Big Food needs Big Wine

January 24th, 2010 by Vinagoth | Posted in California, Cheap and Red, Petite Sirah | 1 Comment »

Mrs. Barbarian made a Costco run today, and returned with several industrial-scale boxes filled with foodstuffs. At first I thought she was planning to load a C-130 headed for Haiti, but no… we’re supposed to eat it all. Conspicuously absent from the booty was any wine (Costco is where you’ll find our every-day wine choice, Cameron Hughes.) Thankfully I had stopped at our local grocer to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy on Friday and as always made a detour through the wine section to grab a few bottles. Dinner tonight was meant to make a dent in this huge food cache and Mrs. Barbarian cooked up some cornbread from a package the size of a pillowcase. Meanwhile I opened a gunny sack of broccoli flowerettes, and some (thankfully in a small package) bratwurst.

Food of this scale requires a big wine. A sledgehammer of a wine. No subtlety required. I reached for the Petite Sirah.

Concannon was the first winery to bottle Durif’s grape on its own, and the label proclaims it as “America’s First Petite Sirah.” It is also a 125 year old family-owned winery. This is a 2006 vintage Central Coast Petite Sirah. The label says “Limited Release”, which may be hyperbole if I was able to grab this for $11.25 ($15.99 retail, $12.49 with grocer’s loyalty card, $11.25 when combined with a multi-bottle discount!) at my podunk small-town grocery store.

It certainly is quite good though. When I first opened the bottle the nose was a little strange but that vanished quickly. In fact by mid-meal the wine seems to have lost all of it’s nose. That is OK though since it tastes wonderful. Big and broad-shouldered like a Petite Sirah should be, and easily able to stand up to the big flavors on the plate. Mrs. Barbarian liked it even more than I did, as I noted that after dinner there was maybe a glass-and-a-half left, and I sat down to write this review. I snapped the photo you see above (note: new cell phone… much better image quality from the camera!), then turned back to my computer to write; when I next turned to grab the bottle to read the label it was empty. I heard her come in and leave the room, but did not turn to look. She obviously slurped up the rest of this nice wine.

www.concannonvineyard.com

CH Lot 110: The wine that saved us from Raucous Red

January 17th, 2010 by Vinagoth | Posted in California, Cheap and Red, Napa, Pinot Noir, Sonoma | No Comments »

After the disaster that was the Raucous Red, I had to save the evening and the dinner with a “sure thing”. Around our house that usually means something from Cameron Hughes. CH Wines are almost always consistent. Consistently good that is. Mrs. Barbarian is partial to Pinot Noir, so I grabbed a bottle of Lot 110, a 2007 Pinot Noir from the “Los Carneros” AVA, which straddles both Napa & Sonoma valleys in California.

As usual, Mr. Hughes delivered on his promise and provided an excellent value wine for about ten bucks. Mrs. Barbarian liked it, and so I was spared any more discordant screeching that night.

Thank you Mr. Hughes, I am forever in your debt.

Raucous? yes. Wrecked us? Certainly.

January 17th, 2010 by Vinagoth | Posted in Cheap and Red, Odds & Ends, The Spit Bucket, Washington State | No Comments »

When you think of great wine cultures your mind conjures up provinces of France, rugged struggling vines in Spain, fruit & nut Californians, enterprising Australians, and Carmenere-saving Chileans. Probably the last culture you would associate with viniculture are horn-helmeted raiders from the land of the midnight sun. No great wine has ever come out of Norway aboard a longship. Sure these barbarians named Sven and Ole would plunder a cask or two, but make it? Never.

I know that Washington State is one of those places where Norwegians settled upon emigrating to the USA, but what lunatic thought that melding that with the state’s wine production was a good idea? Somewhere in the Yakima Valley of Washington is a place called Outlook, and though I’ve never been there I’d have to say the Outlook is bleak if this is what comes from there. My dictionary describes the word “raucous” with the following synonyms: harsh, strident, screeching, piercing, shrill, grating, discordant, dissonant; noisy, loud, cacophonous. That pretty much sums up the drinking experience.

I paid $7.99 for this bottle, and that was a deep discount. I can’t imagine how cacophonous my reaction would be had I paid full retail!

The look on Mrs. Barbarian’s face upon her initial tasting of the wine could serve as a dictionary illustration for “grating” or “discordant.” Thankfully I had a funnel handy and the glass you see here went right back in the bottle after I confirmed her suspicions.

I initially thought about saving it for use in cooking, which is my usual response to a bad tasting wine. After further consideration I ended up pouring that $7.99 right down the sink.

A go-to Pinot

January 3rd, 2010 by Vinagoth | Posted in Cheap and Red, New Zealand, Pinot Noir | No Comments »

While I like a good Pinot Noir, the Vinagoth rarely buys any. Why? It is really hard to find a cheap Pinot that is a GOOD Pinot, that is why. There are lots of cheap Pinot Noirs out there, but they are generally unpalatable swill. There is however an exception: Momo Pinot Noir from New Zealand. I’ve mentioned it before and as I tasted some recently it is worth mentioning again. I generally buy a few bottles of Momo every year, as Mrs. Barbarian likes Pinot Noir and this one from down under has yet to let me down. This bottle cost me a mere $14, yet was every bit as good as every other bottle of Momo Pinot I’ve tasted over the past half-decade or so since I first tried it. I don’t know what those Kiwis are doing to make Pinot so consistently good, but let’s hope they keep on doing it.

This is not me, but…

December 31st, 2009 by Vinagoth | Posted in Odds & Ends | No Comments »

…based on his accent and drinking style it very well could be a close relative of Mrs. Barbarian!

Happy New Year, and be aware that my resolution for 2010 is to write at LEAST one post a week here throughout the year.

A “Super Chilean” … No Bull.

December 13th, 2009 by Vinagoth | Posted in Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cheap and Red, Chile | No Comments »

I picked up this red today at the grocery store for $10.49. The weather has been atrocious all day and Mrs. Barbarian didn’t want to venture out of the house. However I found myself short a few ingredients for the Sunday dinner I was planning in my head. Braving the elements I dashed into the store, avoiding the cold wet stuff falling from the sky. After I had grabbed the vegetables I sought, along with a few pounds of the flesh of lesser beasts, I wandered over to the wine section and spotted this Chilean. The store had hung a tag up under the bottle telling of a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère, and Cabernet Franc… three of my favorite grapes (after Petite Sirah of course!) It was surrounded by a host of Chilean Cabs, all sporting distinctly un-Chilean price tags in the mid-$20—to low-$30 range so my hopes were not high. I lifted the tag to check the price, expecting twenty-something dollars but instead saw $15.00. This store offers a discount if you buy four bottles (any bottles, mix&match), so I grabbed this along with 3 others (a bottle of aussie port, a Nuevo Mundo Cab/Malbec blend, and a California wine I’ll try later this week.) This discount knocked the cost down to $10.49 to be exact, so I’m a happy barbarian!

Dinner was a pasta dish with Italian sausage, along with some baked asparagus, sauteed broccoli/kale, and garlic bread. This wine worked very well with it all… very smooth, lots of flavor, a big sort of presence without being overpowering. Not much nose, but plenty of good stuff going on once it was in the mouth. The label has a watercolor picture of a bull, but this bottle has no bull in it whatsoever. Just a very good wine at a very reasonable price. I may go back a buy a case.

“Calcu”
2006 Red Wine “Super Chilean” from the Valle de Colchagua, Chile
60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Carmenère, 15% Cabernet Franc

EXCELLENT value under $20.

Mystery Windfall

November 15th, 2009 by Vinagoth | Posted in Oregon, Petite Sirah, Washington State | 1 Comment »

I’ll let you in on a not-so-hidden secret: While I like wine quite a bit, I don’t know much about wine. When I sit down to share what I thought about any particular wine it is usually a bit after the fact. I snap a photo of the wine, and jot some drunken notes on my not-so-smartphone. I can recall the reactions of those who are with me at the time, and can certainly remember if I liked it or not. But anything more factual is usually conjured from the vast reaches of the Internet via Google. I like to provide links should you, my dear reader, wish to go out and buy some of this stuff yourself. I never read what other reviewers have said about a wine… I honestly do not care. Besides I find all the wine-snob terminology frustrating as hell. I swear, if I ever actually hear somebody say something like “essence of blackberries and tobacco” in my presence I’m likely to bury my forks in their eye sockets (salad fork in the left eye of course!) and drink all their wine myself. I’ve been known for other barbaric, though not-so-dramatic acts… for instance taking empty wine bottles home from fancy restaurants. I do this as a reminder to myself of how good the wine was, and a way for me to catalog it later for you. Mrs. Barbarian is always shocked and embarrassed by this behavior of mine … though she hasn’t yet said “oaky” or “shoe leather” yet while at a fancy bistro with me. She thinks walking away with an empty, and then (shock! horror!) leaving it sitting at my desk for weeks on end is “tacky.” Of course my retort to her is “you picked me… what does that say about your judgement?”

Not long ago Mrs. Barbarian & I visited our favorite eatery and as my eye wandered over the wine list it fell upon something I’d never seen before. A Petite Syrah from the Pacific Northwest. I had to try it. The proprietor of this place loves to present hard to find, usually very unusual wines. Sure, he has a big list of safe choices for those lacking in courage, but there are enough whack-jobs like myself among his clientele that oddball wines and offbeat varietals are always available on the periphery of his list. I suspect that in the case of this wine, he only had a handful, if even a case. It was there one week, and gone the next. I’m glad I stumbled into enjoy it while it was available.

Despite the fact that I kept the bottle, this Petite Syrah remains a mystery.

The front label says only:

Fallöbst
Petite Syrah
Zephyr Ridge Vineyard
Alc. 14.2% by volume

2006

The back label continues the enigma:

I’m Just Sayin’
I have eaten
the grapes
that were on
the vine
………………..
and which
you were probably
saving
for harvest
……………….
Forgive me
they were so delicious
so sweet
and so oval

PRODUCED AND BOTTLED BY FALLOBST
MILTON FREEWATER, OREGON

All that Google can tell me is that Fallöbst winery does exist in Milton-Freewater (a town not far from Walla Walla, Washington), has paid taxes, and has distributed this wine to a few places in the Pacific Northwest (how it got here to me is yet another mystery!) Zephyr Ridge Vineyard appears to be in Horse Heaven Hills, which is in Washington state in the Columbia River Valley. Beyond that this wine retains all manner of mystery.

I can not recall what I paid for it, likely around $35, which means if it was on a store shelf it would cost around $15—$19. That my friend would be a bargain because this is a wonderful Petite Syrah. Big, bold, smooth, and able to stain your teeth beyond any hope of a career on television.

Sibling Rivalry?

November 15th, 2009 by Vinagoth | Posted in Cheap and Red, Chile, Malbec | No Comments »

After I fell in love with a cheap Chilean Malbec by the name of “Secreto” I kept my eye out for other wines from the same maker. By random chance while in a grocery store in a town I rarely visit I spotted a display carrying the name of the “parent” of the Secreto brand, Viu Manent. Without hesitation I grabbed two bottles of the Malbec. They went into my car’s trunk for the ride home and spent a month or so lounging in the cellar prior to trying one out.

Perhaps this is a dinner table conversation best left to Carl Jung and Robert Pirsig, but…
Is it because the Secreto is so inexpensive, yet pretty good, that I liked it more than this Viu Manent, which was also pretty good, but twice the price of the Secreto?

Then again, this was not a side-by-side comparison. These two tastings happened months apart. Maybe it was the foods paired? Perhaps it was high expectations? Maybe the 2008 vintage doesn’t stand up to 2007? Who knows. While this wine is certainly enjoyable, and a good value at around $18 a bottle, it’s little brother was a delight for under $10.

I think I have one bottle of each still stashed away downstairs so perhaps a head-to-head rematch is in order? Stay tuned.

Viu Manent
Estate collection
2008 Malbec
Colchagua Valley
Chile

Life in the Wine-ness Protection Program

November 15th, 2009 by Vinagoth | Posted in Cheap and Red, Italy, Unknown! | No Comments »

Some business travel recently had me in, of all places, Elkhart, Indiana for one night. It was a dark and stormy night to be exact. One of those midwestern dark-sky, thunder and lightning, pressure so low you feel underwater even though it isn’t even raining yet sort of evenings to be even more exact. I figured a tornado was going to drop onto us and send the entire hotel off to crush a witch along with the entire village of Munchkins at any moment.

So we went out to dinner.

Why be party to small-scale (pardon the pun) genocide when we could be quaffing cheap red wine? My traveling companion picked an Italian place from the phone book and we piloted ourselves through the whirlwinds to their parking lot. How did this place get here?All I could figure was that this place must be owned by somebody in the Witness Protection Program. The food was excellent. Just basic hearty Italian fare that exists somewhere between what I’ve come to expect from either over-done, over-thought, over-wrought Italian Cuisine found on the west coast, and the exceedingly bland spaghetti & Ragu one finds in the midwest. This wonderful place had exactly what you imagine when you think of Italian food. Subtle flavors, and simple presentation all backed up by excellent service. Our breadsticks and marinara sauce were amazing, especially the sauce. Light, tangy, with exactly the right amounts of herbs and spices. Salads were simple, and really the sole low point of the experience as the dressing was served in a little plastic cup… I much prefer my salads pre-tossed and people with diet hangups who want to have complete control over their fat and caloric intake shouldn’t be going out to dinner in the first place! For the entree I picked a calzone. I chose the smallest (9″) one as we were leaving early in the morning and I knew there would be no way I could keep the leftovers for tomorrow. My companion chose the veal, despite the lack of a comedian nearby suggesting he try it. (hey, don’t look at me!)

As we awaited our entrees a bottle of Chianti arrived. Cecchi Chianti Classico 2005. Ah Chianti, that super-cheap Tuscan. In this case it fit the bill. Not so amazing as to outshine the basic fare, but certainly not strictly a cheap buzz. Basic, reasonable quality red wine. You should be able to find it on a shelf for under $15.

Our entrees arrived and my calzone was bigger than my head. I asked the waitress for a ruler, claiming that there was no way this pie started out anywhere near nine inches across. She just laughed and walked away. It was excellent and I ate it all.

Much Merriment

September 25th, 2009 by Vinagoth | Posted in Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Expensive, Merlot, Walla Walla, Washington State, but not outrageous | No Comments »

A nice little birthday dinner for the Mrs. Barbarian of the household and once again we visited her favorite haunt. She loves to explore the menu, trying new things. Me? I order the same thing every time: New York Strip, medium-rare. The chef here has that steak down pat, so why tempt fate? I limit my explorations to the wine list. The owner of this little small-town bistro always has great stuff on the list and to be honest, like the chef’s steak the wine list has never let me down. On this trip I noted another wine from that Walla Walla place up in Washington, specifically Basel Cellars. We’d really enjoyed their Claret which was a cheap thrill indeed. This other selection was called “Merriment“. What better choice for a celebration? While it was well over 2X the price of the Claret we’d tried before, it still wasn’t outrageously priced as so many reds can be.

Merriment is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. It is also awesome. Mrs. Barbarian loved it. I loved it. Wonderful stuff.