Wine tasting August 29, 2008

Our new wine refrigerator is still working and all wines are at correct or maybe colder temperatures. Present were Piroca, Winepath, Jimmy, Uncle-N and after some hiatus, Uncle-E. Hope Uncle-E will appear more regularly (which he will). We blind tasted 6 good wines (Are we getting good at choosing wines or are we getting too generous?). It seems we do not have wines that scored 1 or 1- nowadays.

1. Greg Norman Australian Estate Reserve Shiraz 2001, score=3

Color has brown tinge at the rim indicating the age. Nose is predominantly black cherry with dusty minerals or after the rain note. Palate is nice with good black fruits up front with nice firm tannin. In the back end, it felt bit hot (Alcohol: 14%). Everybody thought this is Cali cab or Cab blend. But as usual, we were all wrong. This is Shiraz from Australia. We thought we can reliably pick Australian Shiraz but that appears not to be the case. According to Jimmy this is a Costco offering and has a very good PQR. If you are a golfer you may remember former pro Greg Norman. He has wine estates in California as well as Australia (the original estate).

The grapes were from vineyards in Coonawarra and Padthaway region of South Australia. According to their website; “The 2001 vintage was characterized by an exceptionally long ripening season. The cool, clear nights helped to retain the distinctive cool climate Shiraz characters - intense flavors and elegant structure. ….After crushing, the fruit was fermented for 7 days in small rotary and static fermenters. Special fruit parcels were then pressed to barrel to complete 16 months' fermentation in new American oak hogsheads (79%), with a portion in seasoned oak barrels (21%).”

2. Celler De L`encastell Marge Priorat 2006, Score=3

Nice cherry nose. Piroca thought some “funk” but the rest of us could not detect it. Good fruits with nice strong but integrated tannin. Nice wine. Cali cab and cab blend were mentioned. Just because Uncle-N brought it, some passing mention of Spanish, maybe piorat was also noted. This is from Spain. Here is the quote from WA, Jay Miller who gave 92. "The 2006 Marge is 60% Garnacha, 14% Syrah, 13% Merlot, and 13% Cabernet Sauvignon aged for 8 months in French and American oak. Purple-colored with a ruby rim, it has an enticing nose of lavender, violets, garrigue, cherry and blueberry which jumps from the glass. Smooth textured, spicy, and full-flavored, the wine has terrific depth and length. Give it 2-3 years to blossom and drink it through 2020." What the heck is “garrigue”? According to the definitive reference (Wikipedia) It is a type of low, soft-leaved scrubland found on limestone soils around the Mediterranean Basin but I have no idea how it smells. One thing they should improve is the label. One of the ugliest labels we have seen.

3. Catena Zapata Malbec Adrianna Vineyard, Gualtallary-Mendoza, 2004. Score=3~3+

Color is very dark almost black (later Piroca pointed to purple rim). Nose is intense best described as “farty” plum. Nice back cherry palate with plum and intergraded tannin. Very nice. Because of the plum component and dark almost black color, we thought it must have predominant syrah in this one but again we are totally wrong. The bottle is tall and very heavy type common among high-end (or trying to be high-end) Cali cab and we considered that possibility but did not think it is Cab. Proca fooled us again with this one. This is 100% Marbec from Catena Zapata! The single-vineyard 2004 Malbec “Adrianna Vineyard” from the Gualtallary district and got WA 97. It was aged 8 months in 100% new French oak with 14.2% Alcohol. This is the description of the 2004 fruits “The Adrianna Vineyard, planted in 1992, has Malbec vines on their own roots which were part of amassal population from the Catena family’s historic, 80 year old Angelica vineyard. Early shoot removal in October and a cluster thinning on December 20 lead to an extremely low yield of 1.1 tons per acre. (2.28 tons per hectare). With plantation density of 1,925 plants per acre (4,000 plants per hectare), this translates into a yield of 20 ounces (570 grams) per plant. With veraison taking place on January 28, a strict water restriction was implemented to maintain vine water content below 1.4 megapascals, stopping any secondary shoot growth.“

4. Delisio Quarterback Red 2006, score=2+~3

Nose has some slight funk but according to Uncle-E “all green pepper”. Nice berry palate with strawberry and blueberry with good tannin. Nice one. People thought that this may have syrah, Granache or Cab sauv (which are all correct) and thought this could come from Spain or Australia (which is again correct). This is a red table wine by Delisio (we tasted some of his higher priced Shiraz and liked it very much). According to Jay Miller of WA; “De Lisio's entry level wine, the 2006 Quarterback, is scheduled to be bottled in September 2007. Composed of 30% Shiraz, 27% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot, and 21% Grenache, it spent 15 months in used French oak. It offers a complex perfume of cedar, spice box, black cherry, and black raspberry. This leads to a full-bodied wine with opulent, ripe, sweet fruit, in a nearly seamless package. This outstanding value has tons of flavor and a long, pure finish. It will evolve for 2-3 years but why delay your gratification?" He gave 90-92 at this early (barrel) tasting. This one has a good PQR.

5. Worthy Sophia's Cuvée 2005, score=2+~3

Nose has some funky component of “sweaty foot” but nice black fruits. Palate is rather austere and nice chewy tannin. It is definitely Old world style or Bordeaux-blend. We considered Bordeaux but with this tasty with fruits (even restrained as it is), it is bit unlikely (although we have tasted Bordeaux with these characters, Chateau Pape-Clément 2001 and Château Destieux Saint Emilion 2005). Therefore we settled on Bordeaux-blend California Red. It turned out to be Worthy 05 which many of us had drunk before. It has 77% Cabernet Sauivgnon, 21% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Frank. For the price, it is a good PQR wine and a good substitute for (expensive) 05 Bordeaux.

6. Aalto Ribera del Duero, 2004. Score=3

Nose has some incense (inside the church for some with that childhood memory) or smokiness, cedar and hint of citrus. Nice muted black fruits with complex layers of flavors and very strong tannin. It finishes with too much tannin but still a nice wine. At this point of different degrees of inebriation among the tasters, nobody even made good efforts to guess what this is but it turned out to be Aalto (100% Tempranillo from Ribera del Duero). Actually, Uncle-N posted this one while he was on vacation. Quoting from this post “Nice nose with black cheery and slightest hint of "funk". Extremely smooth mouth feel. Not a fruits bomb but nice black berry and blueberry flavors. Good firm tannin and nice finish with moca or coffee. With food, the strong tannin appears to diminish. Among the Ribera del Duero wines we tasted in the past, we like this the best. Very complex wine. we will give either 3+ or 4-” . WA (JM) gave 94. Definitely, strong tannin will be milder with decanting and food.