Graham’s “Six Grapes” Port warms on Cold Days

Yesterday was the first really cold day we’ve had in our area this year. 

When the cold weather comes in earnest, it’s time to put away the warm weather sippers and get out the Port.  Through the winter, it’s the drink of choice after dinner, beside the fire, while entertaining, or just about anytime.

I recently opened a bottle of Graham’s “Six Grapes” reserve, a favorite of mine.  Reserve Port is more Ruby than Tawny, and is sweet, fruity, and luscious.

Six Grapes is a great value in the low $20 range and half bottles are available as well.  You get lots of plum, cherry and prune notes in a smooth, easy drinking fortified wine.  The alcohol percentage of 19.5 is very well balanced and gives you a true wine drinking experience without too much heat.

This wine is great by itself and is one of the few wines that really does pair well with dark chocolate.  We tried it with Godiva trufles and with a 75% Ecuadoran single origin with delightful results. 

A bottle would make a great gift over the holidays and don’t forget about Valentine’s day, as well.

Until next time, happy pours

The Wine Guy

Irony Wines – A Stylish Addition to Your Table

While entertaining guests at our home recently, I opened a bottle of Irony 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon to serve with a pasta dish.  I was pleasantly surprised at the balance of depth and accessibility that I immediately perceived and my friend quickly commented that the wine was delicious and asked what it was. 

What it was is one of the best values on the market.  It’s not a huge blockbuster Cab, but it’s nobody’s leftover grapes either.  To be able to get a wine like this for a mid-teens price is a testimony to the Indelicato family’s ability to make quality wine at a great price.   

I found their 2007 Napa Valley Chardonnay to be another excellent wine for the price.  It is made in the style I like, with green apple and pear over a base of minerality.  It is versatile enough to acomapny most seafood, but is excellent with grilled chicken, and also went well with primavera.

Until next time, happy pours

The Wine Guy

Getting Started with Tasting – continued

 

How’s your tasting going? I hope you tried at least one new wine this week, possibly several. I also hope you took notes and learned from it.

I know that many of you are not wine connoisseurs. That’s not a problem. The purpose of this column is not to provide more information to people who already know a lot about wine.

The purpose is to teach you what wine is all about so you can experience the pleasures it can bring to your table and your lifestyle. Once the bug bites and you get yourself armed with a little knowledge, the results can literally change your life.

I also know there can be snags. See if this sounds familiar. The Wine Guy made it sound so easy, you decided to march yourself to the wine store with the intention of taking his advice.

When you got there and started looking at all of the bottles and labels, your eyes crossed, your head spun, you forgot everything, and you felt like an idiot. Hey, it happens. And it’s embarrassing to carry a cheat sheet because you feel like you’re wearing your, “I’m a newbie” T-shirt out in public.

That’s why I suggest starting with one variety and sticking with it for a while, partly for the reasons given in last week’s column and partly so you know what you’re looking for. If you are only looking for Chardonnay, all you need to find is that word on the label, the price, and the country or region it came from. Now focus. You can do this.

Most “New World” wine nations use varietal labeling for their wines. In other words, the name of the primary grape used is the name of the wine.

There will also be a brand or producer’s name, government requirements such as the Surgeon General’s warning, alcohol content, etc. All of those are secondary at this point.

What you really want to know right now is, “What does Chardonnay taste like?” and, “What’s the difference between the $8.00 and $80.00 bottles?” and, “Do they really taste all that different?”

Taste, my friends, taste. Buy and taste. And yes, they do taste all that different, as a matter of fact. They are all made from Chardonnay grapes, but those grapes all grew in different vineyards.

The French use a word, terroir, (ter-wah) which means the soil and geographic location where the grapes were produced. You can literally grow the same grapes on two plots of land a mile apart and the wines will never taste the same because the soil is different, the exposure to sunlight is different, and as a result, the grapes are different.

That is what terrior is all about. You can taste it, but only with experience. The other differences in taste come from different winemaking techniques, more or less care and quality going into the finished product, or differences created by the weather in a particular season, i.e. a “good” or “bad” year.

Now don’t misunderstand. I am not pushing Chardonnay. You could just as well start with Sauvignon Blanc, Reisling, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, or a host of others. I chose Chardonnay because it is popular, produced in most countries, and widely available.

It is also dry and you, “I only like sweet wine” people need to experience more of what’s out there. Ouch! Quit throwing things at me! I know I said if you enjoy sweet wine, go ahead and drink it, but don’t deny yourself the pleasures of fine wine because you’re stuck in a rut. Taste!… Taste!

Questions or comments? Got a great tip, tasting note or review? Contact me at goodellwineguy@gmail.com.

Until next time, Happy pours.

The Wine Guy

How to Get Started In Wine: From the Beginning

by Brian Goodell, The Wine Guy

Let me ask you a question. How do you choose a bottle of wine? That’s not a rhetorical question that I am now about to answer. I mean, literally, how do you choose a bottle of wine?

Do you read wine magazines and buy what they recommend? Do you look at the shelf talkers in the wine store (those little tags near a particular bottle with a number and description) and choose the ones with high numbers?

Do you ask the sales person at the wine store for recommendations? Or do you just keep picking up the same old tried and true over and over?

The reason I ask is that I’m a nosy fellow. Actually, it’s because I want to teach you how to make wine a real part of your life if it isn’t already.

If you are an American, chances are it isn’t. That’s changing though. Wine consumption in this country continues to rise and more and more people are becoming part of the growing wine trend.

There are still an awful lot of you who just don’t know what to do, though, and that’s where I come in. Out of the thousands upon thousands of wines and all of the reviews, how can you sort it all out and make sense of it all?

Now that one was the rhetorical question. Did you catch that? Here’s the answer. You learn the categories and styles of wine and you learn what you like.

Sound simple? It is. You know, I’ve read where people say that you can get to know wine fairly well in about two years if you really set your mind to it, as if you are learning a foreign language.

I’d like to believe that it’s not that difficult. The categories range from broad to narrow and you start with the broad and work your way down.

Oh, by the way…you have to actually taste the wine. You won’t learn by reading, listening, talking or any other means nearly as effectively as you will by pulling a few corks and taking a few swallows.

So what are the broad categories? They are the obvious. Red, White and Rosé. Dry and Sweet. Still and Sparkling.

Then we begin to narrow. Within each of these are smaller subcategories. Take dry, still white wines, for example.

There are many grape varieties used to make these wines. Chardonnay is both a type of grape and a variety of wine.

To get to know Chardonnay, you choose wines from a region, around a price point, and you taste them. Try several California Chard’s in the $10 – $15 dollar price range. Try them on their own and with a variety of foods.

If you are really serious about getting to know wine, take a journal and make notes as you try them. Don’t think, “I don’t need to do that, I’ll remember.” Trust me, you won’t.

These notes don’t have to be technical. They can be as simple as, “This one was smoother. I liked it better with the chicken than with the ham.” Don’t worry about all of the fancy lingo that connoisseurs use. That can come later.

Next, move on in the same category and try Chardonnay from Australia, France, and elsewhere, still making notes. Note the similarities and the differences. Move a little up or down from the price point and notice how things change.

Unless you come to the conclusion that, “I just don’t like Chardonnay,” you will probably find that you have identified some basic preferences. You will have found some food matches (and mismatches, perhaps), you will have learned the basic characteristics of what Chardonnay tastes like, and you will have a sense of how different regions produce different styles of wine from the same grape.

Then, choose another and keep going. Depending on how much money you have and are willing to spend on wine, this may go fairly quickly or may take some time.

Just start simple and taste. Reading is good. Talking with people who know wine is good. Emailing your wine columnist is good. Tasting is better. That’s how you get to know wine.

Questions or comments? Got a great tip, tasting note or review? Contact me at goodellwineguy@gmail.com

Until next time, happy pours

The Wine Guy

The Mystery of Opening Older Wines

 by Brian Goodell, The Wine Guy

I read with interest a recent story that indicated that even the top experts cannot accurately tell you when to open top, age worthy wines. Perhaps that idea of a magic, perfect day in which the wine will have reached exact maturity is a rather impractical idea.

Not that we don’t all want to taste a really great wine exactly when it’s “ready.” We do. But when is that? Does it really even exist outside one’s own personal preference? I believe it doesn’t.

Every bottle is different and everyone’s personal taste is different, so perfect for one may not be ready yet for another, or past someone else’s peak. The important thing is knowing how to respond when you don’t find what you expected when you open an older bottle.

Let me give you some examples from my recent experience. I opened a 1996 St. Julien on a recent Saturday and fully expected it to be very mature, perhaps even slightly over the peak. I thought it would be somewhat fragile and was prepared to drink the entire bottle over the course of the meal and the evening.

My initial taste did not confirm my thinking, but I waited a few minutes and tasted again. Now it was clear. This wine had not yet fully aged.

 Instead of opening it when it was nearly too late, I was early. I went ahead and had a glass or two with my meal, recorked the bottle and set it on the shelf. The next night, I went back to it and it was much better, not unlike a young red that is opened too soon and is tannic and unbalanced.

Had I known, I would have decanted it prior to serving to expose the wine to oxygen and soften it up. I didn’t because I didn’t imagine that at 10 years old, this would be the case.

Another older bottle I recently served was a 1997 La Chablissienne Premier Cru Chablis. I fully expected this one to be at the peak as well, if not over the hill, especially being a white wine.

The only reason I had hope for it was because of its high quality and well stored condition. It was spectacular. It had layer upon layer of complexity and was one of the most enjoyable white wines I have ever tasted.

While it is possible that it may have been even better earlier, I will never know, but it would not have held up much longer without declining.

A third experience was with a 1998 white Crozes-Hermitage. This one was already gone and it was immediately clear upon opening. The unmistakably oxygenated wine was relegated to “cooking only” and transferred to the bottom of the refrigerator. You can’t win them all.

Write me at goodellwineguy@gmail.com with your thoughts, questions, or just to talk wine.

Until next time, happy pours.

The Wine Guy

Sherry: Spain’s Fortified Wine

 

Many people associate Sherry with the British, and somewhat rightly so, for it is they to whom this fortified wine owes much of it’s popularity throughout the world. It is not, however, a British product, nor is it even the correct name to be called.

Sherry comes from a mispronunciation of Jerez, the region in Spain which is home to the Palomino grape and is the only region with the legal status to produce the drink. Spain, like many European countries designates legal wine producing regions and only there can beverages bear certain names.

Just like “Champagne” can only be produced in the Champagne region of France and it is only Sparkling Wine if made anywhere else, so it is with “Sherry” and Jerez. If you want to get the “real stuff,” it has to say Jerez on the bottle.

Sherry is a fortified wine, meaning that it is not only wine, but contains a higher alcohol content as a result of being fortified with Brandy. For this reason, many wine drinkers consider it to be more of a liquor than a wine and shy away from it.

The truth is, early on, Sherry is nothing more than wine made from grapes which do not make a wine that is at all exciting to drink. After the Brandy is added, the wine is allowed to come into contact with air and a layer called “flor” develops on top of the wine.

This “flor” protects the wine from further oxidation and adds flavor. Depending on what style is being produced, the Sherry can be intentionally sweetened or allowed to be dry.

Dry Sherry is called “Fino” and is very popular in Spain. “Oloroso” is darker but still a dry wine. “Amoroso” is a sweeter version, and sweetest of all is “Cream” Sherry which is often a dessert style drink.

Spain’s neighboring region of Andalusia produces Alvear’s Cream Montilla, a very good sweet “Sherry” made from the Pedro Ximenez varietal. Ironically, while this is not legally Sherry, the famous “Amontillado” derives it’s name from the village of Montilla.

I drink this fortified wine while cooking, as an aperitif, as a dessert wine, or with Swiss Cheeses. It has a nutty, velvety taste and is very smooth, although considerably higher in alcohol than table wine at 18%.

Alvear’s comes from a very old producer and is very high in quality, but extremely reasonable in price. At around $10 for a bottle, and lasting almost indefinitely at room temperature after opening, you can’t go wrong here.

Write me at goodellwineguy@gmail.com with your thoughts, questions, or just to talk wine.

Until next time, happy pours.

The Wine Guy

Trader Joe’s Much More Than “Two Buck Chuck”

by Brian Goodell, The Wine Guy

During college, road trips were an essential part of the experience. Sleep was overrated, and there were places to go, even when time and money deemed getting there impractical.
My buddies and I wouldn’t think much of gabbing a few things and taking off on a whim. Life was an adventure at that age, and wisdom was still a few years off.
As a forty-something, I got the opportunity to do it again in early December. A friend and I got in the car and headed for Arizona, bringing only a few clothes and snacks for the twenty hour drive.
Once we arrived in the Phoenix metro area, I began scanning the shopping centers for places of interest. It wasn’t difficult to compile a quick list of restaurants, boutique shops, and wine stores we wanted to come back to, after getting some sleep in a real bed as opposed to the passenger seat.
If you live in a place where you take stores like Trader Joe’s and BevMo for granted – don’t. From those of us who live in small towns and rural settings, you don’t know how good you have it.
The nearest Trader Joe’s is nearly four hours away from where I live. While I have often had people tell me how much I needed to go, I had honestly never set in foot in one.
That was my first stop the next day, and I wasn’t prepared for the prices and selection I found.
I had heard all about the so-called “two buck Chuck,” or Charles Shaw wines that Trader Joe’s has become synonymous with. No, I had never tasted it, and I bought several bottles to try to give it a fair shake.
I also got a bit carried away buying wines that were simply too good to pass up. Their selection, while not huge, is very well thought out, and the prices make nearly everything accessible, even to those on a budget.
I picked up a Barolo for $15, an Italian Primitivo for $3.99 and a Medoc Grand Vin de Bordeaux for $6 to give a few examples. There were high end Napa Valley wines, dessert wines, and so much more, all at some of the best prices I’ve ever come across.
As for the “two buck Chuck,” it wasn’t too bad. Still holding at a retail of $2.99, it’s more like three buck Chuck, but that doesn’t have quite the ring to it.
Even so, I’ve tasted wines that sold for more than twice as much that weren’t as good, so I have to give it a little respect, even though I’m not quite prepeared to give it my full support. As a very affordable quaff, it will do, but don’t expect miracles if you pick up a bottle or three.
As always, send your comments and questions to goodellwineguy@gmail.com.

Until next time, happy pours.

The Wine Guy

Welcome to “The Wine Guy”

Good Food, Good Wine, Good Friends are True Universal Pleasures

 

In this column, you won’t be reading about exotic wines that you can only buy in big cities, or $150 bottles whose names you can’t pronounce. Instead, I’ll be talking to you about wine that you can purchase and enjoy anytime.

Let me start by confessing. I love wine. I believe that good wine, good food, and good company at the table is one of the true universal pleasures of life. And I think I can share some of my knowledge that will allow you to maybe, just maybe, find out what all the fuss is about.

The good news is, it’s not as complicated as you think. You don’t actually need to know that 1982 was a great year in Bordeaux, France in order to enjoy wine. You don’t even need to know any French words.

You just need to have enough confidence to walk into the store, pick out an appropriate wine for your occasion (tonight’s dinner is a great one), and know a bit about how to store it, serve it, and what to pair it with. Here’s the best part. I’m going to tell you all that right here each week in my column.

I remember the days that my wife and I rarely drank anything other than White Zinfandel. It was one of the only wines that we were familiar with and it didn’t taste too bad (did I really just write that?). After a while, we moved on to walks through aisles of bottles where we would almost blindly pick something to “try.” We would really have no idea what it was and often didn’t enjoy it because it was either not very good wine, not matched with food, not served properly, or all these.

Now, most people would have just given up and concluded that, “I just don’t really like wine.” Many of you have. I know because I’ve heard you say it. But for some reason I persisted. Maybe the idea that since Biblical times, wine has been a staple of every advanced society just couldn’t be dismissed that easily. Maybe I was just bitten by the bug and couldn’t shake it.

Whatever it was that led me here, dinner just doesn’t seem complete anymore without wine. Now the pleasure of a good meal with a glass of red or white seems so basic to enjoying life that I think I am beginning to understand the idea that meals without wine just don’t happen in places like Italy or France.

Now, here’s the great part. It’s not just for snobs. Yes, I said snobs. There are a lot of good, enjoyable wines that you can buy for around $10 a bottle. Then there are a number of $10 to $25 bottles that can help you begin to understand why this has been mankind’s beverage of choice for the last 5,000 years or so.

My purpose in writing this column is to help as many of you as I can to experience wine the way it was meant to be, for enjoyment with food and friends.

In this column, I will be teaching you the basics of wine, as well as providing food matching suggestions and much more. I will also be answering readers’ questions, offering reviews, and recommending value wines to purchase.

I hope you will join me and I truly hope that one day soon, you will be sitting at your table eating and drinking and a satisfied smile will slowly cross your face as you say, “Now this is what it’s supposed to taste like.”

A final word. Before any of you pick up stones to throw, wine is never meant for intoxication. If you are drinking wine to get drunk, you are abusing alcohol, period. Wine is meant to add enjoyment to food and leisure. I realize and agree that alcohol abuse is a major social problem in America and I am in no way attempting to be part of the problem. Enjoy and savor your glass of wine at your table, but be responsible to live to enjoy many such days.

Questions or comments? Got a great tip, tasting note or review? Contact me at goodellwineguy@gmail.com.

Until next time, Happy Pours!

The Wine Guy