There's a Sinister Hand in My Wine

I mentioned in a recent post that I had visited the local Binny's superstore and picked up two really interesting wines from Owen Roe in Oregon. The first was the Abbot's Table consisting of grapes harvested from the Yakima Valley.

The second had an even more interesting back story. As it turns out, winemaker and owner Owen Roe is a descendant of the Irish patriot Owen Roe O'Neill. His family crest depicts a particular event in family history.

The story goes that the O'Reillys and the O'Neills were competing for a particularly choice piece of ground that both families strongly desired.  In order to determine which family received the ground they agreed to a rowing competition where the first to touch the ground was awarded the land.

One of Owen Roe's kinsman saw that they were falling behind so he took his sword and severed his hand and threw it on the ground (thereby "touching" first). The O'Neill's were able to take possession of this ground as a result and the gentleman with the severed hand?

He became the king of this land. Now that's what I call thinking outside the box.  I'm pretty sure from that point on the O'Reilly family became sticklers for putting all the rules out there . . . and specifically stating that all body parts must remain attached to the owner to count.

But that describes the "do what it takes" attitude that I think Owen Roe brings to his wines -- especially to his Sinister Hand blend. One of the things I liked about this wine was its homage to a good Chateauneuf du Pape.

Loosely translated as the Pope's New Castle, Chateauneuf du Pape leans heavily on the Grenache grape (as much as 80% of the blend can come from the Grenache grape. This grape is valued for its fruitiness and added body without a lot of tannins.

Frankly, this wine was a real pleasure to drink.  It exhibited a lot of the fruit characteristics of the Grenache but really benefits from the blending with Syrah, Mourvedre and Cinsoult. Together this wine brings a depth that can stand up to a steak and the subtlety to not overpower tilapia.

Here's how Owen Roe describes the wine:  "Aromas of spicy red hots, cinnamon and pine lead to a bursting mouth-feel of cassis, white pepper and granite. Fruity notes of raspberry and blackberry enhance this structured, firm tannin blend and finish with hints of rosemary and clove."

I can't really say that I can get that out of the wine but I will say that it surpassed my expectations. And even though I wouldn't likely give up my left hand for this wine, I will be venturing back to Binny's to pick up some more of this wine because it's sold out online.

Guess I'll have to wait until next year!

Like a Kid In a Candy Store

Today I made my first visit to the Binny's Beverage Depot around the corner from my house. This is one of the largest I've been through.

Aisle after aisle of wines, beers and spirits.

I really was like a kid in the candy store.  I saw thousands of bottles of wine . . . many of which I hadn't seen before. Lately I've been interested in various blends rather than a specific varietal over another.

A couple of years ago a friend had given me a bottle of Owen Roe Sharecropper's Pinot Noir from Oregon's Willamette Valley that I really loved. I spent three years in the mid-80s in the Willamette Valley. Unfortunately, the Willamette Valley AVA was created only in 1984 (when I arrived) but I wasn't much of a wine drinker at the time.

I think I wasted three and half years in the Valley and missing out on the launch of some really fine wines. I'm always interested in how wines get their names. In visiting the Owen Roe website, I discovered a lot about how each wine got their names.

It appears that in the early years of the winery (2001), Oregon's grape growers had a hard time selling their fruit and the winery didn't want to miss out on great fruit but couldn't buy the fruit because they didn't have the resources.  They resorted to an age old practice and shared the profits with the growers.  A win/win for everyone.

Tonight's dinner was a simple dinner of some potato wedges and Italian beef sandwiches.  The Italian beef came from my favorite grocery in Chicago, Caputo's. You get the beef and the jus all you need to add is the Turano buns. A perfectly simple meal.

Ideal for an evening of watching movies.

As I mentioned I picked up a couple of Owen Roe wines, Sinister Hand and Abbot's Table. I chose the Abbot's Table. The founder and winemaker of Owen Roe, David O'Reilly once heard of the generosity of those within the many monasteries would offer a weary traveler a place to dine at their table.

He thought he'd try it out on one of his European trips and found himself seated at the Abbot's table sharing delicious wines and sharing stories of travels. On his return he created this wonderful wine in honor of his visit.

This wine is a blend of fruit from the Yakima Valley. It includes Zinfandel, Sangiovese, Blaufrankisch, Merlot and Malbec. Quite a mix of wines from several regious around the world. This is where the winemaker earns his marks.

This wine was a real treat. I can't wait for tonight when I open a bottle of the Sinister Hand. I'll be digging into the story behind that one, too.

Were the Beach Boys Singing about Wine?

I'm going to show my age a little bit but I was wondering tonight as I was enjoying a glass of wine if the Beach Boys misspelled Barbara Ann and really were singing about Barbera wine.

Bah, Bah, Bah, Barbera Wine?

Ok. Now that you have the Beach Boys reverberating in your mind, perhaps that was a little too kitschy.

It is what I was thinking, though,  as I was enjoying a glass of Seghesio 2009 Barbera. Until learning of Barbera from Seghesio Family Vineyards I had never heard of the grape.

Of course I had heard of various Italian wines like Chianti (which I know is a particular blend rather than a grape) but not this specific grape.

I wonder why because it's the third most planted variety after Sangiovese and Montepulciano (never heard of this grape either). Barbera is most famously found in the Piedmont region of Italy. Would it surprise you to learn that is exactly the region of Italy that Seghesio patriarch Edoardo emigrated from? 

When he arrived in America, he planted a number of vineyards with varietals he found here but one vineyard was planted to his favorites from his homeland. Seghesio's historic and proprietary Barbera clones are ideally suited for the Alexander Valley.

One of the things that I've learned from trying different wines is that each has its own unique characteristics. The Barbera that winemaker Ted Seghesio makes has a bold aroma and a velvety texture. There's a richness to this wine.

Building on the family's heritage, Seghesio Family Vineyards and winemaker Ted Seghesio create incredible wines from a distinctively Italian point of view from Anglianico to Zinfandel. I think it sets them apart from other winemakers in the region.

As I've mentioned before, I don't have the best ability in picking out aromas or specific flavors within a wine. With this wine, everything works gloriously together. As I've been on a drive to see how I might be able to turn the tasting "rules" upside down this year, the Barbera is something of a wonder.

Over the years I've never had a bad pairing with the Barbera. Tonight I'm enjoying the wine with . . . well nothing spectacular. It's been a rough couple of weeks so I just re-heated some dirty rice I had in the freezer. But what I love is that this delicious wine is making what might otherwise be a mundane evening into something truly spectacular.

You'll want to check your local wine shop if you want a bottle of this wine because it's currently not available on the Seghesio web site. Wine doesn't have to be saved for a special occasion but it can make what might otherwise be a mundane meal.

Salute!

Experiencing My Own Bottle Shock

It's interesting that 1976 was both a year of revolution and a year to remember a revolution. For those of us living in the United States July 4th was the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  It could be noted for the California wine business on May 24th, they declared their independence.

It was the famous Paris Wine Tasting that pitted California wines against French wines. Put together by a British wine merchant, James Spurrier, who believed that there was no way that the California wines could win.  Of the 11 judges in the event, only one was American, one British and the other nine were French.

Up until that time the French seemed to rule the wine world.  I know for my part, my first wine was a simple Mouton Cadet from Baron Phillippe de Rothschild.  When I thought of California wines I thought of the jug wines from Robert Mondavi that sat in my aunt's house.

But on that day in 1976 a bottle of 1973 Chateau Montelena set the wine world on its head. Winemaker Mike Grgich gathered chardonnay grapes from vineyards around Alexander Valley and created his revolutionary wine.  A fictionalized version of this is found in the movie Bottle Shock. 

You may be wondering why this is relevant to this blog.  I certainly didn't drink a bottle of the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay. And yet I came perhaps as close as I could to that.  In 1973, Charles Bacigalupi sold 14 tons of Chardonnay grapes to Chateau Montelena. They also picked up 20 tons from Alexander Valley grower, Henry Dick. The remaining 6 tons of the 40 tons in the original wine came from Napa Valley.

You may be wondering how I know this. It comes from John Tyler Wines and the Bacigalupi family. Recently they released their Chardonnay. They typically produce Zinfandel and Pinot Noir but they made 140 cases of their Chardonnay.

Last summer when I made my annual trek to wine country I ran across John Tyler Wines for the first time. Nicole and Katey Bacigalupi were running the tasting house and were extremely helpful during the tasting. (It didn't hurt that we were talking twins as Nicole and Katey are identical twins as are my friend Roxanne's two boys and I'm a fraternal twin.) It was one of the many highlights from my trip. You can read about it here.  

I've stayed in touch via twitter and have purchased from them several times in the mean time. So when I saw a promotion for their Chardonnay around Christmas, I thought about ordering a couple of bottles. I didn't at that point but got in touch after Christmas and ordered three bottles. 

The grapes for this wine came from vines grafted from the very vines that produced the grapes used in the 1973 Chateau Montelena.  That's why when I opened the bottle, I expected it to be good.  I didn't expect it to blow me away.

I was having my friend Billy over for dinner and since he is primarily a white wine drinker I wanted to serve him something special. In the past I had made him Salmon and didn't want to be a one note wonder so I thought about doing something completely outrageous. 

I served this wine with a NY strip steak. 

Yep. You read it right. White wine and red meat can go together. I've always thought that a really substantial Chardonnay can stand up to any food. It's true in this case. I opened the bottle and poured a couple of glasses as I finished the preparations for dinner.

The menu for the evening was twice baked potatoes, green beans and the NY strip steak.  I created a bourbon cream sauce with mushrooms. So as I was browning the mushrooms, I had my first taste of this wine. 

The first thing I noticed on this wine was the color. It was a deeper straw color than I've seen in other Chardonnays. The next was the nose as I brought the glass up for my first taste. In the tasting notes that came along with the wine, they mention stone fruits like white peach and nectarine followed by nice minerality.

If you've read my blogs, you'll know that I'm not very good at picking out aromas or specific flavors. In this case when I reread the notes on the minerality and aromas of wet stone I thought what a perfect description. I'm sure I wouldn't have noted it that way but it does describe the aromas quite well.  

On tasting the wine, the first thing you pick up is the fruit.  As I said earlier, I expected good but this wine truly knocked my socks off. Not only that, this wine more than held its own against a heavy steak meal. I even thought about opening up a second bottle when the first one was gone but then thought: 

I have to go upstairs and get another bottle. Billy's a really good friend but do I want to almost deplete my supply of this unbelievable wine? No.

Sorry, Billy. Although very different, the Chamisal Califa Chardonnay was delicious and substantial, it was a different wine. I had thought about posting this blog earlier but I needed to make sure that I had ordered a few more bottles.  I did that this weekend so I'll let you all in on the secret.

If you'd like to order some of this incredible wine, I'd encourage you to make a phone call . . . soon . . . to my friends at John Tyler Wines.  You can reach them at 707-473-0123. Tell them Mark recommended they call.

And if you miss out on the Chardonnay, you'll want to try both their Zinfandels and their Pinot Noirs. They're all excellent.

 

A Little of Grandfather's Red

In keeping with my last post, Does Wine Have to Be So Complicated,I am trying to encourage people to try to make wine an everyday part of their lives.  It really doesn't have to be complicated. As Nicole Bacigalupi from John Tyler Wines said in response to that post:

Just drink and enjoy. Nothing complicated about that.

She's absolutely right. It's really not all that complicated. So to make things simple on Friday night I opened up what I thought would be a strong companion to some old-fashioned Italian fare: Seghesio's Nonno's Rosso.

Grandfather's Red.

It was created in honor of Edoardo Seghesio, the patriarch of Seghesio Family Vineyards. This wine carries the Alta Vineyard label. The Alta Vineyard Company was purchased by the Seghesio family after World War II and is it's current location in Healdsburg.

Over the last few years I've really enjoyed several of Seghesio's various field blends. I particularly enjoy Marian's Reserve.  While this isn't necessarily a field blend, it recreates the blends and wines that the Alta Vineyard would have been making prior to it's purchase by the Seghesio family.

Grandfather's Red is a turn-of-the-century blend of Alicante dating back to 1885, some hillside Mourvedre and Grenache (with a hint of some old vine Zinfandel). At the end of a busy week the last thing in the world you want to do is to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. So dinner was fairly simple ... some pasta, some sauce and Italian sausage.

I'm not sure what I expected from this wine. First I would say that it's not a bold wine like I've come to expect from a lot of Seghesio's wines.  It was much more subtle. Not bland but more subtle. I wonder if in America we've come to expect the big. The bold. And we expect that the same wine will taste the same across various years.

I wonder if it was always that way.

I was reading an article the other day about the origin of field blends.  Not necessarily the practice of most winemakers today. Today they grow their wines separately.  In the past, several varieties were grown in the same vineyard. The grapes were harvested at the same time and fermented together.

This creates a unique depth because the various grapes ripen at different times. It also means that each year the wine is slightly different. But then again, that's not the Starbucks approach where everything is always the same. That seems to be something that we Americans want.

I think that's our loss.  There's certainly benefits to the variety. Back to Nonno's Rosso. What may have started out out as something a little more subtle became a delicious pairing with the pasta. I found that the wine opened up a bit with some air and the flavors became a little more distinct.

And then, the bottle was empty.

As far as I can tell, this wine was only available to wine club members. And since it was a part of my club shipment, I still have a few bottles left to enjoy in the future. And while it's not a wine that hits my top 10, I'm intrigued enough by the history of the blend and the flavor of the wine to continue to pull it out every now and then.

For those of you intrigued by the concept of a field blend, I think you'll enjoy Seghesio's Marian's Reserve. They have a 2009 available online. I'm beginning to expand the types of wine that I'm trying. I really am enjoying the journey to new wines and regions.  You should, too.

Does Wine Have to be So Complicated?

Do a search on wine books on Amazon and you'll find nearly 100,000 results. That's just books. There's videos, software and apps. Really?

Can wine really be that complicated?

Perhaps we're making it more complicated than we need it to be.  Just for fun, I did a search on wine pairings for Chinese chicken with cashews.  I got all kinds of recommendations. Red wine. White wine. Bold wines. Light and fruity wines.

Over the last few years I've done a number wine tastings. Some of those have been really fun experiences and some have been . . . well less than joyful.  In fact, several friends have told me how one of those wine aficionados have almost ruined their enjoyment of wine.

I've talked to others who've been incredibly intimidated by those types of folks and it's made them afraid to step out of their comfort zone. They drink the same wine all the time.  Sometimes it comes out as: "don't serve any good wine, I can't tell the difference."

That is until they taste some really good wine.  It's not the price of the wine that determines whether it's good or not.

At the end of the day, wine is something that should be enjoyed.


I'm grateful to my friends at Seghesio who helped me expand my palate from drinking just their Zinfandels to enjoying their great Grenache, Petit Sirah, Barbera, Anglianico, various field blends and of course their Sangiovese. I've branched out to other Sonoma County wineries like Frick, John Tyler Wines, Arista, Francis Ford Coppola wines.  I've enjoyed wines from Pine Ridge in Napa and Chamisal Vineyards in San Luis Obispo.


When I'm out with folks for dinner I'm often asked to choose the wine. I know I don't have a better palate than any of the people I'm with.  I tend to be a bit adventurous.  I don't always order a wine that I've had before.  I like to try something new.

But that doesn't mean that I don't have a plan. Sometimes I've had a wine that I liked from the same region.  For instance, I've never had a Chardonnay from the Russian River Valley that I didn't like.  Just last night I was out to dinner with clients and was asked to select the wines for dinner.

I had never really had any of the wines before but I do know that the Willamette Valley in Oregon has some really great Pinot Noirs. It was an Italian restaurant so I found a nice reserve Chianti as well.  As it turns out, the choices were pretty good.

This year I want to encourage those who are a little unsure of themselves to step out and try something new. Mostly I want people to enjoy making memories with friends and families over great food and wine.