A little bit of vino

I’ve teamed up with Lisa Yee to post Wine & Food Pairing articles on our new site Tasti-Pairings. Feel free to visit us there for your wine and food pairing suggestions and perhaps find some new wine.

I’m occasionally gifted with wine beyond my means. In this case a few bottle of 2004 hope & grace Cabernet Sauvignon. I’m a red wine man, as anyone can tell. So it wasn’t long before i decided to pair it with a pasta dish I made.

Right off the bat you can tell expense went into the making. The care that went into the making is evident in how smooth… and how rich the taste is. I could go on about the bouquet and all the other fancy words, but this is a damn good wine.  The simplicity in the presentation, follows into the taste. in that it is a Cab.  It doesn’t stray into other details.  It is first and foremost a VERY good Cabernet Sauvignon.
The only negative? The price was too expensive for myself.  i wouldn’t be able to get bottles of this all the time.  And the thought that kept popping into my head was that for $50 I could get 2 bottles of  Clos Pegas Cabernet. The difference between the two is that this wine tastes great down… and can still be bottled for a few years.  Which makes me wonder how good its REALLY going to taste down the road.

A plastic cork is the first thing I see as I open this bottle of 1999 Pepperwood Grove Cabernet Sauvignon. Not the greatest start, but I remember that they where to rage at the time. They fixed the “corking” of wines, and was “supposedly” better. Well in this case there really wasn’t much to save.

When you drink a cab you expect certain things. What you don’t expect is how sweet this tasted, how raw. The back of the bottle says vinted & bottled by Pepperwood Grove Winery Napa, CA… I’ve never heard of the winery.  I liked how simple the label was, and it was from Napa so I assumed they couldn’t of ruined the wine. I was wrong.

If you see this wine/winery run. Look again, I’m pretty sure that most any other Napa Valley wine will be fine no matter what the cost.

Trader Joes has a winner on their hands in the way of the Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon, ie. the Two Buck Chuck. And its sales of the bottle of wine that is always $2 dollars. So other stores have attempted to get into this market.

Albertsons here in Napa has slowly started selling Save-On Drugs products. And also they have started selling their answer to Two Buck Chuck, the Fox Brook Cabernet Sauvignon for two dollars. With a very basic explination on the back and a unpretentious label, this wine is advertised to people who just want a nice basic wine.

As for the wine itself, its not too bad. Not the greatest wine, but it doesn’t double as cheap cooking wine. The taste isn’t bad. As a red wine I can see serving it to immediate family, but not many others. And if I really need affordable Cab then I’ll just go down to Trader Joes and buy a bottle of Charles Shaw.

This is one of those reviews a long time in the making. This has become one of the best know cheap wines because its made bottled in the premier wine region, yet they only charge $2 a bottle for it at Trader Joes.

Recently a winner of a blind taste taste Charles Shaw Winery has stormed the wine makers of Napa Valley by daring to release a wine that is is sold cheap but wins medals. The way to do that? Use good fruit and make a decent wine by cutting corners. And then signing a deal that assures LOTS of sales and LOTS of press.

I decided to try a bottle of Charles Shaw Merlot. Not its bread and butter I wanted to see how they did a relatively newish wine to them. I like their Cabs (an upcoming review) and their Chards won reviews (don’t normally drink white wines) but I saw it and ran with it. Now to the review…

The 2004 Charles Shaw Merlot is a very young wine. But one problem with a “cheaper” wine is that it doesn’t age too well. Two buck chuck is an ok wine, and I wouldn’t feel bad taking it too a party if it was the Cab or I guess the Chard. But the Merlot young isn’t the hottest. I had the William Hill earlier this week and I guess I must be spoiled. The rawness and sweetness was annoying. The fact it just didn’t taste like it would age well (but instead turn to vinegar) was evident. The taste was ok at the time.. it just wasn’t it.. it just wasn’t a drinking wine you could casually drink. As a Merlot I’d expect it to go well with rich meats… but instead I might consider it with cheap cheese cake. Otherwise forget it. I think I’d and you’d be better buying it’s better known cousins the Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay. All in all very disappointing.

PS – The pictures weren’t planned to come out that way… its just appropriate.

OK, bad day plus decently full wine cellar equals happy ending… well nice way to relax. So I looked for something good. I didn’t want a bad wine to make a day even worse, so I opened a bottle of something I knew would be good. So I chose a wine I had gotten a few times, from a winery known for producing quality wines.

The 1999 William Hill Cab isn’t the best year vintage, but its a very good year. William Hill wines seem to have the making quality wines down. And I’m not sure if its a plus or minus, but the 1999 year is current pretty potent. You don’t recognize the alcohol its so mellow. But it definitely hits you. I share my bottle and am comfortably forgetting about the day. or, to be more accurate, I don’t care.

The wine is mellow like I said with a fruity flavor… more rich tones, not citrus-y. As Cabernets go… its defiantly one to get and hold onto. The longer you hold onto it, the better it is, with this 1999 being a pretty good time to open up and enjoy. I’d suggest this wine with most anything, but more rich so that it goes with anything from Pasta to protein (meats) to perhaps even fish… but that would be pushing it. All in all a good keeper.

One reason this wine gets a lot of press is that its close to Napa itself, and just across the street from Silverado Country Club. To be honest that makes them work hard at being acceptable to very picky palettes.

Website: http://williamhillestate.com

I got dinner simmering on the stove, and after a long hiatus I decided to have a bottle of wine (I’ve come to the realization I drink more micro-brews then Wine). After looking over my collection I decided to have a promising looking Franciscan Cabernet Sauvignon.

After letting it sit open a little bit I had a nice long sniff of what I consider to be a pretty normal, and also nice mellow Cab smell. The first taste was really mellow with some wood (Oak?) flavor. This is a nice mellow Drinking Cab. I’m having it was a casserole so I can’t attest it with a large variety of foods. But If I wanted to get a bottle of wine for a dinner, I definitely would bring it. I have to love their marketing written label:

Napa Valley’s combination of a warm, sunny climate and ideal grape growing soils has made it famous for Cabernet Sauvignon with richness and concentration⁽¹⁾. We pick our grapes at optimum ripeness for full maturity of flavors⁽²⁾. Ripe black cherry, plum and currant flavors marry with hints of cedar, spice and a long supple finish⁽³⁾.

Pretty well written but three points:

1. Napa Valley is well know for its growing environment. I really haven’t had, or know of a bad wine here in the valley, though I’m sure there are some.
2. All wineries pick at the perfect point. Most every winery has people who track carefully and as soon at the grapes are perfect pick like crazy. Even overnight in some cases.
3. I truthfully didn’t taste the flavors, but I can see where the Black Cherry taste can be tasted in it. Also I would of thought more oak then Cedar but oh well.

Website: http://www.franciscan.com

This wasn’t a planned wine tasting so I don’t have a number of images, but I did get some other reviews while we where tasting it.

We had dinner in a nice Italian restaurant here in town (Napa) that has bucked the chain feel, and have come away gathering a large following, the name of this restaurant is Fillipi’s. One thing they had done was gfet a good selection of Napa Valley wines (which shouldn’t be surprising… but is) at reasonable prices. Generally when you go to a restaurant you end up getting raped on the price of wine, so it was nice to get home and find it had only been upcharged about $5-6.

Now for a $20-30 bottle of wine you expect certain things. It should taste good, be smooth and taste good. Well they hit all the points. The 2004 Andretti Selections Cabernet Sauvignon has a nice fuity flavor without leaving a bitter taste. A smooth complextion that went extemely well with the Italian food, and a full body that you come to expect from good Napa Wine. For the price I won’t be stocking a lot of it in my cellar ($20 isn’t bad for good wine, but more then the wife will let me spend on numerous bottles), but it was one of the cheaper wines at the restaurant, so will be my choice when dining there again. Over all I would have no problem suggesting this wine to anyone wanting a nice fruity Cab to go with an Italian Dinner.

In doing some design for a nice guy to create a wine label for a private label, I was given a couple bottles of what I’ll believe was cheap stuff.  The bottle here is labeled to be from Mendicno County and it has that flavor.

I decided to open the 2002 RDLR Syrah and I was pairing it wrong with a Lasange dinner, but I figured I could always roll to another bottle. Well opening the bottle its very much a preivate blend. The quality is surprisingly good for a Syrah. It has a fruity taste that is growing on me. Not that expensive its actually priced middle of the road at $18 on one site. But if you are a Syrah fan I can suggest it. I still am not fully sure what its supposed to pair with, but looking at this one (ad covered) site it looks like its suppsoed to be paired with Hamburger, Pheasant, or Venison, strange combonation. I think for most the reviews I’ll try to stick with basics… the wine is decent just not the highest quality.

Every once in a great while you run across a great wine that you note to yourself to always buy.  You may want it for parties, dinners or dates.  But you know you’ll want to remember it.  Well for the money this has to be one of the best wines I’ve gotten.  I think I paid $7 for it a couple months ago at Trader Joes.  I’ve had Mondavis Coastal before but this is MUCH better.  With a nice smooth taste and a Cab Taste that taste expensive, but isn’t.  Taste wise it’s an atypical Cabernet, but with a smooth taste that really works well for casual drinking.  I didn’t have this with any dinner, so I can’t attest at the time how it blends with certain foods, but it works.

Again I had Karen have a glass (didn’t share too much, was too good) and all I got was “This is really GOOD.”   So if you like cabs, and want a good wine to keep around for dinners and parties.  Then this is a good wine for you.  Its not expensive and can afford to be able to get multiple bottles of it.