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

I just watched David Mac's vid once more, this time with peewee (darling daughter) and he inspired me to put this post out that has been marinating in my brain the past week. I have several topics including the "attack" bit, taking "no-wine-over-$20" too far, and whatever else spills forth.

Taste enough wine, read enough tasting notes and you will come across something like "on the attack the wine showed forward fruit with firm grip". What up with "the attack"? Never got this. Makes me think the taster plays alot of chess. Tasting wine requires a field of reference. If you are a competitive chess player when you choose to go on the attack is very important, downright strategic. I guess a real chess-playing, wine-taster would also have a place for putting the other tasters in mate. The ultimate move might be saying something so cool and sufficiently summative the other tasters simply tilt their collective kings.

What about music as your field of reference? If you have trouble finding a vocabulary that fits your understanding and experience of wine try something with which you are more comfy.
The Large (photo, looking like Bobby Zimmerman from Nashville Skyline) would do well here being a music fiend. "The first taste is a straight ahead rush like Steely Dan breaking into Bodhi Satva at the SM Civic in 1998 on that bootleg CD you gave me. They pumped it almost double time. Then the wine finds a groove. Think Stanley Clarke on Dancer picking his bass like a banjo. Delicately busy".

Tasting wine? Forget the attack. What can you liken your experience to that you know and love?

OK. When we say no-wine-over-$20 we are not endorsing "2-buck-Chuck" and his gang of 1 million. $6 for a bottle of whatever in Pavilions is a step in the wrong direction. It seems like any decent wine shop I step into today has the floor stacks of the wines we love. Look cheap. Taste great. Even though I did find it difficult a decade ago to spend more than $10 for any grenache-syrah-carignane blend in Languedoc, I do not think that will happen again (until we get to Mendoza Spring 08). So in the meantime, until you fly to Argentina's wine country, I guess the corollary to our battle cry is "no-wine-less-than-$10". Prove us wrong.

Last note: summertime is rose' time and there are plenty of great pinkies under $20. The Large brought Commanderie de Peyrassol 2006 Côtes de Provence Rosé to (yet) a(nother) family get-together. Pick it up around $16 all over town. Color is dusty pale salmon. Flavors are mineral, bright, light, almost like a pouilly fume (semillon).

Congratulaciones a Angel Cabrera de Cordoba Argentina!! Campion golfero de los Estados Unidos!!

The summer is drawing to a close. As we hang onto the last warm evenings now mingled with some cool-ness we rush to determine which have been the greatest Rosés of our Summer 2007 Festival of the Pank. Here are a few candidates recently compared.

2006 Cotes de Provence Chateau du Rouet Cuvee Reserve Tradition $12: Good wine to start the evening. Orange copper color. Dry with strawberries in mouth. Easy drinker without much finish. 60% Grenache 40% syrah. 12.5%.

2005 L’Uvaggio di Giacomo Lodi Il Gufo Babera Rosato $11: Jim Moore’s almost beefy rosé is almost like something else – syrup! It is not thick enough for waffles but it might make a great cosmo! A manly rosé for all manly men (and stout women I suppose). This deep red, near-purple wine goes with BBQ as easily as it goes with a fruit cup. 12.5% alcohol. Bravo Jim!

2006 Nicodemi Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Gerasuolo $13: Another bigger than usual rosé, bright deep red color (without blue tones above), rich dry flavors. My first Tuscan rosé was a hit. Both of these wines deliver a kick in the cajones to the pink wine naysayers who complain about rosé simplicity. From North Berkeley Wines. 12.5%.

Time out for an observation (bitch-pitch). “Serious” wine drinkers who complain that rosé cannot be taken “seriously” because it is too simple ("not serious") cannot be serious themselves can they? To them I say…what about the legions of over-oaked and over-ripe cabs and chardonnays considered serious? Are these wines not simple in their own stupidly complicated, out of whack (i.e., unbalanced) ways? Puhleeeze. Think Rubiks' Cube and "Rube Goldberg". The Rube Goldberg machine takes something simple and makes it ridiculously complicated. "Serious" wines? Rubik's Cube takes something simple (block of colors) and makes it quite complicated. That is serious simplicity. Simple and serious are rarely antonyms.

2005 Verget de Sud Rosé de Syrah $15: A second appearance this summer and if it is up to me this wine will make a 3rd and 4th. Here is what my wife said as she sipped in the spa. “What I like about this wine is that it is dry and still has the hint of strawberries but not sweet”. And I always agree with my wife. In the salmon pink color camp. North Berkeley Wines. Lovely. 12.5%.