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!

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.

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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Weekend Wine Tasting Notes - Catch-up #3

So this last weekend tasting note is a bit tough for me to do, given that it's a review of a wine I made - the 2008 FetZin. It's tough because if I'm too positive about it you could obviously say I'm biased, but if I'm too negative you could say I'm being modest, so I'll just do my best to give my honest opinion. My honest opinion is I love this wine. The background is - I wanted to start testing my wine making skills so this past fall I purchased some grapes through a local fruit distributor. I bought about 70 lbs of Zinfandel and 70 lbs of Cabernet Sauvignon. Both varieties came from Lodi, CA. The Zinfandel grapes were beautiful. Dark colored, full clusters and very firm. (The Cabernet's were not so hot but we'll discuss them later). I bottled this Zin about a month ago and was pretty excited about it at the time, I believe it's only gotten better over this first month in the bottle. First thing I'll say about it is even though there is no residual sugar (it has a fairly high alcohol content of 15%) it almost tastes sweet in your mouth. The nose on the wine is vanilla, oak and cherry. When I taste it my thoughts are black cherry, chocolate, blackberry, and vanilla. One of our guests who tried it called out another flavor that I totally agreed with - fig. This is a wine that is almost perfect either by itself or with a desert. Not sure I'd recommend it with a meal, unless it was something really spicy. The flavor is "sweet" enough for someone who doesn't typically drink reds to enjoy, but it's also a "big" red wine so the red wine fans will also really like it. When my wife and I first tried it her first comment was this tastes just like the Rombauer Zinfandel we had in Napa (Rombauer was a great Zin that retails in the $30's). I'll sum it up by saying I'm very excited and pleased by my first real wine production. Unfortunately the 70 lbs of grapes only produced a little over a case of the wine. I want as many honest opinions on this wine that I can get, so if you're interested and we're getting together, let me know I would love to share the Zin with you. That's all for now, enjoy the first miracle!

Wine Tasting Notes - Weekend Catch-up #1

So I'm a bit behind and need to catch up on my notes from the weekend. Three wines to review and I'll give them each their own note here. I'll start by saying - Friends are great! - especially when they bring wine over! Twice this past weekend we had friends over who brought a bottle each, and each time something I had never tried. So first off we have an interesting one, a 2002 Meritage Red from Grande River Vineyards in Colorado. You read that right, a red wine from Colorado. What's interesting is I've always said one would think Colorado could produce some good wines, after all, they get the most days of sunlight of any state in the union. This was my first chance to actually try a wine from Colorado. Well, I have to say, it was drinkable, but probably little more than that. One of our friends actually poured her glass out while 2 of us were fine finishing up a full glass. It turned out to be an extremely dry wine and left you truly feeling like cotton mouth. Flavor wise it was really not bad at all. All in all, I was glad to have finally tried a Colorado wine, and very grateful for our friends having brought one back for us, but probably wouldn't recommend it if you're taking a trip to the mountains anytime soon. Up next, something with some age from Sonoma. Enjoy the first miracle.