Friday Night Tastings, May 13, 2010

It is Friday the 13th, so we decided to do something superstitious and so paid a visit to a local DC wine bar, the VINOTECA, at 1940 11th Street NW. It turned out to be a very pleasant, popular spot. The wine list looked good, the service and the tapas-style food were very good as well. We started off with a a flight, called "Cab Ride". This included the following:
1.Ridge, 2007, Santa Cruz, CA.- good, spicy, ripe fruit but a bit acidic to our taste. Had the smokey feel which often is the characteristic of this winery. A 2.5.
2. Charles Smith, Chateau Smith, Columbia Valley, Washington state. An ok wine, not overwhelming. A bit "grapey" finish. A 2.0.
3. Longview, "Devil's Elbow", Adelaide Hills, Australia. The best of the three, this is a very nice cab from Australia. Muted fruit huge body, long tobacco finish. A 3.0.
We had several small dishes, such as crab cake, manchego and goat cheeses and lots of excellent olives. We had two additional and familiar wines (see below).
Since the bar was getting full at this point, we moved our operation into their delightful courtyard bar. The latter was very pleasant. We are told that on Sundays they have flamenco dancing, we will come back for that.

Shafer, Hillside Select, 2006

Uncle P decided to go for this wine, which is everyone's favorite. Superb, we will not try to describe it since we have reviewed this wine before. Most other wines pale by comparison. Reasonably priced at the winebar. An easy 4.75.

Penfold's Shiraz, St Henri 2005

This wine is considered a cult wine. Very dark, smooth, but with some arrogance-this is not a very shiraz-like wine. In fact it can pass for a cab. Very nice and reasonably priced. We thought a 3. It was unfortunate that it came after the Shafer.

Peter Michael, Les Pavots, 2002

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Uncle P's generous contribution, Les Pavots 2002, is a true Bordeaux style California cab. Mature, not fruit forward, long finish. We had this wine before, a definite 4-4.5.

El Nido, 2003

We have had El Nido several times before. Chris Ringland, the winemaker, did not disappoint with this cabernet-monastrell meritage. This was the last bottle we tasted tonight, a 4.