A SUPER Deal on a Napa Merlot

It's been a while since my last post, probably because of how busy I've been with running a marathon and planning for vacation. My family and I are on vacation this week at Oak Island, NC. It's a great place, imagine Myrtle Beach with about 10 people for every mile of beach. So here's the interesting wine story related to our vacation at Oak Island. On our first night here we went to the local (small) Food Lion to stock up on some goods for the week. In the wine section I noticed a sign that said Weekly Wine Special - St. Clement 2005 Merlot $7.99. I could hardly believe it! When we were in Napa last summer my wife and I visited St. Clement winery on recommendation from a friend at work. It's a beautiful small winery that sits on a hill, and I could clearly remember that NONE of their wines were much less than $30 a bottle. So even though I couldn't remember their Merlot that well we agreed to buy 1 bottle to see how we liked it then come back for more if it really were as good as we expected. Well the wine is terrific. Very dark with a deep cherry nose; very soft in the mouth with hints of chocolate and berries. So next we looked it up on their website to confirm what we thought - the wine retails for $28 a bottle. This wine was $20/bottle off - needless to say we headed right back to the Food Lion to buy them out. There were 7 bottles left out and I talked to their wine guy to see if they had anymore. Unfortunately he explained that each week their distributor brings one wine to put on special and whatever they have is out on display. Funny enough I've never seen St. Clement in a store, but come to a small Island about as far away from Napa as you can get in the U.S. and there it was for 75% off. Oh well, we've got 7 bottles of this terrific bargain to bring home!

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.

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 for 3-24-09

Ok, tonight we decided to open up something from one of our favorite wineries - a 2006 Merlot from Goosecross Cellars in Rutherford (Napa Valley), Ca. This is a very small winery (~9000 case production) that you won't find in retail. You can buy directly from them at the winery, on their web site, or do like we did and join their wine club. www.goosecross.com.

The 2006 Merlot goes for $42 on their site, and club members get a 10% discount on all wines. So this wine was absolutely terrific. The aromas I got immediately were of charred oak, cherries and even strawberries. It's a Merlot so yes it's a dry wine, but wow is this ever a soft, silky wine in your mouth. It's really full of very pleasing berry flavors and sits on your tongue easily before going down. It leaves just a bit of a tartness in your mouth, but nothing overly sharp or displeasing. Even though it's obviously a bit harder to find I would absolutely recommend you order a bottle or two from their website. The great thing about their small production size is that it's ok for them to ship to Ohio (for those of you in my state. FYI the current rule is, if a winery produces over 50,000 cases annually they cannot ship to OH, but this rule varies state by state and it's a ridiculous rule). Anyway, I hope you decide to check them out and let me know if you do. They also produce fantastic Zinfandel, Cabernet and Syrah among other varieties. That's all for tonight, enjoy the first miracle!