...Like chilled butterscotch

Tonight, my wife and I shared a bottle of Rutherford Ranch Chardonnay with dinner and the result was better than the day I sampled this Napa chard at the Nappi Distributors wine show. Dinner was a simple, flavorful affair of broiled scallops, lightly seasoned and swimming in fresh lemon and butter. Add a side of steamed brocolli and cauliflower along with some rice pilaf and you have a healthy, tasty dinner. The Rutherford Chardonnay simply tipped the scales. Like most of us, I served the Chardonnay straight from the fridge, overchilled, but I gotta tell ya, with this wine it was dynamite. From start to finish, this wine attacked my taste buds and its oaken background created a creamy mouthful that combined with the sweet fruit to create the sensation of chilled butterscotch. And all of that flavor for only 12.99??? This wine is a steal and it paired so well with dinner. My wife approved of its taste so well that she poured a second glass ( a rare occurence and surely a sign of its value!!!)
Truth be told, Rhonda had discovered this bottle at the Nappi show and was anxious to show it off to Lynne and myself. I had to concur with her gut instinct that this was a special wine regardless of the price...but the pricepoint was a nice feature. It was nice to be able to put it to the dinner test a few weeks later and confirm what our taste buds had told us back then...this wine is awesome.
You would have to spend 25.00 or more to get more out of wine than this!

The annual spring wine show at the Holiday Inn hosted by National Distributors was a great success. I attended this year's show with Lynne and Fred, so all of Foodstop's management was present. We had more fun than we probably should have, but it also yielded some great wine selections for the store.
By far, the best table to visit was Bruce Cole's table representing Dreyfus/Ashby importers. We sampled Chateau Campuget French bistro styled wines, Santa Digna's Carmenere, Cloudline from Oregon, Drouhin from Oregon and the best value/retail sale item: Enrique Foster Ique Malbec.
I will go into length about these wines as I try them at home, but clearly many of the Dreyfus/Ashby wines will make it to Foodstop's shelves.
Another big hit was the Eberle table. Eberle wines from Paso Robles California are powerful and intense wines...nothing delicate about them at all. We tried them last year and felt that we were not ready for such wines at a price point of 17- 20 dollars. Well, we are ready for them now, and we were excited to try them.
Concha y Toro's Mike Sullivan showed us some terrific Chilean values, including the Caselliero Privada which was devinely powerful and the Palo Alto Red which had a great finish and sold for ten bucks. There were other tables we visited, but I won't bore you with everyone here.
The Holiday Inn once again came through with a large spread of food: Cheeses, crackers, breads, Steamship Roast and Turkey carver, oh and a pasta steam tray with choice of sauce. Factor in the beautiful...people...and it was a feast for all of the senses.
Next week, Foodstop will make its choices for new additions to the wine room and National will probably win...again!

Crucero Sauvignon Blanc

One of the strategies I used to follow when building the wine inventory at Foodstop was to couple a successful label with one of its sister labels. For example, if the Bogle Merlot was selling well, why not partner it on the shelf with the Bogle Cabernet or Zinfandel. My reasoning was, if one offering from a vineyard is solid, their other offerings are probably safe bets as well. Besides, in my hard-lines retail experience, nothing sells well all alone on the shelf, the human eye likes to see a grouping, a billboard, a pattern, etc.
Well, in the world of wine, I have discovered that this isn't always the case. As I have come to understand the effects of weather and soil on the grapes (the terroir, as the French say) I have learned that many vineyards cannot necessarily be good at all things. Think if you will, about the grapes that grow well in rocky soil with plenty of sunlight and the ones that thrive in cool, deep shady hillsides...how can they exist together?
True, you can grow Cabernet, Merlot, and Syrah together and many others, but for a rule of thumb, you cannot always depend on the same label being great with all grapes, you need to know where the wine comes from.
So I approached the Crucero Sauvignon Blanc with some wariness, only because I had to remind myself: "Just because the Crucero Carmenere is decent, doesn't mean the Sauvignon Blanc will be " And sure enough, the Sauvignon did not meet my expectations. Like most Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, this one tended towards the grassy, acidic scale, but it was the aroma that turned me off. It didn't smell right, and it's flavor was somewhat undistinguished.
Suffice to say that there are plenty of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc's that deliver complex flavor and terrific aromatic qualities for the same price or LOWER (8 - 10$) that I decided NO to this one. Caselliero del Diablo, Root 1, Chilensis, and some others I cannot recall off the top of my head are far more remarkable in value than this one.
...but I don't want to end on a negative note, so I will tell you that Crucero makes a decent 10$ Carmenere that serves well as an introduction to the mysteriously deep and flavorful Chilean grape. There are cheaper ones on the market, but this one delivers flavor, finish and some body for 10 bucks, so give it a whirl!

Viva Torrentes!

As I continue to race through several wines, selecting new labels for my wine room at the store I got my hands on a nice Torrentes from Argentina. If you are not familiar with Torrentes, you are not alone. I discovered this grape about three years ago and have found it to be refreshing and somewhat of a gamble. An indigeonous grape to Argentina, Torrentes is very aromatic, a sweet grape and floral nose that awakens vigourously when swirled. It is light in body and in some cheaper bottles, it can taste a little too much like bitter grass or too sweet like grape juice. This particular one, from Gimenez Rili in Mendoza, was very nicely balanced for easy drinking, yet complex enough to sip and enjoy a clean,yet lingering finish. It was a bit creamy in the mouth, which suggests some acidity, but it was very pleasant and still light enough to drink as a refreshing summer quaff or paired with fruit and cheese. If you like "porch wine", as I call these summer refreshers, you should ditch the heavy Chardonnay or the pedestrian Pinot Grigio and give Torrentes a try, ask your wine merchant which they prefer and why then serve chilled with friends. Wouldn't you know, I forgot to ask what the retail price on this bottle was, but my guess would be about 10 dollars. Most Torrentes is between 8 and 11 dollars.

Celeste

Last night I revisted an old aquaintance: Celeste from Torres. A red wine from the region of Ribera del Duero, Celeste is a standout in the Spanish section of Foodstop with its silver and blue label featuring a celestial (!) map of the Little Dipper constellation. This wine has a lot going for it, and it should at 25.00 a pop. But I have an affinity for Spanish Wine so my palette is open to all comers.
Celeste is earthy, with a hint of dark berry to the nose, but you really have to search for it. I had the sensation of smelling berries mixed with earth in my hands, and that was not unpleasant. The taste is long and satisfying. The best I could describe it is heavy on wood and toast with a creamy vanilla finish. This wine would, as all good Spanish wines would, rise to the occaision with roast lamb or pork, but would also do well with a beef stew or pot roast.
....and it was pretty damn good by itself last night.

Mixed Easter Blessings

I have every intention of sharing my reactions to first time tastings of wine, or of any wine event that bears a reaction. I hope to entertain and educate, both you and myself as i wander through the world of wine with few guides, but many opportunities.
this first blog, however, will be dominated by my attempt to impress/entertain my guests at Easter dinner with a few selected wines. My family has come to expect good wines from me and I enjoy the challenge of delivering on their expectations.
Easter dinner was, by and large, a great success. My wife and I hosted this year's dinner and served baked ham, potatoes (mashed and scalloped), carrots, green bean casserole, and rolls to 13 eager mouths. I was in charge of the wine and I made a serious error of which I am not ashamed to share. I had selected a riesling to pair with the ham, and it should have been a perfect pair, but the wine had gone bad! Talk about bad form. What a nightmare! I had two bottles of Francis Ford Coppola's encyclopaedia riesling and they were both passed. Of course, I had some back up wine down in the basement, a few nondescript unoaked Chardonnay's, but my mother and her husband had already quaffed half a glass of the syrup. I discreetly mentioned that the wine might not be up to standard, but they both disregarded me and continued drinking.
I was not only horrified over my bad wine selection, but the realization that my parents would not of even noticed. No Drouhin Chassagne-Montrachet for them!
Despite the white wine faux pas, my choice of the Drouhin Laforet Pinot Noir went over well with my sister and her husband. It's light body, fruity character and beautiful ruby color was perfect for a red choice with the ham. When we ran out of the Pinot Noir, I pulled a bottle of Renato Ratti dolcetto, a light, fruity Italian red, to take its place. All in all, the dinner wines worked...to a degree.
Dessert unveiled a 30 year Sherry, Pedro Ximenez from Noe. It was syrupy, sweet and fragrant. The younger table guests did not care for it, but my step father, uncle and brother in law enjoyed it with me. To please the younger crowd, I opened a bottle of Trentadue chocolate Port: easy candy for the unitiated.
So what did I learn on Sunday? test the wine. for God's sake, don't serve wine you are not sure of. Now I know why the riesling was selling for 9.99 at Hannaford's.