Tasting of March 14 2008

Present were Uncle-N, Piroca, Winepath, and Jimmy. As usual we tasted 5 wines blindly and they appear as we tasted them. As always, we are pretty bad in identifying wines and there is some saying we should give up on the "blind" part of the tasting. But some day, we all may develop the palate of RP and alike. So we keep on.

1.Mas Doix Priorat Costers de Vinyes Velles 2005, Score=3+~4

Piroca did it again (fourth time). Everybody thought this is a high-end Cali cab or Cab blend. The Color is awesome with deep red/purple with beautiful nose of black cherry, vanilla and caramel with hint of mocha; all the indication of highly oaked and highly extracted Cali cab. But the wine is (again) from Spain (Priorat, Cariñena to be exact) and made of a blend of 50% Carinena (carignan or mazuelo), 48% Garnacha, and 2% Merlot and is aged for 16 months in new French oak. The palate is also very intense with lots of black fruits with big chewy tannin with long finish. Again we are struck by the fact that Spain keeps producing wonderful new world wines from grapes we do not expect. Carinena or Carignan is not the grape you are supposedly making this kind of new world wine. It should be a minor part of blends or, I hear, they grow it in Central Valley of California in large quantity and ends up in many jug wines. Hat off to the wine maker and Piroca who brought this to fool us again.

2. Behrens & Hitchcock Tenth Anniversary Cuvee 2003, Score=3

This is very interesting wine. The color has slight brown tinge at the rim. The nose has very slight funk (smoky), and some minerals (almost soapy). The palate has some red fruits (raspberry) but subdued fruits with raisin and nice long finish with bitter note. We thought of possible Amarone but we are wrong again. This is another one of B&H. This cuvee is made of 46% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, and the rest Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. B&H keeps making interesting wines of different styles but this one, even after knowing the identity of the wine, reminded us of Amarone. It is interesting that a real Amarone followed this.

3. Brunelli Amarone Campo Titari 2001, score=2+

Piroca guessed it right because this was brought by Uncle-N (bringing Italian lately), shape of the bottle and helped little bit by the actual taste. The color has some brown tinge. It has somewhat medicinal or creosote-like nose with spices and "milk products" (by Winepath). The palate shows nuts, raisin, with sweet note and long finish with slight bitter taste. We are expecting bit more than this. Despite it was kept in the temperature controlled environment and was laid flat, there was slight wine seepage and cork was very fragile. We are not sure this bottle may have been oxidized too much before this tasting.
This is a definitely "pass".

4. Four Vines "Maverick" Zinfandel" Amador County 2005, Score=2+

The color is light resembling Pinot (but darker than most Pinot). Nice pleasant nose with red fruits especially strawberry, raspberry and blue berry, almost floral note. The taste is also pleasant with nice firm tannin and reasonably long finish. We thought of South of France grapes such as Granache or even Pinot but did not think it is from France or Europe. We did not think of Zin because it has so much red fruits and almost floral nose but this is an example of well-made Zin. We (I) think this has a good PQR.




5. Excelsior Paddock Shiraz South Africa 2005, Score=2

This one was easy for everybody; Shiraz! Everything was there; the nose and taste. The nose has plum and black pepper (not significant meat juice smell, though). New World Shiraz with plum black fruits and peppery finish. Very reasonable wine but not particularly special or complex. We all thought of Australia as an origin and we also discussed South Africa including Pinotage etc. This is indeed from South Africa. We like Excelsior Cab as a reasonable everyday table wine and this one also falls into that category.