No Wine Over $20-Reviews and the LA Wine Scene

Sea glass is ocean borne detritus. Pieces of broken bottles wash onto beaches after years (decades?) tumbling around on the ocean floor. Low tide is the time to look. Pieces wash up everywhere. Many LA beaches are fine targets. We have so much trash and so many boaters. Some artists and craftspeople make sea glass jewelry. Seaside towns usually have a sea glass jeweler. When I visit Paso I like to stay in Cambria for this reason. The idea of sea glass is probably cooler than the stuff itself. Something found that was not even lost but tossed or kicked away can be romantic. Something without any value, even a pollutant, that can be valued if convention is set aside, can at least inspire curiosity.

Here are three wines that share some of these qualities. A couple are waiting to be found. At least one has been lost to what is conventional. I would be surprised (even disappointed) if any was rated above 90 points.

2006 Bugey Maison Angelot Gamay $9: A Charles Neal selection. This is the Boogie wine. From the cheap plastic "foil cap" to the half-size plastic cork, this wine is everything great about the importer and the kind of wine every wine drinker should put in the rotation. Call it "plain folk wine", people's wine" or "farmer's wine". It is wine the way wine was made before wine became a lifestyle. First taste is off-putting the wine is so rustic. Where is the polish of oak and soft malolactic? Fresh cherry and tomato (but not cherry tomato) flavors. Naive, fresh but not youthful. The second glass shows what is going on here. Nothing fancy. Just delicious. I have to get that Best of Wine Importers Part 2 post up.

2002 Pipestone Rhone Style Red $U20: There is no confusing what Jeff Pipestone is trying to do here; 40% syrah, 30% grenache noir, and 30% mourverdre. This is his Rhone blend. Tastes pretty good. Rich fruit flavors. "Co-fermented", now isn't that interesting! Tastes more fresh than 5 years old. Dark cherry fruit. Not noticeably tannic. Nice effort. This is the American Pastoral because the Pipestone team (Jeff and Florence) live in the most idyllic setting on the Paso Westside. If you have a chance you should visit.

2002 Boyer-Martenot Mersault "Le Pre de Manche" $25: Barrel-selected by North Berkeley Imports. Citrus, orange-like, even peachy flavors. Just enough oak to make it interesting. Very good acid spine. Very nice wine. North Berkeley, like Kermit Lynch, has a wonderful selection of their own blends form Burgundy producers who, I guess, find the practice worthwhile. Hard to imagine Rolls Royce collaborating with a team of Russian engineers who want to produce their own RR vehicle.

2002 Etude Carneros Pinot Noir $40 (at the right online store):
How good was this wine? Had it with a friend over dinner. He likes wine well enough to know what he likes but not enough to know what he is drinking. All wine-o-files have pals fitting this profile. He loved it from the first sniff to the last drop. This is the latest event in my developing pursuit to become more familiar with Carneros pinots. Not sure how this got in my cellar so I guess I am lucky it was there. This bottle will still take age. Smoky slightly briny character. Very nicely balanced. Great pinot fruit more cherry than otherwsie but the smoke - in balance- was strongest note for me. Medium weight. Lovely. Etude has an especially elegant label that is reminiscent of Leroy.

The tBoW tasting team returned to Carneros for the post-Thanksgiving-day wine sojourn. It's a family tradition, y'know. This year it was me, the missus and Aunt Betsy with the naughty clogs. The regional choice was Livermore or Carneros. Much as I would like to visit another California wine region...with McKenzie-Mueller (M-M) beckoning the choice was easier than a Trojan win over the Bruins.

The wines reviewed below were purchased in Berkeley at North Berkeley Wines (NBW), Kermit Lynch or in Carneros. North Berkeley Wine offers a strong selection of Verget wines. Verget is a negociant who buys juice and produces only white Burgundy wines. Quality is high and pricing is very fair. Classic NBW selection. If I am going to visit the Bay Area then I am going to visit Kermit and NB wine merchants. They are covered plenty on this blog as they are in this post. However, I am not going to review M-M since I did a few weeks past. I will say once more that Bob and Karen M-M are expert hosts, and Bob makes absolutely wonderful wines. Do not overlook Carneros next time in Napa. We tasted on Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day, T-Day, and the day after.

Another family tradition is making sure everyone at the turrkey table learns how to taste and enjoy wine. So the tasting can become a descriptive free-for-all which is reflected in some of the notes.

The good news is every wine (except the Adastra) is a U20.

2004 Verget Saint Bris $U20: Recommended by John at NBW. Sauvignon blanc from Burgundy! On the nose we get oak and green apple. On the tongue and in the mouth sour kiwi lime and lemon. Some green bean and cucumber. You taste the coolness. On the finish I thought of the tennis-ball sized rough skinned crab apples I ate as a kid. Here is a link to a wine/travel blog that covers St Bris. Recommended surfing.

2004 Verget Bourgogne "Grand Elevage" $U20: Green gold color. Sold as "de-classified Mersault" which is always a good pitch when dealing with the Duke and Dauphin. We never ask the obvious question - why was it de-classified? Is the war over? Did somebody important die? Was a handful of radical vintners granted amnesty? While we pondered these question we waited for the wine to open up. As might be expected from a young premium white burg this took hours. The first sniff and taste was oaky, soapy, tannic, even musty. Aunty B mentioned cow pie and she would know (Michigander farm girl). A couple hours later when the tasters were also a bit more friendly they suggested sandalwood, currant berry blossom and scented candle. 13%. NBW

2003 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre $U20: Another sauvignon blanc. Green gold color (even though it has enough years to turn yellow). Nose is lime, mineral, acid, bright. Flavors are sweet and fruity apple. Honeysuckle and hydrangia. Flavors are green, earthy, oak. Distinctive taste with waxy cheese and peach stone.

2004 Vincent Dureil-Janthial Bourgogne Passetoutgrains $U20: Are you ready for a red gamay pinot noir blend? Dave Corey of Core Wines (a Santa Barbara/Paso Rhone guy) always got a chuckle from me when he described pinot as a nice blending grape. Well, Mr. Corey must have known that Passetoutgrains is a traditional field blend in Burgundy of the two grapes. So now we know it too. Raspberry flambe' and smoky chocolate on the nose. The gamay is quite noticeable. Liked it plenty. My choice with the bird. NBW.

2005 Chateau du Trignon Cotes du Rhone $U20: This was excellent red village Rhone. Color is purple. Nose is sweet, doughy, dusty, with pepper. Tannic, strawberry-kiwi jam. The strawberry-kiwi is there in teh mouth. Medium weight, slight tannins. Grenache fruit prevails. Turns to granny apple cider after a couple hours. Bold effort and terrific wine. 14%. Kermit.

Here is an article that describes this particular wine as well as asks the question why are there not more wines like this one made in California. Good question.

After visiting at M-M we walked across the street and said hello to the vineyard manager at Adastra. A retired physician and family run this tiny 1500 case operation in wine country. Blippin hot winemaker Pam Starr is the highly touted "soil translator" (read her October 07 interview here). We tasted five wines and purchased two. The style is high-tone rustic. Well-made wines that are balanced but show minimum handling. If you can visit you should. I have posted a couple of photos FYI.

Adastra 2006 Syrah $56: Syrah production in Carneros is small so we were quite interested in tasting this one. This is the winery price, of course, which is 100% retail. But at ~150 cases where would one find it anyway? Very fruity reminiscent of Santa Rita Hills with more lean fruit. Cold weather fruit. Not plump. 16% alcohol! When I mentioned our host said we would not have known without looking. He was right. 100 cases.

2005 Pinot Reserve Proximus $36: Ripe style, rustic, not melded. Tannins floating like particles. Just a visual, not actually. All good components. 200 cases. 14.5%.

The Adastra wines need to lay down awhile. These are the kinds of bottles I pull from the cellar in five years. I know I will be pleasantly surprised recalling the 40 minutes memorably spent there. And I bet I will say this is pretty good.

A bonus wine...I discovered this in my cellar and have been opening and enjoying it the past month.

2002 Beckmen Cuvee le Bec ~$14: Current release is the 2005. The blend is classic Rhone style. In this vintage it is almost half Grenache, one quarter Mourverdre and one-fifth Syrah and 10% Counoise. The 2005 blend is 52% Grenache, 34% Syrah, 8% Mourvedre, and 5% Counoise. I prefer Grenache and Mourverdre to Syrah so the blend suits me fine. I find California syrah to be ripe and fruity. Domestic grenache seems more restrained and earthy without sacrificing fruit. Mourverdre provides the bold meat flavors I like in Rhone wines. This blend after 5 years in the bottle and three in my cellar is quite presentable. Soft, tannins have blended in. More fruit than pepper and earth. The wine is perfect for any evening and almost any meal. By the way, this blend is featured in that SF Chronicle article (above) as proof that a good tasting well-priced Rhone blend can be made in California.

I have declared (or as we used to say in shrink-talk "I own") my pretentiously snobby preference for SF dining with it's vastly superior wine lists and the wonderful way that wait staff manage to be "laid back" (dood) while at the same time attentive to a fault. This does not mean LA does not have restaurants worth the $$ and the time (recently Brentwood Grill gave fine dine). First you must purge the idea that "fine dining" can be found in the ubiquitous steak houses where the fat in the Cut is exceeded by the fat in the check. I mentioned Lou in an earlier entry which is more about wine than food. Then there is Campanile.

Here is a great LA dining establishment with a decades-long track record to justify the reputation.
The wine list is what can be expected from a fine LA restaurant with a top-notch sommelier. The wine list is comprehensive covering m-a-n-y regions. And it has value wines. Most importantly, you can get the sensibility in the selections. In a word, quality comes first. Jay Perrin is the man; think the love child of Michael Caine and Angela Lansbury. Charming, wine smart to a fault, engaging and peripatetic. Our waiter was even tempered with Ichabod Crane's looks and Hannibal Lecter's savois faire. He was also charming. It's LA. Everyone is in the business in some way.

The restaurant was two-thirds full on Saturday night peak hours. Writers' strike hanging heavy over deal makers' hunting grounds. We drank one supreme Rhone followed by a very nice California Rhone-style wine. Like Campanile, both are well-established "brands" receiving widening consideration from wine drinkers in LA. Here is what we drank.

1998 Rostaing Cote Rotie La Landonne (>U20, way over): Our hosts' first encounter with this wine. To put it on a scale more readily grasped I described it as Mouton of the Rhone. Status always comes first in LA. And the wine held up flavor-wise. Truthfully, I finished my two glasses before the wine opened. It was that stupefyingly good. I cannot even describe the flavors. The weight was medium bodied, the nose aromatic (spice? earth? what???). The color was not very brick-ish. If you must read about this wine (I think you should) then click here and read what Robert Parker had to say about this wine in a 2006 vertical tasting of Rostaing Cote Rotie wines. Thank goodness I have a couple more bottles left. If a ton of dough suddenly fell in my lap and I could buy any wine it would be La Landonne. Not a top end burgundy, red or white. La Landonne.

2004 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel $65 on the list: We guzzled the Rostaing so fast a second wine was called for. My criteria for selecting off the wine list were quickly met: the wine will be decent; the price does not exceed 100% markup; if it is a blend, it is not silly (e.g., zin with syrah). Tablas Creek is my favorite domestic winery in terms of excellence in winemaking across the board. I may favor other wineries for certain products but TC is the current Lou Gehrig of wineries. The Esprit red is their top Rhone blend, their supreme "mark". The wine was probably released around $40. It did not disappoint. Still young with high toned fruit, acid, soft if firm tannins. Lovely nose. Did very well with the entrees (two sliced prime ribs - 10 oz, lamb chops and a reasonably sized New York steak).

Take heed Mastros! Campanile is to LA dining what TC is to California Rhone houses. Best in breed, sensible all round, engaging, smart. Most importantly, sleep that night was undisturbed. In a few words Rhone blows away Bordeaux, and Campanile blows away Mastros.

Whatever happened to Oasis?

Holidays at the end of the year are a great time for going into the wine cellar (collection, closet) and picking out stuff you forgot about or have been holding onto for a special occasion. Enter St. Nick (yourself) and the merry elves (your wine tasting pals).

This season I have already busted out four cellar finds.

2003 Clautiere Estate Syrah ~$24/19 (retail/club price): I am in the wine club, happily. However, if it came down to a choice between Clautiere and Tablas Creek... And if the choice was Pipestone or Clautiere... That would be tougher. This wine is very ripe on the nose and in the mouth. Made me think of black cherry cream soda. Not my style but might be yours. If you love a rich and ripe wine that is without overwhelming tannins and moderate alcohol (14.3%) then this is a winner.

2003 Linne Calodo Slacker $50: I am quite fond of the Rhone style blends from Linne Caoldo. I drank this wine recently along with the next wine below. We had it at Brentwood Restaurant on LA's Westside near Barrington Circle (posh baby). I poured a glass of each for the maitre'd. He liked the first one but he loved this one. The blend in this vintage is 68% syrah, 22% grenache and 10% mourverdre. While I think I prefer grenache as the dominant grape in these blends I am proven wrong again with this concoction. I found it online for $39 which is very tempting. Alcohol is 15% which is typical for Paso. The wine is elegant, full bodied, muscular, even muscle-bound. Game-y, almost feral. Syrah dominant blends are often too jammy for me. I prefer meatier flavors in Rhone style wines. Think Punk on I Love New York. Not Buddha who is lean. Even with all the stuffing his wine is in balance. No-wut-im-sayn?

1997 Windward Pinot Noir ~$30: I subscribed to this winery for four or five years (repeating myself here). I have a stash I have worked through. I stopped subscribing because the region is too hot for pinot noir. Sometimes, I do come across a bottle that does not remind me of creamy tomato soup. This vintage has the typical over-ripe fruit without much backbone. However, it is nicely balanced and on this evening was nice to drink with a light pasta meal. 14.4%.

1996 Alessandria Barolo ~$50: I am sitting on a few 1996 Baroli. I was extremely fortunate to taste a bunch of 96 Baroli in the cellar of Domenico Clerico in 2000. What? You say no way? This is truth. Check out the photo! The 1996 vintage was really terrific. However, even though I do love to drop the line about tasting with Domenico Clerico (oops I did it again) I no longer buy Barolo wines. Too expensive and they take a really long time to come around to perfection. These have to be the fussiest wines in the world. When they are perfectly aged they are incomparable. But, hitting the right moment in the wine's life is like trying to catch a hummingbird bare-handed. If you do you may wish you had not. This wine has softened, somewhat. However, there is still a tannic spine. It did not fade over a couple hours. The wine got neither more tannic, i.e., fruit fading, nor did the tar and roses emerge. Please note this is not the regular label which is a vanilla color. This is the label for their single vineyard. So, as often happens with Baroli...and picking market bottoms...you just can't be sure what did take place.

Here is how we tasted the 1996 vintage in Clerico's winery. Could this ever happen again? I diverted two nights and three days of a family tour of Italy to Piemonte. We stayed at Da Felicin which was a great find and has already been described on this blog. We had some tasting plans in advance with Rinaldi and Ciabot Berton. The Rinaldi wines were undrinkable. He uses the mega Slovenian oak barrels and the wines were very backwards. The next day we drove a few kms down the hill from Monforte to Clerico's winery. No introduction. Cold call. Yours truly, the missus and two budding tasters. The winery was modern but nothing fancy. The etched glass doors were the most prominent statement to the Mondavi-wine-lifestyle. It turned out that Clerico is a local resource to many winemakers, especially the new guard, i.e., those winemakers aging their nebbiolo in barriques instead of Slovenian oak barrels or cement vats. He was a local heretic. What a nice guy! He had bottle samples of the 1996 vintage which he poured generously in full bellied stemware. Everyone got a pour including the kids. As we left he handed me a bottle of his new label Arte. The afternoon was grand. The wines were outstanding without exception. I saved my notes. Here they are (a little embarrassing but aw shucks I'm a dweeb).

We ended the afternoon at Ciabo Berton below La Morra. Softer wines. Interesting family story as the brother and sister were aging juice in barriques while Pop continued to age in Slovenian oak barrels. Ah, the family wine business. Everybody has an idea.

It's Christmas Eve as I write this. The Godfather is on, everyone is chillin'. Tomorrow is the big party. Tamales, honey-baked ham. Mama's lasagna and many U20 wines from Dar-dee's cellar and those of our guests. So I want to get these notes down in advance since there will be many more tomorrow...I hope. We opened these wines over the past week, some with company and some on our own. All in all, a very nice group...of wines.

How about this 2007 photo of a Piemontese La Morra vineyard? My cousin's 12 year old son took it. Think he will learn to enjoy wine? I think so.

2004 Chateau Graville-Lacoste ~$16: This is why you have to love Kermit Lynch. He brings in wines like this one that are top flight and low price. Graves is my preferred Bordeaux region. The wines are "gravelly" which, to me, means more stony, dry, mineral-like. Read a review on how this wine reflects Graves here. The price/quality ratio is outstanding. Delightfully citric, lemon peel, some grassiness. Perfect acid balance. Dry, firm. 12% alcohol excuse me. A wine that knows what it is (semillon!).

2004 Page Springs Cellars El Serrano California Red Wine ~$30 in Arizona: Just off the main road to Sedona one will find the Page Spring Cellars winery that is devoted to Southern Rhone style wines. Now this is an interesting venture. They have planted estate Rhone grapes that will produce quality juice around 2010 (one can and does harvest at five years but it really takes 7 years minimum to produce decent juice). In the meantime they source Mourverdre, Syrah and more from Paso and eastern Monterey vineyards, some with 50 to 80 year old vines. This bottle includes Mourvedre, Syrah and "a touch" of Cabernet Pfeffer. The website is excellent and the winemaker is clearly a man of vision. Read about the intriguing Dos Cabezas (now Arizona) vineyard. Reminds me of Dave Corey's Alta Mesa property. The wine was light to medium weight, rusty red color. Nose is delicate with spice. Flavors are balanced, soft, seductive with the syrah in front. 14.7%. This winery is worth watching. Have I found a new wine club?

2002 MacKenzie-Mueller Merlot ~$30 (at the winery): Perfectly balanced to the point that it seems so simple. Why isn't every wine this easy to swallow and enjoy? Tasted this same evening with the Reynolds mega-cab. I consider this a question of Springsteen versus Bob Seger. One guy is an iconic genius loved by rock critics and millions of fans across the nation. The other guy just writes simple straightforward classic songs that rock. One guy belongs in an arena with thousands of fans flicking their Bics. The other guy (also named Bob) plays arenas but works best in a smaller venue with fans who love the music before the man. Who knows better? Who do you love? This merlot is simply excellent. Yikes 15%!

2002 Reynolds Family Stags Leap District Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon ~$60 (at the winery): The Reynolds winery is located just outside Napa on the Silverado Trail. These guys make classic outstanding extracted Napa cab. Lovely and distinctive label of crushed heavy-weight tissue paper with an embossed sprig. Instant visual appeal. My son tells me this is a popular among attorneys for a holiday gift that demonstrates the gifter knows a thing or two about under-the-radar Napa cabs.< Which is something like preferring an Ulysses-Nardin timepiece over a Concord. Both are over-the-top silly and priced beyond defensibility. I'll take a Bell & Ross or U-boat when it comes to interesting and exciting wrist wear. This wine is like so many other extracted cabs, with some herbaceousness (herbocity?) I associate with elevated hilltop or hillside vineyards. It will surely be a hit among the cab crowd and will accomplish the objective of demonstrating what it means to be on the ascent when it comes to the Napa clique. 14.7%

The next two wines are from the Rioja Alta which is in northern Spain on the way to Navarra and the French border. Basque country is north of Alta Rioja by which I mean to say this is not the Spain you might expect. This is premium wine country where Tempranillo is king. This is not Ibiza or Mallorca. Not Valencia or Granada. This is premium centuries-old Spanish wine country. I have toured by car and would return in uno minuto Nueva Jorca. Here is an informative and well-written history of the region.

1994 Roda I Reserva: This is a 20 year old Spanish winery from the Rioja Alta. The winery is big boutique in tone, producing 7500 cases in 1994; 83% Tempranillo and 17% Garnacha (Grenache). This vintage is lovely and at 13 years age it has matured nicely. Tannins are folded in, fruit is fleshy but firm. The overarching tasting notes for Roda I from the Bodegas Roda website describe "The deep, dark, black fruit is almost always dominated by plum aromas together with mineral and chocolate notes, balsamic flavours...: I do taste balsamic and the mineral qualities in this vintage. Of the two vintages this is preferred. But, yaknowhat? I would not buy this wine again. Read what someone else thinks about the winery here. 13.5%

1996 Roda I Reserva: I finally get to write about an important topic in wine making and tasting...brettanomyces. This wine has a level of brett that is noticeable in the nose and taste. What is it? You can read about what is brett is in the wikipedia reference above. However, what does it taste like? The flavor is thickening And for me the sensory anchor is shoe polish. Good old fashioned Kiwi black shoe polish. The flavor is distinctive something like 70% plus cacao. Dense, heavy, narrow in bandwidth. Not at all complex. I opened both wines to taste side by side. Three days later I ended pouring both into the same glass. Definitely helped the 1996. 13.5%.

One of the early sequences in the Monty Python epic "The Holy Grail" is the "bring out your dead" scene (youtube link brings instant gratification lads and lassies). I am not sure why that scene reminds me of my Christmas Day party. Maybe because the day offers a few chuckles over some kinky exchanges. We had both this year with the surprise arrival of Little Stevie who moved to Paris several decades ago and made a life as a successful photog. Check out Steve Murez website. In the course of his very cool career he has been retained by the Wine Spectator to shoot wine dinners at 3 star Michelin restaurants around Europe and in the USA (that would be New York mainly). I wish I had pressed him more for Speculator stories. He did say something nice about Jim Suckling. He strongly suggested I rent Mondo Vino which is the Sicko of the wine industry so I could learn about the cozy relationships between big advertisers and high ratings. I will watch it. I already know that the Wine Spectator is the last place I would look for touts. I used to subscribe to WS and the Underground Wine Journal. More of that some other time. How interesting that Mondo Vino is also the name of a hot shit Denver wine shop (inadvertent web surfing outcome).

James Suckling has a blog where it appears he posts often. He lives in LA. His wine beat is Bordeaux. He posts vids (5 seconds with winemaker for Leoville Las Cases) which is cool. They were tasting the 2005 Bordeaux vintage. He tasted 900 Bordeaux wines in 12 days. This is a curse. He must be the Lebron James of wine tasting...skills and stamina beyond what is ordinary for the world's greatest athletes. The vids have decent resolution which makes me wonder what camera he is using so spontaneously. Maybe I will start doing vids! Check out Jim Suckling's blog. I expected much worse (some compliment, I know). In our wine tasting clique the Wine Spectator is the progenitor of everything wrong with wine. We certainly did not originate this idea but we do subscribe to it. I'm not saying I now am a reborn Bordeaux fiend. But I was pleased with what I found.

My beat is my Xmas party and the top wines were white on this day!! I have tossed in a couple reds from a dinner two nights later that are worth covering.

1978 Dom Perignon: Look what the Doc dragged in! Not a wine one sees every decade. Dotoré pulled it from Ma and Pa's closet. Looked to be in perfect shape from the condition of the box. Foil was flimsy but not stuck to the bottle so moisture contact was eliminated as a spoilage threat. Cork came out easily but not in a way that suggested leakage. Ullage (empty space at top of bottle created by normal evaporation) was absent, another good sign. We poured. Tiny bubbles rose to the top of our flutes...and kept rising. Brassy color like a slightly red lager. Caramel on the nose. Oxidation. Apple and cinnamon in the mouth. "The nose of history leads to mystery" said the Divine Ms. M who arrived early enabling her and her Rock to imbibe this rarity. And she was on the money. DP is the most widely known champagne in the world thanks to 007. The wine is a mystery to those drinking it for the first time because it is so damn expensive. But catch a sip and the next mystery hits; the wine is also quite austere. We saved a taste for Dotorés spouse who fashionably arrived 90 minutes later. We had to bring out the dead Dom as all life has passed by then.

Rene Geoffroy Rosé de Saignee $60: Purchased at Wades Wines on Wade's recommendation "20 cases came into the country; the French Laundry got 10 and I got the rest". First wine opened at Dr. Del's dinner party. Pink light strawberry color. Fresh, refreshing flavors. Delicate tang. Pinot Noir fruit from a premier cru vineyard. A non-U20 wine worth the splurge. Imported by Michael Skurnick Wines.

2006 Auvigue Macon-Villages Vendanges Manuelles $15: Manuelles means this is a hand-made wine. Outstanding value. White burgundy well made, balanced. Woodland Hills Wine Co purchase recommended by the redoubtable Steve Goldun (now shortened to WH/SG). Lemon rind, acidic, some bitterness but not off-putting at all. Fruity, steely. Loved it. I hope this is an indicator of what we can expect in wine bargains in 2008. Hardly seems likely given the dollar/Euro exchange rate. Here is a wine blog by someone who loves wines by Auvige. Worth reading, of course.

2005 Chateau d'Epire Savannieres $18: Dotoré loves to surprise me. And I love that. Here is one great example (there is another coming). This Chenin Blanc is downright feral. It actually reminds me of a Nahe Reisling. Oily, petrol. Also has grapefruit flavors. Exotic. The term I like is foxy. These are wines that do well with age. Drinking them now is interesting but they really turn out richly with time. Dotoré read this Slate article and took a leap. Nice hops my freng.

2001 Ipsus Passito $8/500 ml: The season's second miracle...a decent bottle of wine from Trader Joes. Can TJ's reclaim the mantle now covering Kirkland shoulders? This is a fine desert wine (muscat) from Sicily that brings dried apricots to your tongue. I read some pretty nasty reviews on the web that will probably deter me from buying more. Nevertheless, the bottle we had was just fine. Maybe it just goes well with honey-baked ham and tamales. Maybe it got better (passed a dumb phase?) after TJ got it on close out. Hard to beat this quality/price ratio.

REDS

2005 Chateau du Hureau Saumur Champigny $16: I get almost giddy when I learn a wine I tasted is a Charles Neal Selection...like this one. We were guessing what was the grape and ended up with Gamay and/or Cab Sauvignon (snobbily consulting the Hugh Johnson Atlas to learn these are two regional grapes). WRONG. This is 100% Cabernet Franc. I like cab franc a lot. Actually I prefer it to cab sauv. The Charles Neal site has an excellent description of the Chateau du Hureau and his wines Solid, middle-weight effort. Good plain fruit. I mean not tricked up with oak or over-ripeness. Cocoa in the mouth. I will be stocking up. Compare to domestic effort from Foxen below.

2005 Passopisciaro Rosso Sicilia $32: A WH/SG selection (haha!). Steve sold it to Dotore' telling him to think Pinot Noir. Well it has the weight of Pinot Noir and something like the game-y fruit. But the white pepper is not of Pinot Noir. But I like it in this wine. I do not usually describe the label but this one is worth it. Like medieval graffiti. LA Times food and wine critic S. Irene Virbila gave it an enthusiastic review. For pure style appreciation check out the Passopisciaro website. Molto forte!

2003 Foxen Tinaquaic Cabernet Franc $20: 140 cases made in 2004. Purchased at Wine Cask Futures tasting. Rich in nose and flavor. New world wine richness. Ripe, almost jammy. Black cherry, coffee/toffee. Middle to heavy weight. This is really good wine but I think I prefer the Saumur. Still, Foxen makes very nice wines, has a vision, and is located in really pretty country.

One more Python video... Only a flesh wound!