Consistently Consistent

Aside from waking up and breathing, I seem to have just two consistent themes in my daily life – my family, and travel.   Living out of my suitcase, schlepping through airports, trying to keep up with work and my family responsibilities, I have come to appreciate simplicity and consistency.

In the spirit of consistency, while on the road, I try to get together with other wine bloggers at least once a week, and explore new wine bars or restaurants at least one other night a week.  For the remainder of the week, I tend to veg, order room service, put the TV on something mindless like Seinfeld reruns or South Park and just catch up on email backlog.  To pair with these stay-in-the-hotel-and-veg-nights, I crave/need/have to have a wine that is economical, reliable and consistently good.  Finding such a wine, one that is widely available throughout the US, is more difficult than it may sound.

One such wine – economical, reliable, consistent, and widely available – is the A to Z Pinot Noir.  A to Z Pinot seems to be available everywhere – Florida, California, Washington, DC, Virginia, St. Louis, NY – at a reasonable $17 – $21.

A to Z Pinot is produced by Dundee, OR based A to Z Wineworks.  A to Z was founded in 2002 by Bill Hatcher, formerly of Domaine Drouhin.  According to the A to Z website, they are the fastest growing Oregon winery, and has a current annual production of 120,000.

A to Z 2007 Oregon Pinot Noir – Made from at least 30 different vineyards spread across all of the Oregon AVAs that grow Pinot.  Garnet color in the glass, this Pinot has a nose of raspberry, fresh mulberries that you find here in the woods (the red ones), cherry, hints of root beer and mint on the nose.  Cherry and earthy flavors dominate the mouth.  Mild tannins and fruit work well together.  Shorter finish than I would have liked, but at this price point I’m not expecting nirvana.  64,000 cases of this wine produced.

Over the last few years, I’ve consumed a couple of cases of A to Z, one bottle at a time, on veg-out nights and this wine has always been consistently good.  Looking for a nice, reasonably price, consistent, Tuesday night wine?  Check out the A to Z Pinot.

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Learning by Doing – A Pinot Tasting

What do you find to be the most effective method to learn about wine?  Reading? Tasting? Wine classes?  For many, ‘learning by doing’ is the most effective way to learn about wine, or any other subject for that matter.

Learning by doing is an economic concept that can be roughly defined as the capability of workers to improve their productivity by consistently repeating the same actions.  For businesses, this consistent repetition – learning by doing – leads to production and cost efficiencies.  For us humans, we tend to get better at stuff – golf, writing, and even wine tasting – via repetition.  Duh, of course, it’s common sense, eh?

Reading about, and tasting a lot of wine is how I began my wine education back in 2005/2006 after suffering a bite from the ‘wine passion bug.’  Although I did learn quite a bit about wine from reading The Wine Advocate, Wine Spectator and a host of wine-related books, along with tasting a lot of wines, I’ve found that my personal wine knowledge tends to expand more by tasting with other people.  By tasting and talking through the wines with a group, and looking at a wine through someone else’s lens, I learn exponentially more than just reading about wine or having a glass or two a night.

To that end, I try to attend all of the small group tastings I can during my weekly travels.  Last week I was in the Washington, DC area working and took that opportunity to get together with fellow wine blogging friend, Dezel of Vine Spot and a couple other winos for a Pinot tasting.  We all threw in a few bucks and got together at Dezel’s place with a few bottles of Pinot.

We tasted five Pinots in the following order:

• Philip LeHardi Mercurey 2005, $25.99
• Muirwood 2007 Pinot Noir Reserve, Suter Vineyard $19.99
• Adelsheim 2006 Pinot Elizabeth Reserve, $39.99
• J 2006 Pinot Noir, Thomas Vineyard, $28.99
• Domaine Jean Luc Dubois Chorey-Les-Beaune Clos Margot 2005, ~$22

First up for the tasting was the Philip LeHardi Mercurey 2005 1er Cru.  Had this been a blind tasting, I would have picked this one as an Anderson Valley, or Russian River Valley Pinot vice a Burgundy.  Very fruit forward – with an intense violet soap aromas along with spice, cherries, and earth.  Equally intense floral flavors, spice and wet straw flavors in the mouth.  A couple of the other guys noted intense mushroom aromas on the nose that I didn’t detect (one of the benefits of group tastings).  Not as much minerality and acidity as I would have liked, but a solid effort and price point for a Premier Cru Burgundy.

Second up in the tasting was the Muirwood 2007 Pinot from Central Coast, CA.  This one was my least favorite of the tasting – the oak treatment overwhelmed the fruit.  18 months in new French oak was way too much for this wine. (my personal opinion – ONLY neutral oak should be used with Pinot) I gave this wine the benefit of the doubt by giving it quite a bit of time in the glass to air out, but the sweet oak aromas and flavors seemed to just get stronger.  This is a big pass.

After the Muriwood, there was only one way for this tasting to go – UP!  Next up was the Adelsheim 2006 Pinot Elizabeth Reserve from Willamette Valley, Oregon.  An elegant, velvety Pinot with cherry, raspberry, spice, earth, and floral notes throughout – followed by a lengthy berry and spice finish.  Adelsheim is one of the premier Willamette Valley producers, and has never disappointed.  At $40, this certainly isn’t a Tuesday or Wednesday night wine, but would make a great wine to open for the holidays.  My favorite wine of the evening by far.

Next up was the J 2006 Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley.  I consider this a typical mid-level RRV Pinot.  On the nose, this wine showed raspberry, cherry cola and intense pepper aromas that I found unusual.  On the palate, this wine is medium bodied, ‘ok’ balanced, with a flavor profile similar to the nose – cherry cola, wet mushroom, baking spice and more pepper.

The last wine in the line up was the Jean-Luc Dubois Chorey-Les-Beaune Clos Margot 2005.  This wine started out with an unusual, and off putting cheddar cheese aroma that quickly burned off with a little air (thankfully).  On the nose I found cherry, raspberry, nice coffee, and wet straw aromas.  Medium bodied wine with flavors of an herbal component with mineral, cinnamon and cherry.  I felt this one had more notable acidity than any of the other Pinots in the line up.

My ranking for the evening, in order …

1. Adelsheim 2006 Pinot Elizabeth Reserve, $39.99
2. J 2006 Pinot Noir, Thomas Vineyard, $28.99
3. Jean-Luc Dubois Chorey-Les-Beaune Clos Margot 2005, ~$22
4. Philip LeHardi Mercurey 2005, $25.99
5. Muirwood 2007 Pinot Noir Reserve, Suter Vineyard $19.99

As with many small-group tastings, I found this Pinot tasting to be a great time to just hang out, talk wine and learn about how others view and perceive wine.  Hat tip to Dezel for hosting the tasting – hopefully he can make it to our ‘Pork and Pinot’ tasting next week.

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Drinking Local To Boycott Beaujolais Nouveau

What was lost is now found – I finally found my notes from my trip to Ottawa two weeks ago which is the reason for this belated post.

It’s that time of year again – turkey, family, friends, more turkey, football, and Beaujolais Nouveau release time.  The third Thursday of November marks the annual release date of the young, light purple-pink, bananaish version of Gamay from the Beaujolais region of France.  We have George Duboeuf (primarily) to thank for littering the globe with this disrespectful-to-the-Gamay-grape swill.  (An interesting factoid about Beaujolais Nouveau – the release date is always the third Thursday of November, regardless of which date harvest occurs.)

I’ve read that the carbon footprint to ship Nouveau across the globe is obscene and is reason many avoid purchasing the Nouveau.  I don’t buy it because I think it sucks.

Once again I celebrated the annual release of Beaujolais Nouveau by not buying any.  Instead, I quietly expressed my disdain for the Nouveau by drinking local – local to Canada that is.  My work travels took me to Ottawa, Canada, and on Thursday I found myself in Play Food & Wine in Ottawa’s ByWard Market.   Play Food & Wine is one of the best places in Ottawa to experience small plates, along with Canadian cheese and wine.

For my drink-local-to-boycott-Nouveau wine of the evening was the Stratus Vineyards 2007 Gamay from Niagara-On-The-Lake.  Although the bartender highly recommended this wine, I had my doubts about a Gamay from Canada.  Much to my delight, this Gamay was really tasty good.   This light purple Gamay opens with a lively nose of cherry, overripe raspberry, dust and hints of a meaty component.  On the palate, this wine is light bodied (but very lively) with blueberry candy and that same meaty component.  This wine, in my opinion, showed more acidity than traditional Beaujolais. Although this wine was $62CA per bottle on the Play menu, you can pick up a bottle for $29CA on the Stratus website.  According to the Stratus website, this is only the third release of their Gamay since 2001.

If you find yourself in Ottawa, a stop by Play Food & Wine for dinner and drinks is a must – and be sure to order a glass of the Stratus 2007 Gamay.

Other Drink What You Like Beaujolais related posts:

• Beaujolais – The Summer to Fall Transition Wine
• Marcel Lapierre Morgon
• Not So Nouveau

Coming next… Southbrook 2008 Triomphe Merlot from Niagara…

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Fair Trade Wine, Malbec, and Sam’s Samples

The growing popularity of Malbec, New Zealand Pinot Noir, biodynamic viticulture, citizen wine blogging, waning influence of uber-critic Robert Parker, and $10 wines are just a few of the trends shaping the wine scene of tomorrow.

Another notable trend having an impact, although admittedly small right now, is the growing prominence of social responsibility within the wine industry with an emphasis on fair and equitable treatment of the folks on the very front of the wine life cycle.

One ‘relatively new’ form of social responsibility making it’s way in to the wine industry is Fair Trade.  For those unfamiliar with the concept, Fair Trade products support farmers in emerging/developing nations through ethical treatment, fair prices, environmental stewardship, and community development.  I’ve had Fair Trade coffee, sugar, and chocolate, but never Fair Trade wine, until a few weeks ago…

As I’m roaming around Sam’s Club one Saturday afternoon loading up on food samples, I noticed a huge yellow, star-shaped shelf taker in the wine section touting their ‘new’ Fair Trade wine (new to this area) -  Neu Direction Malbec.

Neu Direction Malbec benefits the local farmers of Viña de la Solidaridad (Vine of Solidarity), an association based on preserving the rich, cultural heritage of the contratista-landowner relationship.  Ten small vineyard owners and nine contratistas make up the association.  The contratistas lives on the land with their families and are paid a percentage of the grape harvest by the vineyard owners.  The association currently owns 200 acres of vineyards with about a third certified organic, with plans to convert more over the coming years.  ~ Organic Wine Trade website

Neu Direction is produced by Bodega Furlotti S.A., from Mendoza, Argentina.  This wine is certified Fair Trade based on standards established by TransFair, the only independent third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the US.  2008 was the first year of the TransFair certification program.

Neu Direction 2006 Malbec – As a general rule, I try to avoid spending my wine dollars at big box stores, especially at Sam’s Club, but at just $9.99 for this wine, I went for it.  Deep purple in the glass, this wine showed basic dark fruits, licorice and earth.  Mild tannins with flavors of a blueberry, blackberry, and plum pie baked in a wood burning oven.  An ‘ok’ Malbec, reasonably priced, with a great mission!

With just 4.3 million bottles of Fair Trade wine sold, this movement is clearly in its infancy, with a lot of room to grow.

Curious if others have had experience with Fair Trade wines.  If so, leave a comment with your thoughts or any recommendations.

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