WineLife365

Posts Tagged ‘2-Star’

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I don’t know about you, but I’m not quite ready to stow away my flip flops and shorts for the season just yet.  For some reason, the Summer of 2011 seemed to slip between my toes, retreating out to sea rather quickly this year.  Maybe my family and I did so much that everything is just a blur to me now, or maybe (deep down inside) I just want to take in a few more warm and sunny days to put an exclamation point on the Summer of 2011.  If I were to ask my sons right now how to accomplish this, they’d probably say, “Let’s go noodling!” 

Ummm…sorry guys:  diving into murky water and sticking my hands and legs into a hole to be bitten by a 70lb catfish isn’t quite the ending I had in mind.  Unfortunately, for lack of better plans, it seems that the earthquake, hurricane and tornados experienced in the northeast will be the exclamation point(s) on the Summer of 2011. 

The other night, in the midst of yet another summer rain storm, I whipped up a simple steak stir-fry and grabbed two bottles of wine that were produced by Château de Jau.

Now, I don’t typically make my wine pairing selections based on the way a label looks, but for some reason Benjamin Vautier’s artwork made me think happy summer thoughts. 

We started with the 2010 Le Jaja de Jau Sauvignon Blanc (Sample, MSRP: $10 US). “Jaja” is an old French slang word for a glass of wine – an everyday or house wine.  This jaja was a big zap of lemon with some lime and granny smith apple flavors.  It finishes clean, but had a little too much pucker for my liking. 

2 Stars out of 4 for the 2010 Le Jaja de Jau Sauvignon Blanc. 

We moved on and closed out the evening with the 2010 Le Jaja de Jau Syrah Rosé (Sample, MSRP: $10 US).  The 2010 Le Jaja de Jau Syrah Rosé is made from 100% Syrah grapes and is a straight-forward fruity rosé that fills your mouth with strawberries and hints of violets.  Although it was a nice jaja, maybe a splash of Grenache, Cinsault or Mourvèdre would have made me gaga.   

2 Stars out of 4 for the 2010 Le Jaja de Jau Syrah Rosé. 

Cheers to the last days of summer!

You’ve made your list and think you’ve got all your bases covered for a romantic evening.

Romantic essentials:

• Flowers – Check
• Romantic table dressed with long, flickering candles – Check
• A romantic dinner for two- Check
• Perfect bottle of wine – Check
• Romantic Music – Check
• Bubble Bath, massage oils or whatever else you’ve got stashed that’ll light your Sweetheart’s fire. – Check

Dissolve to:  Wine Shopping Day.

So let’s talk about the wine:  I selected the 2009 Apothic Red ($12).  It seemed to be an easy choice; an older vintage of the Apothic Red came highly recommended by the most influential wine critic on the planet.  Not to mention, the wine store that I purchased this at had a shelf-talker prominently displayed, that read:  “Top 50 Wine Values.”  So I thought to myself, “Oh, yeah- SCORE!”

Apothic Red reveals intense fruit aromas and flavors of rhubarb and black cherry that are complemented by hints of mocha, chocolate, brown spice and vanilla. The plush, velvety mouthfeel and smooth finish round out this intriguing, full-bodied red blend.

Cut to:  The Romantic Evening.

Everything is going exactly as planned until…I opened the wine.  My honey and I start to drink it.  We both quickly notice that there’s no trace of intense fruit aromas nor any sexy, velvety fruit or spice component that makes either one of us long for another sip.  Instead, the moment is lost as our minds began to drift off to thoughts of eating Tootsie Rolls at Grandma’s house, while sipping on an ice cream soda (minus the bubbles).  A fond memory (maybe), but not what I’m looking for in my wine; and I certainly don’t want thoughts of Grandma creeping into my head at this point.  I digress…  We found this wine to be so overpowering with the mocha, chocolate and vanilla sweetness that we promptly put the cork back in it, and my wife turned to me and said, “Please baby, can you get another bottle of red – I don’t want our night to end like this!”  Luckily, I was prepared…

In all fairness, if you like a dry style red wine with a heavy hand of sweetness to it, you might love it.  If you prefer your reds with lower levels of sugar, the 2009 Apothic Red will not be right for you.  With that said…

2 Stars out of 4 for the 2009 Apothic Red.  Somewhere inside this very attractive bottle was a blend of Zinfandel, Syrah and Merlot.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t get past the sweet chocolate and vanilla taste to distinguish anything else.

Let’s talk about the S-word.  Say what?! Relax…not that S-word!  But I am about to talk about the S-word that gives some peeps a case of queasiness deep down in their bellies just by hearing it: Sushi! Sushi! Sushi!  Chances are though, you or someone that you know has a thing for eating fish without cooking it first.  This once uniquely Japanese dish is practically everywhere you turn with Western influences creating “fusion” variations to entice even more legions of followers.  Many of these purveyors of “fusion sushi” are able to please the spectrum of those eager to get their chopsticks on their first California roll, while satisfying the more adventurous sushi lovers with creations that include delicacies such as octopus and eel.  So what does this have to do with wine?  Well, my wife and I LOVE sushi and we’re always on a hunt to find the perfect wine to pair with it.  After picking up a mélange of sushi delights from our favorite sushi hot spot, Mikimotos, I grabbed two bottles (a white and a red) that I hoped would create a moment of rapture in our mouths.  Okay, that might be a bit much – but you get where I’m going with this.

We started with the 2009 Fritsch ‘Steinberg’ Grüner Veltliner (Sample, MSRP:$15).  Grüner Veltliner, Grüner or Gru-Vee as it’s been dubbed, is the flagship white wine of Austria’s wine industry. GROO-ner VELT-lean-er velt-LEEN-er has a variety of expressions that can range from a light bodied spritzer, to a edgy spicy white wine with tons of grapefruit, white flower and cracked pepper poppin’ around on the finish.  The 2009 Fritsch ‘Steinberg’ Grüner Veltliner provided an explosive attack on our taste buds from the first bite of our seaweed salad to the very last bite of our Double Fantasy sushi roll.  It’s a gorgeous Austrian white, bursting with crisp acidity and freshness that worked tirelessly through the seaweed salad (a nightmare for any wine) and the line-up of delicacies being passed from soy sauce to wasabi.  It was just an exceptional wine all–around, and a must try for any sushi lover.  The only thing that could possibly make this Grüner any better would be to super-size it to a 1-Liter bottle, like so many other Austrian wineries are doing. (4 Stars)

Our second wine of the evening, 2008 Zum Martin Sepp Zweigelt (Sample, MSRP:$14), had 3 things to Ooh and Aah over:

1.)   A generous 1-Liter bottle.
2.)   A bottle cap for a wine closure – that was a first for me!
3.)   ZWEIGELT: What the what is that, you ask?

Zweigelt is a red wine grape invented in 1922 by an Austrian researcher named Fritz Zweigelt. He created it by crossing one of his favorite Austrian red grapes called Blaufränkisch (sometimes called Lemberger) with a relatively unknown member of the pinot noir family, called St. Laurent  – and the rest is Austrian grape growing history.  So, now that I’ve told you that the bottle is Über-cool with its 1-Liter size, that it’s got a bottle cap for an enclosure, and familiarized you a bit with that groovy named red grape called Zweigelt, I’m sure you’d like to know how it actually tastes…

Well, it’s kind of like chewing on a savory piece of Hickory Farms Summer Sausage or like snappin’ into a Slim-Jim with juice.  It was just odd with its light effervescent pinot noir characteristics touched with a mouthful of cured meat.  It was a combination that unfortunately missed the mark for me, and left the remaining sushi longing for more of that terrific 2009 Fritsch ‘Steinberg’ Grüner Veltliner. (2 Stars)

If you have a favorite wine to pair with Sushi, please share!  I’d love to try something new on my next Sushi adventure. 

Thursday night is a special night of the week in our house.  It usually involves catching up on all that’s going on in the worlds of a 1^st and 2^nd grader, 9 to 5 work stuff, DVR’ed Survivor, and a couple large pizzas with some wine to wash it all down.

Last week, my 1^st grader was the proud recipient of a golden ticket to receive 1 free Pizza Hut personal pizza.  How did he receive such a marvelous prize, you ask?  It was a reward for dutifully reading 15 or more books over a 30-day span.  As you might imagine, he was quite pleased with his achievement and wanted to quickly cash in on his grand prize.  Now we don’t usually make our Thursday night pizza trek to “America’s Favorite Pizza” joint – but with his big brown eyes turning up the heat on me, I felt compelled to pick up the phone to call 1-800 – ‘The hut’.

When I got home from ‘The Hut’ with the pizzas, my son’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree as he opened up his prize.  While he was enjoying his reward, my wife and I mulled over what to drink with the large mushroom, pepperoni, and sausage pizza that was sitting in front of us.  Knowing that it was going to be a long night of eating and TV watching, I grabbed a 1.5l (i.e., 2 X 750ml) bottle of the 2008 Glen Ellen Proprietor’s Reserve Old Vine Zinfandel ($9.99, Sample).   It just seemed like an ideal fit for this particular laid-back evening.

The 2008 Glen Ellen Proprietor’s Reserve Old Vine Zinfandel isn’t an especially complex red Zin. However, it does offer just the right mouthful of slight sweet red berry and spice flavors to make it extremely compatible and gulpable with pizza.  Not bad for what works out to be 5 bucks per 750ml bottle.  Alone, this soft red Zin is a solid two stars on the WL365 rating scale; but feed it some cheese, dough and red sauce and it gets a whole lot closer to a 3 star rating.

2 Stars out of 4 for the 2008 Glen Ellen Proprietor’s Reserve Old Vine Zinfandel.  It’s a fine, inexpensive red for any pizza or spaghetti night with friends and family!