Tag Archives: California

Jan 02 2013
10 Comments
2008, 2010, California, Chianti, Italy, USA

2008 Banfi Chianti Classico Riserva and 2010 Fetzer Shaly Loam Gewürztraminer

2008 Banfi Chianti Classico Riserva and 2010 Fetzer Shaly Loam Gewürztraminer

2008 Banfi Chianti Classico Riserva and 2010 Fetzer Shaly Loam Gewürztraminer

Happy New Year! I trust you all made it safely into 2013.

We’ve been going through quite a number of wines here up north, but there weren’t many exciting wines among them. There were some that I had already written about and they did not seem very different  so I felt no need to write about them. Last night though we did have two interesting wines. My mother in law had made a bean and ham soup and we had this bottle of Banfi Chianti Classico Riserva around that I thought might be worth trying.

Banfi is one of the biggest wineries in Italy. I initially learned about them by trying the Rosso and Brunello di Montalcino which I both liked quite a bit. Over the years, they have expanded and now produce a host of wines from different regions in Italy. I am not very impressed with their cheaper wines (the Col di Sasso, for example, is just rather bitter and unpleasant). I had not had a chance to try their chianti classico riserva until last night. The wine aged two years in Slavonian oak and an additional 6 months in the bottle. It is the 2008 harvest and has 13% ABV. The wine is made with Sangiovese, Canaiolo Nero and Cabernet Sauvignon. It was not decanted and drunk straight after opening.

It poured in a lighter red color with slight browning on the edges. On the nose it had prominent cherry and berry aromas. On the palate, I got light bodied wine with a good level of complexity. Several layers of aromas, among them cherry, blueberry and some vanilla worked nicely together. The wine had hardly any noticeable acidity, good tannins and ended in a quite long finish. It was really tasty. I am not sure it worked well with the soup, the flavors did not really complement each other and made the wine too vegetable for my taste. But on its own, I enjoyed it a lot. I am a sucker for good chianti and this one worked for me.

My fellow blogger Rachel blogged about this wine here.

After dinner, we opened a couple of jars of fruit mustards and had them with different cheeses, one of Nina and my favorite pastimes. I rummaged through the wine collection at my in laws and found the 2010 Fetzer Shaly Loam Gewürztraminer which I threw into the freezer to bring it down to drinking temperature. I am not very familiar with Fetzer winery, a big California producer. I do like a good Gewürztraminer, which I also think should be more on the sweet end to bring out all these marvelous fruit aromas. It is difficult to achieve a good Gewürztraminer though, because the grape easily produces overbearing wines.

This one poured in a clear yellow color. The nose was exciting: lychee, gooseberry, papaya, and all sorts of other tropical fruit. It also had a rather alcoholic nose (when I checked, it had 12% ABV, quite a bit for a white wine). On the palate, it was very sweet, on the heavier side of light bodied and combined the aromas I found in the nose in a sugary fashion. The alcohol was prominent and I was not fond to find such a sweet white wine with such a high alcohol level (I know, I am a German riesling snob). It just did not work. The alcohol destroyed potential delicacy, but the sugar also hurt the fruit in the wine. It is hard to wrap my head around it. It just seemed a bit all over the place, without really showing what the grape is capable of. That was kind of sad…that said, it was finished easily.

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Sep 19 2012
18 Comments
2011, California, Food and Wine Pairings, USA

2011 Be Bright Pinot Grigio (by Beringer)

Be Bright Pinot Grigio by Beringer

I think I mentioned it before, I am not the biggest fan of the white pinots, be it pinot gris/grigio/Grauburgunder or pinot blanc/bianco/Weissburgunder. Both often fail to impress me when I try the wines by themselves. I think they can be decent food companions in that they can complement certain types of food. For me, one of these foods is risotto. I usually use a pinot grigio or soave or orvieto for the risottos I cook, and the pairing for dinner works.

So, when I decided to make risotto for friends, it seemed natural to give this bottle a try. Nina had picked it up a couple of weeks back when Kroger had marked it down from an astonishing $18 to $8 in a special sale. She bought it to take to a party, but then that never happened, so we figured why not for the risotto dinner. A rather expensive pinot grigio could be nice with the risotto…

When I first saw the bottle I was skeptical. A California pinot grigio made by Beringer. Hmmm. Also, the label is way too fancy for my taste. And then, I saw the back label and it has this ingenuity printed on it:

Be. Bright.

Be sunny. Be Breezy. Be Bright!

This effortless Pinot Grigio keeps things light, with sun-ripened citrus flavors and a crisp, fresh finish. An instant taste of optimism, perfect for setting a carefree mood at any occasion. Serve chilled for total deliciousness.

I can’t tell you how much I dislike this marketing agency kind of talk on labels. This is all gibberish meant to entice the unsure to spend loads of money on this “oh so cool” product. Ugh. An “effortless” pinot grigio? Did you not put any effort into making it, Mr Beringer or whoever runs the shop? An “instant taste of optimism”? How so? From the citrus flavors? Or because you know it can only get better once you tried the wine? This is all just so pathetic …

Well, we tried the wine and here is what I think. It was light in color. The nose was dominated by very prominent bosc pear aromas, which made it hard for me to detect other aromas. On the palate, pear dominated again with some hints of peach coming in later. I did not get any of the claimed citrus flavors that could actually have helped this wine a lot. The finish was short, which is okay for a pinot grigio. However, there were also slight bitter notes which I did not fancy.

All in all, I guess this is an okay wine. It just did not do much for me, because it felt too heavy and lacked interesting notes. It also did not pair too well with the risotto I had made, a mushroom-porcini risotto, probably because of the strong pear flavor. However, I always have that risotto with white wine and never really had a problem. I don’t know. I will definitely not go and buy another bottle, it was just not my taste.

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Aug 11 2012
11 Comments
2010, California, USA

Trader Joe’s Reserve 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon Dry Creek Valley and 2010 Merlot Paso Robles

The duo

We spent last night over at friends, making burritos and catching up. After we were done with our by now obligatory Vinho Verde Espiral, we moved on to two other Trader Joe’s wines that I had not yet tasted. I was quite excited because I hear/read that the Trader Joe’s Reserves are pretty good (I am sure you have heard that before as well: “Giving you a $20 wine for $10”, and stuff like that – btw who comes up with that stuff? It totally sounds like a marketing gimmick by TJ’s itself!!). Well, here is what I thought:

First up was the 2010 Trader Joe’s Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Dry Creek Valley. Now, I am usually not an overly big fan of cab savs. On paper, they have everything that gets me going in a red wine: red berries and red fruit, healthy tannins. Yet, they seldom impress me. I find a lot of them unbalanced and somehow unappealing. In my experience, the grape is much better in blended wines than as a single varietal wine. I have had some great ones thanks to an American friend of ours who went on a mission to make me try good cab savs while we were still in Germany. She succeeded in that I do not shy away completely when they are offered to me. This one had the typical dark red color, and the cork was nicely reddened (I have not had a red wine in a bit, as I noticed when I smiled looking at the cork…just something about those stains). In the nose, I got a lot of vanilla notes. On the palate, not so much: more cherries and dark berries. I was greeted by strong, unwelcome oaky flavors, with some strawberries thrown in. This was soon followed by what I can only describe as “greenness”, tasting like the grapes were not ripe or the grape skins and stems standing way too long in the juice after pressing. It is a bit like biting into a fresh branch. It was surprisingly sweet, and had a short finish. I did not care for it very much. I cross checked with Nina, who loves cab sav, and her facial reaction confirmed my impression. This is not for me.

Second up was the 2010 Trader Joe’s Reserve Merlot Paso Robles. A lot of people shun merlot (namely those that watched the movie Sideways…), but I have not been turned off by the grape. Again, I think it is often better when blended, but the single varietal wines usually are not letting me down. I am not having many bottles of it in my cellar, though. It poured well and looked dark red, yet a bit lighter than the cab sav. The nose was subtle, almost subdued. It tasted of strawberry and some vanilla, with later apple notes coming in (weird, but not unpleasant!). Slightly green tasting, with a mild smokiness. The finish was medium long. I thought this was much better than the cab sav, a good pour at the end of the evening. Not wild crazy about it, but a decent wine.

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