Fifth place - 2004 Baron Philippe de Rothschild Mouton Cadet, Bordeaux, $7: one 2nd place vote = 3 points. The 3rd wine of Baron Philippe de Rothschild. My notes: Odd nose of candied orange peel, some mint. Reserved palate. Not my favorite, slightly bitter. For 7 bucks it's hard to complain, I guess, and I hear that as recently as 2003, this wine was really quite good.

Sixth place - 2003 Siverado Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, $34: no votes. This wine is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, and it is a 94 pointer in Wine Spadvocator. Mike suggested that the wine might simply need more time in the bottle. It was very reserved, and started to open up more after a while, but it never really took off for me. My notes: Dark purple. Reserved nose of dark fruit. Sweet sap , some black fruit flavor. Simple.

September Wine Dinner

Three months ago when my buddy Dee-trane and I were talking about how we wished for more opportunities to taste wine together, our monthly wine dinner was born. Last night was our third installment.

We served hors d'oeuves of farmers market smoked bluefish and creme fraiche on crackers, and home-made olive bread twists. I cracked open a bottle of NV Egly Ouriet Brut to go with the bluefish. I have never tasted this champagne, and after reading several good reviews from the last Wine Blogging Wednesday at the Becks & Posh blog, I decided to give it a go. It was deep golden yellow with strong aromas of bread, flowers, and something like golden raisins, and it was really fruity and powerful. People seemed to like it more than they liked the bluefish bites. Even though I sprinkled lemon zet on them and served them on my wife's beautiful blue enameled platter, they were barely half gone when we sat down to eat. People are clearly prejudiced against bluefish, and I, for one, think it stinks.

Our menu:

Fall root vegetable salad with mint and parsley pistou
Braised short ribs with herb salad and chestnut flour baguette
Shortbread with fresh whipped cream and raspberries

Mike (who couldn't be there at the last minute) and Jess brought a 2001 Morellino di Scansano from Moris Farms. This wine was just delicious, my favorite of the night. It was deep purple with well delineated smells and favors of plums, tobacco, and leathery earth. It had a smooth velvety texture too with very fine tannins. That said, it was a big wine and it was not a good pairing with the fall vegetable salad.

Dee-trane brought a 1999 Le Gode Brunello di Montalcino to pair with the shortribs. Now this is an $80 bottle of wine, and Dee-trane went through great lengths to get it (more on his story about buying stolen wine from the criminal ex-manager at Esca another time). But we all agreed - there just wasn't much happening for us with this wine. No fruit to speak of, nothing on the nose. Completely innocuous. Maybe a bad bottle or a dumb phase, but completely unimpressive.

Adam and Tyrie brought a 2002 Durigutti Reserve Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina. Everyone liked this wine, and why not? Dark purple and intense, scents of dark fruits, some vanilla, and some spice. Velvety texture, and a sweet, young fruitiness that complimented the rich shortribs.

I opened a 1996 Chateau Pierre-Bise Coteaux du Layon Chaume with dessert. I love Loire Valley sweet wines. They are complex with flavors of baked pineapples, creme brule and toffee, spices, citrus and honey, and they can have wonderful acidity and minerality too. This one was no exception - beautiful round flavors, scents of savory spices like mace, and a racy acidity that lingered on and on. For a great piece on Chateau Pierre-Bise check out thewinedoctor's.

Interesting wines and great company - what more could you ask for? I'll tell you what - no more bluefish.