EOS Estate Chardonnay

First off, thanks to an old friend for the last post on a good value wine from Spain, Mr. Tyler Haney. Funny how life works, we were great friends 15 years ago, then as everyone knows, life sends you off in your own different directions. Back at that time neither of us had even had a glass of wine, today thanks to social media we've reconnected and realized we are both passionate about it. I hope to continue seeing posts from Tyler on here increasing the amount of wines we can cover.

As for me, tonight I had a nice valued Chardonnay from EOS Estate. I first tried EOS Chardonnay several months ago at one of the favored shopping sites in Cincinnati - Jungle Jim's. They had a rep there giving out samples, and we bought a few bottles at the time. Since then we were finally able to find it in a nearby Kroger and got some more. At around $13.50 a bottle it's a very reasonably priced Chardonnay and once you try it I believe you realize it's well worth that price and more. My own personal notes on this one: a nose of toffee and earthy tones with a pallet of apricot, apple and buttery oak. We had this tonight with bacon wrapped shrimp, salad and a bread dip of tomatos and feta cheese and the wine was a perfect compliment. It made me really look forward to summer and wish our weather would finally turn that way. I hope you'll try the EOS, as always let me know what you think if you do.

Value from Spain

I, like most wine lovers, can recall the bottle that pushed me over the line from being a casual wine drinker to being a complete wine enthusiast - the '03 Rosenblum Cellars Rockpile Road Zinfandel. At the time I knew very little about wine; I only knew that, for some reason, this wine was different. As soon as I got home from dinner with my wife that evening, I ordered an entire case. A few months later, Wine Spectator agreed with me by ranking this wine #3 on its list of the Top 100 wines of 2005. And so it began...

Sometimes, I'm really amazed at what wine can do. Maybe it's just enhancing that filet mignon you grilled to perfection on a warm spring evening. Or maybe it brings back memories of sitting in a beautiful piazza, leisurely people-watching until the siesta is over. Or maybe, as in this case, it helps old friends reconnect. Regardless, wine is just as much about moments in time as it is about crushed grapes.

But let's be honest. Most of us don't have the time or the means to travel to Florence all that often or to open a bottle of '82 Bordeaux every night. So what do we do on those nights when we're just sitting on the couch after a long day? That's when we need the value wines to fill the gaps. And, as many people have learned over the last few years, Spain is a great place to look for value.

Enter last night's wine - the '06 Panarroz Jumilla, a blend of grenache, syrah, and mourvedre. At $8 per bottle (or less) this wine definitely fits the bill for value. Upon pouring the first glass, I was immediately impressed with the huge nose of plum, with some cedar and blackberry hints as well. On the palette, this wine started with pure sour cherry, followed by more plum, cedar smoke and some black pepper. The long finish was quite pleasing as well. Although I was drinking this wine while watching some basketball and stringing a tennis racket, it struck me that the Panarroz would make an even better food wine.

While this blend would definitely please the Chat du Pape fan on a budget, I would recommend this wine to anyone as a good, solid everyday-drinking wine. Additionally, if you're looking to expand your palette from American or Australian wines, the '06 Panarroz Jumilla would be a great place to start.

2003 Sawyer Cellars Bradford Meritage

So a long week has ended with some gorgeous weather here in good old Cincinnati, OH. It was a perfect evening to open a nice bottle of wine and have dinner out on the deck. Since it's a Friday I decided to open something pretty nice this evening, a 2003 Sawyer Cellars Bradford Meritage. Sawyer Cellars is a small winery we visited during our trip to Napa last year, and we were so impressed we joined their wine club. They're located in Rutherford, which seems to be my favorite area within the Napa Valley for great red wines.

The '03 Vintage is composed of Cabernet Sauvingnon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot - a wonderful mix of Bordeaux style wines. We drank this tonight with a dinner of beef tips and noodles, and it was a perfect complement. Both on the nose and in the flavors I was overcome with the sense of cherries. My best description for the nose is candied cherries. The flavors are very pleasing and full of berry properties. This wine has such a nice balance in both tannins and acidity, making it perfect for drinking with dinner. Another attribute I love about this wine is it's deep ruby red color, indicating a wine with good body that spent the right amount of time on the skins during fermentation. Now you'll pay for what you get with the Bradford Meritage with the price running around $48 a bottle, but for a nice weekend wine, or special occasion I have to say this wine is worth it. The best way to find Sawyer wines is either through their website or to visit them in person, so look them up, you won't be dissapointed. They know how to help you enjoy the first miracle. Happy Friday all.

Bordeaux in Ohio - Kinkead Ridge Cab Franc

It's been a long day and nothing sounds better right now than a nice glass of red wine to finally slow down with. Playing single parent tonight as the wife's out of town, so decided to open one of my favorite local wines - a 2006 River Village Cellars Cabernet Franc from Kinkead Ridge. Kinkead Ridge is a winery located in Ripley, Ohio and ran by a great couple named Ron and Nancy. Ron is dedicated to growing and producing French varietal grapes/wine that mirror European styles. I've been to his vineyard and I have to say it's amazing. I would call Ron very Type A when it comes to managing his vines, they are impeccable. So on to this Cab Franc...

Kinkead Ridge released this wine under their 2nd lable of River Village Cellars, and this tells you a little something about how particular Ron is about his wines. The Cab Franc has won several medals in both domestic and international competitions and has been compared to wines at 3 or 4 times it's price range. They offer the Franc at $12.95 a bottle and it's well worth it. As to my personal thoughts on the wine - the nose is interesting, a combination of earthy and smokey aromas hits me. It's a very approachable wine, with a good balance of acidity and tannins allowing it to sit easily in your mouth. It's flavors include a bit of spice as well as typical Cabernet Franc tastes. Overall, I highly enjoy this wine. I would strongly encourage you to check out Kinkead Ridge's website and give them a visit when they open back up in the summer. Just tell them you enjoy the first miracle and heard they have some good wine!

Happy Easter, and a Good Napa Red

Happy Easter all! I hope you've enjoyed the holiday and reflected on it's meaning. I enjoyed the day with family and an exciting Master's event on TV. Can't believe Tiger blew up on 17 and 18. Anyway, once we finally got back home and settled in for the evening my wife and I opened up one of our special bottles we had brought back from Napa last summer - a 2002 Nord Estate Red Wine Cuvee. If you've never heard of Nord Estate, I'm not surprised. They're actually not so much into the winemaking and distributing business as they are the grapegrowing business. They concentrate on cultivating 1000's of acres of sustainable vineyards in the Napa valley. We met one of the family members during our trip and it was incredible how dedicated they are to creating a truly sustainable and high quality vineyard. They then sell their produce to many of the top winemakers in the Napa area.

They do however produce a small amount of cases of their own "Estate" wine. I call this a special bottle because when we were there they had only 9 cases of this vintage remaining, so we bought a case to bring home. A Cuvee simply means it's a red wine blend, Merlot and Cabernet. I enjoy the wine a lot, especially the fruit taste when it first hits your tongue. The only thing about this wine that puzzles me everytime we open a bottle is it's nose. I'm not sure why, but for some reason when I smell this wine the first thing that comes to mind is a green vine. You know the smell you notice when a green vine or plant is cut in half...that's what I notice with this wine for some reason. It's not necessarily an offputting smell, it's just makes me think the wine is going to taste young or "green", but it doesn't. Being a 2002 it has some age on it and has nice structure and balance. So anyway, I like the wine a lot and if you get a chance to go to Napa I really really encourage you to make an appointment with the Nord family to visit their vineyard. One of the family will meet you in the vineyard and give you a private tasting at a picnic table in the middle of the vines. A wonderful experience, one that makes you truly enjoy the first miracle.

Wine from Kentucky??

So here's something different for tonight. My wife went on a business trip yesterday into the hills of Kentucky (apparently they do do some kind of business there) and in the process spent the night in Lexington. Well, while shopping around last night she noticed a store in an outdoor mall that said "Winery". Figuring what the heck, she dropped in. The store was a tasting room/gift shop for a winery about 20 miles away in Nicholasville, KY called Chrisman Mill. Apparently she got a sampling of about 6 of their wines, and decided to buy a couple of bottles of something called "Ensemble". Apparently this wine is made mostly (or perhaps entirely) from the Vidal Blanc grape - a French American hybrid variety that typically makes a nice semi-sweet wine. Now if you know me, you know I'm a big advocate of southern Ohio wines and wines of the midwest in general. I would really love to see a complete renaissance of this area as a premier wine growing region in the country. With that in mind, I'm always excited to try something new from OH, KY, or IN.

Well, we popped the cork on this tonight and poured a glass. I was pretty pleased with the nose - strong oak and fruit aromas making me think of a nice buttery Chardonnay. However, I've got to be honest, upon tasting I really did not like this wine. First off, the wine has a good bit of residual particles in it leaving it a bit cloudy. Likewise, it has a bit of air in it giving it just a hint of fiz. I'm pretty familiar with a good Vidal Blanc as Bill Skvarla at Harmony Hill makes one of my favorite local wines out of the grape - his Concerto which is crisp, pleasing and refreshing. This wine however just didn't have the right taste. I can't really put my finger on it, but there's just something offputting about the taste of the Ensemble. As bad as I hate to say it, I would not recommend this wine. I would love to be able to recommend all of the wines from the tristate, but I suppose that's probably a goal that's a bit lofty. Oh well, if you happen to have tried it and think otherwise, please let me know. Until next time, enjoy the first miracle.

Palo Alto Reserve from Chile

Last night we tried a bottle of Palo Alto Reserve from Chile. The wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere and Syrah and retails right around $10. The reason we decided to pick this wine up at Kroger's was because it won a Gold Medal at the Cincinnati International Wine Festival. If you've never been, the Wine Festival is a fantastic event put on each March here in the Queen City. There are typically over 130 boothes serving over 600 wines throughout the evening. Of course you have no chance of sampling them all in the 2.5 hours the event runs each evening, but you can definitely pick out several you've been interested in trying and probably find many you had no idea existed. We've discovered many many wines at the festival that are now on our favorites list. We did not happen to try the Palo Alto at the Festival, but since it won a Gold, and given it's price, we decided to give it a shot. Overall assessment is, ok, probably wouldn't buy again. I would call it a very peppery wine with hints of plum. Nothing overly displeasing about it, it's just that there are so many good/fun wines at the $10 mark that I probably wouldn't go back to this one. Anyway, it was worth the try. Anyone else with stories of great finds at Wine Festivals or large tasting events? Feel free to comment, would love to hear.

Tasting Notes From the 1st Weekend of April

I've got a lot of catching up to do. We had quite a few different wines over the weekend and I somehow wasn't able to find the time to blog about any of them yet. I must admit, after all the various wines over the past few days, my notes are a bit fuzzy, so I may be brief on a few of these.

First a quick shout out. Apparently our friends who brought the Colorado wine over weren't thrilled with my review, so they decided to make up for it by bringing all kinds of good wine over this weekend. Here we go....first up a Stonehedge Reserve Zinfandel from Mendocino, CA (retails around $17.99). This was a good wine, especially if you don't want an overpowering Zinfandel. It had just a hint of spice to it, but a lot of nice blackberry and other fruit flavors. I would say give it a try, but before you do you may want to check out their $10 Cabernet which is really good itself.

Next we opened a bottled of 2005 Harlow Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon. Everyone was very pleased with this wine (I believe it retails for under $10). I don't remember much about the nose on it, but the flavors were gentle, fruity and finished with just the right amount of tannins. Both of these wines however were just warm ups for the real show stopper of the night.



Our friends had been saving a bottle of 2002 Stag's Leap Merlot from Napa Valley. If you aren't familiar with Stag's Leap, let me take a little diversion here. The winery has been around for over 100 years and is one of Napa's most famous and prestigious wineries. They are probably best known for producing the Cabernet Sauvignon that won the 1976 Judgement of Paris blind taste test between French and California wines. If you haven't seen it, there is a very entertaining movie just out on DVD called Bottleshock which is based on this event - while not totally accurate (what movie is) I highly recommend the movie! But back to the 2002 Merlot. Simply an incredible wine. Perhaps here is the best way to sum this up - my friend kept saying "I don't like Merlots so I'm not sure I'm going to like this". To which I replied, trust me, a good Merlot tastes nothing like the junk that has been over produced lately, and much more like a good Cabernet which I know you like. After one sip he was amazed. On the nose I got strong floral aromas, like wildflowers, mixed in with pear and other tree fruit. The best part was the taste in the back of your tongue and the texture as it went down. Simply one of the smoothest wines I have had. This wine can be found in the $30's and at that price is an excellent example of what a Merlot should be - go find some right away. Thank you to our friends for brining this over, and thank you for reading - enjoy the first miracle.

Wine Tasting Notes 4-1-09 Gato Negro Cab

It's Wednesday evening, which means middle of the week, time to wind down, relax a bit and get ready for Lost. I think I've found the perfect wine to just sit back, relax and sip on for the evening. Tonight I'm drinking a '08 Cabernet Sauvignon from Gato Negro in San Pedro, Chile. If you haven't tried them, Chilean wines are some of the best wines for the $ available right now in my opinion (if you don't believe me ask my good friend @bobbyarnold who was there recently). This particular Cab retails for under $10 which makes it great for any simple night or occasion.

The nose on this to me is a bit peppery and a lot o fruit aromas. Certainly nothing overpowering, but just about right. In the mouth it's a great balance of a dry wine being not too dry. Mild fruit flavors, medium tannins, and a silky finish. At this price point, I really really like this Cab. First time I tried this was at a local tapas restaurant when it was on special for $12 (not bad for a restaurant price!), and I enjoyed it a lot then. Since then I've found it for as low as around $6 locally. Please, if you like Cab's and are looking for some good deals - go find this wine and give it a try. If you do, I'm sure you'll enjoy the first miracle!

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