J. Albin, Laurel Vineyard, Pinot Noir, 2005
Goodness, this was a nice wine for the price. But beware, it changed a lot over the course of the evening -- a lot.
In the beginning, the nose was: barnyard, cedar, saw dust, and something like cake batter (vanilla). There was also an herb, a bit sweet like hyacinth. The taste was red cherry! More subtly, there was also raspberry and blueberry and vanilla. The finish was a strong CHERRY! ... along with hints of pepper and nutmeg. In the beginning, it was definitely a jammy Oregon Pinot.
But then, this wine changed a lot in 45 minutes. It lost any of that slight sweetness from that strong vanilla. The vanilla merged with the wine and wasn't predominant any more. The fruit also became much more subtle -- instead of CHERRY, it became a soft and subtle raspberry. And as the strong flavors became more mute, this earthiness emerged. Dirty. Mossy. Bark.
I was going to give this a 7.0 considering the beginning experience, but this wine really grew on me, and I really liked its second act.
Cost:
Rating:
8.5
Capitello, Willamette Valley, Pinot Gris, 2007
The nose was an amalgam of pear, apricot, spearmint, peaches, rosemary, cantaloupe, but most distinctly: lemon. The taste was an interesting mix of fruits and vegetables: pea pods, eggplant and lemon and cantaloupe. The finish was strongly citrus -- lemon, but maybe a bit of tangerine too. For Denise's first sip, she had a bad finish: it fell fast, and tasted like dirt she said. However, I didn't experience any such thing, nor did any other sips that Denise had replicate this. So maybe it was a fluke, or something she was eating. However, the finish was definitely a sour lemon, and almost a yeasty taste, like sour yogurt (but not in a bad way).
This was not a bad Pinot Gris by any means, and happens to be a "Wine Steward's Pick" at my local Zupan's. However, I've had other whites recently that I liked better.
Cost:
Rating:
7.0
Inniskillin, Cabernet Franc, Ice Wine, 2006
The Canadians have a very eclectic wine industry. They try a lot of things off the beaten path. And this is no exception.
It smells like an ice wine, but you wouldn't guess from the smell that it was a red. It definitely has that super honey aroma. But while it might smell like a Sauternes, the flavors were something completely different. The taste is a trio: rhubarb, strawberry, and watermelon. The body was a bit more syrupy than I would have liked, yet it wasn't ruined in this regard either. The finish returned to where we started: honey, and just a hint of mint.
Definitely an interesting find. It worked well. As I said, it was a tad more syrupy that I like, but overall, it was a nice desert wine. And yummy.
Cost:
($22 for a very small glass)Rating:
8.0
Shingleback, McLaren Vale, Shiraz, 2004
The nose is bark and wet saw dust. Like wet soil. Smells like rain. Rained on wood chips. The taste is oak, plum, raisin, and dried cherries. The finish is definitely prune and vanilla. It's like a vanilla cream soda ... seriously!
It's very smooth and quiet in your mouth; the oak makes it that way. It has none of that mineral -- terroir -- we've been having lately with old world wines. It's very drinkable, yet it's just not as interesting as similar wines from France or Italy. Despite all this, it was very far from horrible, just not memorable.
Cost:
Rating:
7.0
Daedalus Cellars, 'Labyrinth', Pinot Noir, 2005
This was the bottle that ended our dinner night. We really wanted a block-buster to finish us off. So as big fans of Daedalus (their mid-level Willamette Valley Pinot blend is a great wine for the price), we had high hopes for their top-tier blend (Maresh 35%, Carabella 35%, and Seven Springs 30%).
It's important to say that this was a really nice bottle of wine. However, we come to expect that elusive 'velvet hammer' from Arron Hess, the evil genius behind Daedalus. And while he almost always delivers, it wasn't to be found in this particular bottle (though I've had this before, and that other bottle did have it ... such is the nature of drinking Pinot I suppose). Don't get me wrong, this wine was silky smooth, but it just does achieve that hammer effect.
The nose is smoke, tobacco, and pepper. The main berry flavors were cherry and raspberry. There were also some very subtle floral elements -- maybe a rose, but probably something else.
Despite the words above, we downed this bottle fairly quickly as it was very, very drinkable ... and yummy.
Cost:
Rating:
8.0
Allegrini, Palazzo della Torre, 1999
This is a wine we drank years ago. It was recommended to me by a fellow buyer of wine at a local Fred Meyer. But luckily we resisted and saved this one bottle for all these years. It was good back then, and it was better today.
First, this is a wine somewhere in-between an Amarone (rich and concentrated Italian red) and Valpolicella (a slightly sweet, highly quaffable red -- like an Italian Beaujolais). It's a blend of 70 percent corvina, 25 percent rondinella and 5 percent sangiovese. Allegrini is the maker and they are located in the Valpolicella area. On the bottle it's designated as a 'Veronese' (IGT). Anyway ...
The most striking smell and taste was lavendar: it did have a hint of a floral sweetness but overly so. The nost also had a saw dust, dirt, and manure. Definitely barnyard. The taste was potting soil and peat moss -- along with plum on the front, and black cherry on the back. Later on, the wine was definitely heavy on the peat moss -- both the smell and the taste (but in an earthy good way). Finally, this wine was full-bodied -- much heavier than the Pinot we had proceding it.
Cost:
Rating:
8.0
Evesham Wood, La Grive Bleue, Pinot Noir, 2006
My god, this is the sweetest Pinot Noir I've ever had. It's a really sweet vanilla. I had a hard time deciding if I liked or hated this. It was intriguing. Through the vanilla, there was raspberry. Later the vanilla softened a bit, and a strong blueberry came through. Yet the sweetness remained.
Despite the sweet, the nose had pepper, and the wine was also spicy. Also, the wine had strong floral elements -- especially rose.
I tried to think what this wine would be like in 5 years or so. Certainly time would mute the vanilla. But wonder about that sweetness. Would it remain or not? In the end, I have to say I would not buy this bottle again. Though this shouldn't discourage other purchases from this very fine producer of usually high quality yet (relatively) inexpensive Pinot.
Cost:
Rating:
6.0
Cuvaison, Chardonnay, 2006
We had my aunt and uncle over, and they like a good Chardonnay. However, and despite the volume of wine I drink, I really don't drink all that much white wine, let alone Chardonnay. So this wine was recommended by a guy at Zupan's.
And it turned out to be very interesting and intriguing. Right as you take a sip, it's sweet. But then as you taste and swallow, the wine goes totally dry. It was almost as if I had sugared the rim of my glass (well, almost). I really liked this aspect of the wine even though I don't like sweet wines (other than desert wines).
The nose was like a hay or a grass at first. And later, the nose was like smelling a fresh head of crisp lettuce. There was a salad in there! There was lime, and cilantro. And then, right at the end was this spicy bite -- like a hint of cayenne.
Cost:
Rating:
8.0
Beaux Freres, 'Willamette Valley', Pinot Noir, 2006
Yes, we are very partial to Beaux Freres, and this one didn't disappoint. I would say that I think the 2006 is better than the 2005. It was just beautiful, like a porcelain figurine, wrapped in an angora sweater, and covered in rose pedals.
This was sort of the opposite of the recent Chassagne-Montrachet we drank. While the Montrachet's nose was stunning and the taste was a bit less -- this Beaux Freres's taste was fantastic while their wasn't much going on in the nose.
The tastes included cherry, raspberry, and cranberry. Bark. Gravel (minerally). Stone. The texture was very silky, but not velvety. And the most striking part was that it was Insanely floral. It smells and tastes like roses. Totally yummy.
Cost:
Rating:
9.0
William Hatcher, Willamette Valley, Pinot Noir, 2005
I purchased this bottle to accompany a Chassagne-Montrachet (see the other review) for a dinner. But which bottle first? The Oregon Pinot would have more body. But the wine shop recommended that this bottle precede the Montrachet because the Montrachet would be more complex (despite the lighter-body) than this William Hatcher.
The nose has strawberry, and a variety of spice: cinnamon, paprika, smoke, and tobacco. Strawberry returns in the taste, along with raspberry, red cherry, and apple. You can also taste the vanilla of the oak (but not overly so) and black pepper. Definitely a jammy Oregon style made even more evident when we followed this up with the Montrachet.
The wine was pretty tight when we first opened it. It was even a bit sour. But after about 20 minutes, this was very enjoyable and yummy.
Cost:
Rating:
8.0
Domaine Bernard Moreau et Fils, Premier Cru, Chassagne-Montrachet, 2002
My brother Matt was coming over for dinner, and he's a big fan of Volnay. And while I swore I had one in my collection, despite my searching, there just wasn't one in my cooler. So off to the wine shop I went in search of a magic bottle from the Cote d'Or.
The shop is my favorite in Portland: Liner & Elsen. It used to be a little hole-in-the-wall on 21st, but it moved a while back to larger and more appropriate size space on 22nd and Quimby.
Once there, Eric talked me into a Chassagne-Montrachet over any of the Volnays they had available. The Volnay's, while good, were all 2005's. And while one or two were drinking well already, he really like this Montrachet better. And my brother, while partial to Volnay, loves French wine generally. And besides, it's just a hop and a skip from Volnay to Montrachet. So why not try something new.
The nose on this wine is just a treasure -- there's just all kinds of stuff going on. Earthy. Moss. Flowering tree. Saw dust. Rock. Cedar. Dusty, like you're in a wood shop. It's just wild and gamey. The taste, while very good, wasn't as spectacular as the smells. Currant. Raspberry. Red cherry. The body was light. The finish was definitely pomegranate, along with some kind of citrus. Denise tasted pineapple, while I found it to be orange. Either way the citrus was very subtle.
Matt and I really liked this wine. For us, the earthy complexity was wonderful. However, Denise found this wine to be too thin and a bit 'sweet'.
Cost:
Rating:
8.0
O'Reilly's, Pinot Noir, 2007
The nose has that river rock thing, and califlower and raspberry. The taste is mainly red cherry, with subtle hints of raspberry, boysenberry and apple. It's definitely a light bodied, even for a Pinot. Hints of vanilla come a go as you drink it. It was tasty with a hunk of chocolate!
Cost:
Rating:
6.0
Campo Viego, Reserva Rioja, 2003
The nose has a definite chemical smell -- turpentine -- along with some bark. Ignoring the turpentine, it smells like an Oregon forest right after it rains.The taste is thin. Here and there, you can pick up some salmon berry and currant. Sometimes there's raspberry too. It's very dry. The bark returns as a flavor too (no, not an oak/vanilla ... it's bark). It's flat on the finish, and the flavors just disappear on the tongue. Disappointing.
The really bad part is that there's an Immediate hit of vinegar, but not because it's old or had gone bad; it seems like it's just got a bad taste as part of the package. The wine was actually better just as we opened it. Then it got pretty lousy within 20 minutes. Some sips are good; many are not. It tastes good with the Caprese salad, but was horrible with marinade shrimp.
I really like Rioja: it can be complex, inexpensive and tasty. So I'm always looking for good Rioja's that are cheap. And this one was $12 and designated 'Reserva'. However, I would never have guessed that by the taste. It was definitely more like a poor Crianza (the lowest designation for Rioja).
Cost:
Rating:
4.5
Erath, Pinot Gris, 2007
The nose has some sort of a barnyard smell, along with honey dew melon (or maybe cantaloupe), peaches, cucumber, and cilantro. The flavors include lemon, pear, and hints of sage. It's slightly sweet and sour, and thin. For me, it tastes a little like a really watered down grapefruit juice.
In most cases Erath is a good bargain wine, especially their Pinot Noir. But this just didn't hold up to the other recent Pinot Gris's I've been drinking lately (see the earlier reviews). However, Denise liked this; I obviously didn't. For her, the fact that it was thin was a plus paired with the hot weather we'ved been experiencing lately.
Cost:
Rating:
6.0
Patricia Green Cellars, 'Ribbon Ridge', Pinot Noir, 2006
Here's another one of the gems from Ribbon Ridge. We've reviewed a Brick House and a Beaux Freres which are also sourced from Ribbon Ridge. And there's definitely a similarity between all these bottles: an elegance that includes raspberry and strong floral (especially rose) characteristics.
The nose of this one was vanilla, red cherry, strawberry and rose. The taste was cranberry, raspberry, with hints of cinnamon and maybe clove. However it finishes a little flat (not much spice).
Overall, I would prefer the Beaux Freres or the Brickhouse to this Patricia Green. This sounds terrible to say -- and the wine was quite nice despite this comment -- but it's a bit like some Park Avenue Cran-Raspberry drink. Part of the problem here is that we drank this immediately after finishing a Domaine Drouhin 'Laurene', 1999. So it really didn't stand much of a chance. Perhaps it's a bit better if it doesn't have to follow something so spectacular.
Cost:
Rating:
7.5
Domaine Drouhin, 'Laurene', Pinot Noir, 1999
This wine as a special place in my heart. First, it was not necessarily the first bottle to get me into wine exactly, but it was that special bottle that got me really into Pinot Noir. And second, the day I first drank this bottle was the day I discovered we were having a son (my wife wouldn't let me name him 'Drouhin', but I did try).
That was the first time. So, I saw this bottle at a local auction recently and was bound and determined ... and won it.
It was great to be able to taste it again after so many years. First and foremost, it's moss! The smell is really strong earth, especially moss. There's also oak, but moss is predominant smell. But the moss doesn't stop there; it's also strong in the taste. The fruit is subtle at this age: predominantly Himalayan berry (a wild blackberry), and maybe some logan berry.
The finish brings spices, including pepper and nutmeg. The finishing fruit is pomegranate -- not overly sour, but not at all sweet (in the berry sense of the word 'sweet'). This is an earthly and subtle wine -- old and gnarled and mossy -- something straight out of a Tolkien novel in terms of personality. What a treat!
Cost:
Rating:
9.5
Ken Wright Cellars, Pinot Blanc, 2005
Pinot Blanc apparently isn't all that popular. It's certainly not as ubiquitous as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, or Pinot Gris. Nor is it as up-and-coming trendy as Viognier. And it doesn't come with the price tag either (it's usually pretty cheap). But for me, I think Pinot Blanc is generally yummy, despite what many professional critics tend to say.
This particular bottle is light and crisp. It was really hot outside, and this wine really hit the spot. The nose has mainly lime and melon, but also hints of parsley, cilantro, and sage (though we were out in the desert when we drank this, so it's hard to be sure on sage). The tastes include grapefruit, straw, and cucumber. It also has just a slight sweetness, but in a way that I really like -- not sugary, but like the inside of a grape. The was a subtle taste of oak, and nectarine at the end (but not sweet on the finish at all).
Cost:
Rating:
8.0
Domaine Drouhin, Willamette Valley, Pinot Noir, 2005
I'm always a big fan of Domaine Drouhin. I love the story about how an Oregon Pinot placed in their own competition, eventually leading the family to open an operation in Dundee. Denise and I happened to be out at their winery the day we discovered we were having our first kid (Denise won't let me name him 'Drouhin' despite my pleading). So this has a special place in our hearts.
The nose is oak and vanilla (it is young after all), and perhaps ironically, jammy raspberry and red cherry. The taste is a thin compared to most other Oregon Pinot Noir ('French Soul, Oregon Soil' is the motto on the back of the bottle ... so just the dirt, not the style). Not necessarily like a thin Burgundy, but this ain't no Ken Wright -- that's for sure. A mixed berry thing: raspberry, boysenberry and cherry -- all subtle, yet all contributing. I tried to discern any earth or mineral; and while it's not just fruit and not one dimensional, I really can't detect any identifiable earthiness. The finish is dry; not that green apple dryness, maybe more like a pomegranate. Not overly sour, but a bit so.
I've been drinking lots of cheap wine lately, so this is a real treat. I'm sure it would have been better a couple years from now, but hey, sometimes you just can't resist. Besides, I have another one of these in the wine cooler; hopefully I can conquer my temptations and hold out on the next one.
Cost:
Rating:
8.0
Penfolds, 'Koonunga Hill', Shiraz Cabernet, 2006
Penfolds has been around a long time, and they make wines in a broad range of prices. Some, like the 'Grange' can be very expensive, while others are just table wine level (we reviewed a 1997 'St. Henry' Shiraz earlier). I've been a long-time fan of Penfolds. I have to admit that one of those bottles that started me into wine was a 1996 Penfolds, Bin 389.
But this is not that. This is one of the cheap Penfolds. This bottle is a surprising $10, especially considering that the store sign advertised that some place-of-repute gave it a score of 91! We're always looking for that unobtainable holy grail: great wine at a cheap price. So it was hard not to buy it (which I of course did).
The nose is very floral: hyacinth and lavender. There also some subtle vegetable matter, probably eggplant.Tastes of moss and floral. The fruit is predominantly jammy boysenberry. But also red cherry, and pomegranate. The finish is sort of a bad perfume. Pomegranate pucker and cedar.
The conclusion: Denise liked it, and I didn't. For me, it was too sweet. It's not really sweet as wines go, but it's that sweet Shiraz (if you've had it, you know what I mean). Denise gave it a 6; and me, it was a 5. Hence the compromise at 5.5.
Cost:
Rating:
5.5
Lange, Willamette Valley, Pinot Gris, 2006
The nose is pear and citrus -- and a bit of granny smith apple.
Slight melon flavors, and a subtle tangerine. Pear and lime are predominant. Just a hint of effervescence.
It's Oregon Pinot Gris, so it's light and fresh, without much spice nor any mineral or earth. Denise thinks it's too sweet, but then she doesn't really like whites much. For me, this is perfect on a hot day.
Cost:
Rating:
7.0