this heaven gives me migraine

Catch-up

So in the last two-and-then-some years I've been gone, I haven't totally been slacking in the ways of wine although I admit I have recently been backsliding into the whole "delicious yum don't think about it" stuff a little too much lately. Hence the return. Plus, I realize now how useful getting some of this info written down has been (at least to me).

So, when we last left off I was moving coast-to-coast and not sure how to get 22 cases of wine from SF to DC. I ended up going with good old Western Carriers. They weren't cheap but given that the weather was hot when we were moving (end of June) I really didn't want to take chances by sticking the wine in the moving van. If it had been autumn or early spring... maybe, with a lot of worry. Anyway, Western Carriers were awesome. They came to the storage unit in SF, picked everything up in their truck, and then took it to somewhere in New Jersey, where they held it in chilled storage (part of the deal was free storage for up to a month, which turned out to be VERY helpful).

The wine got to NJ around the same time I got to DC. Our house was not habitable at the time so we ended up living with our friends next door for two weeks. Summer in DC is not cool, and even though we have AC in the house, said friends had been keeping tabs on their basement temps and I thought they would be too dramatic for wine storage, so I needed a solution since our basement four feet away was probably not going to be any better. I knew that offsite storage in DC was out, since the only option here sucks (note to self: go into business in wine storage in DC and offer hours for people to access their wine more than two days a week). My pal Mike at K&L had given me a tip to check Craigslist for wine refrigerators/storage since he rightly said when people move they never want to move them. Sure enough, before the end of July I found The Wine Coffin.

The Wine Coffin was purchased for $300 from a guy in Bethesda who was upgrading to another, larger unit. A deal was made, friends from Baltimore who had a very large truck were bribed to come down (I bet they still regret that) and it was hauled to our basement with much pain. It's big, it's black, it's kind of scary-looking, and it holds about 200 bottles (it looks like this but with a solid door). 200 bottles is not enough but it is our lot in life to suffer, and suffer with 200-bottle storage I do (although I do still wonder if I should have gotten the 400 bottle unit one of the embassies here was selling, even if it would have had to be put in the back yard since it would probably not fit down our stairs). It was a DIY kit but the thing is solid and the guy did a good job putting it together.

Anyway, once it was home and set up, I got the wine sent from New Jersey and then had a fun time jamming it all in there. I had zero organization, which sucked, and it was stacked dangerously at the top since the rack inside isn't the best (it can't fit slightly oversized bottles, which means pretty much all Syrah has to go up top in the open area). This meant we had to put old bathroom rugs all around the front so that when bottles fell out, they had some cushioning. We are classy that way!! Miraculously, nothing ever actually broke. And now, years later, we have redone the basement and it has a place of honor under the stairs. And a lame organization setup involving a notebook and pencil but at least I know what is where and honestly, the Excel spreadsheet I was using in SF was a pain in the ass.

Other than all that moving/organization fun, I have been learning that life is indeed possible outside of SF, even though the food and wine is a little sad-making. I can mostly ship wine here (with a little help from some friends in Virginia on occasion) so I am not missing out on too much, but the wine bars here are...different... and the food is more challenging to vegetarians who want to eat fancy delicious food that is not mushrooms. I was even in a tasting group for a while (one put together by my awesome friend Andy, who is now an MW candidate). But now, other than trying as many wine bars as I can and even investing a little in one to help it along, I haven't been doing much smart in the way of wine, so here I am again. Give me some time to regroup and go to France and deal with the holidays, and I will be back.

Holy shit

I guess I am back. More coming soon....

Sokol Blosser "Meditrina" II

Notes: This was actually sent to me (hooray for free wine) and it was exciting because I like its white-grape sister, Evolution 9, which is fun to drink. So this is an interesting wine to check out, especially since I didn't know it existed. This is the second release of the blend (indeed, you can know that by the tiny "II" on the label), and this year it is 48% Pinot Noir (most from the Sokol Blosser vineyards in Oregon), 39% Syrah (from Lodi in California and Columbia Valley in Washington), and 13% Zinfandel (also from Lodi).

It's very bright ruby in the glass and it looks young and fun. Nose of chlorine swimming pool, blackberry, and black cherry. As it warms up, you get more of the Pinot Noir in the nose: an earthy black cherry smell. There is a snap of CO2 when it first hits the tongue, which chills out once it sits out for a while, and then Zinfandel dominates the mid-palate with a sweet spice and fruit, and the Syrah dominates the backend, with a tarry black lingering finish. Nice acid, lots of fruit, some pepperiness and astringency at the finish, not much tannin.

It's totally a fun and easy-drinking red... not challenging, not strange, not anything but spice and fruit and, well, okay, a little chlorine swimming pool (which isn't a fault in this instance, I don't think, even though it could be: it's just something I picked up, which seems to have turned into Pinot Noir funk and spice once a little air got to it). It's also got a cute label even though I kind of hate myself for even thinking that, let alone saying it here. The snappiness on the tongue is slight and even though I don't love that in a red wine (I like it in whites) it wasn't overbearing or horrible.

I should probably give this a B+, but, like everything else in my life right now, I find that I am vaguely dissatisfied about wine. I am not even sure what it is I am looking for, but everything seems to fall short. I guess right now my glass is half-empty. But this was at least a tasty half-glass of something.

Cost: $18

Overall: B/B+

2003 Ridge Lytton Estate Late Harvest Zinfandel

Notes: This is something odd for me, a bottle of Ridge and I have no idea from where it came. Either this was a semidrunken purchase at the winery at some point or one of my ATP shipments (which, upon further investigation, it is). I probably should have let it age another year or two before drinking it. Oh, hindsight. But it was a Friday night after a long week of walking specs and filing bugs and sometimes you want something ridiculous and fruity that doesn't go at all with the pizza you end up eating for dinner and well, it just happens. I am a little tired of opening funky/corked/somehow bad French regional wines and this was a promise of something clean and simple and drinkable.

Anyway, it was pleasant company while watching bad movies. Well, a bad movie (hello, Red Eye).

And, since it was an ATP wine, that means I have another one socked away in storage so I can wait a while and have that when it is a little more evolved and I can do it up properly with a cheese plate, the way it should be had.

Deep ruby in the glass, purple red. The nose jumps out at you; bramble, hot blackberry and strawberry, with some toasty wood mixed in there. Slightly hot, alcoholic nose which isn't a surprise considering it is late picked (some of the grapes were almost 32 brix when picked and the wine itself is 16.1% alcohol). Mouthwateringly fruity when it hits the palate, full of raspberry. Clear raspberry with a somewhat minty/eucalyptus finish. Slight tannins and dryness, but not much, and the finish is mostly dominated by a vanilla flavor (the wine was aged in 20 percent new American oak, which explains that). The wine has 2.6 grams/liter of residual sugar, so the finish is definitely on the sweeter side even though it isn't overly syrupy or desserty.

Cost: $26

Overall: B+

2003 Delas Côtes du Ventoux

Notes: This is my desperate attempt to do something for Wine Blogging Wednesday 19, despite the fact that I had a crazy busy weekend involving not only work, but an emergency room and a dislocated elbow (not mine, thankfully), and didn't make it to the wine store or my wine storage, so any good or interesting blends I might have around or at my disposal were, well, not at my disposal. I am also working late Wednesday so I had to pre-drink and write all this up. Oh, the trials!

Anyway, I had to root around in the wine I keep in the house here and find something that would work. I do have a thing for Rhône blends, so I had some stuff lying around, but sadly nothing was very interesting. Mostly Grenache/Syrah blends, and this bottle won out simply by being a Grenache/Syrah/Carignane blend, which gave it one-third more interestingness and blendedness. And blending wine is not easy... I have had to do it in a wine class and it is harder than you think to come up with something tasty and balanced. It is very easy to end up with a muddy, difficult wine, and that is exactly what I had in my glass when I got done.

I think it is a bottle I got through the K&L wine club or picked up there when I was doing a run for cheap bottles to drink. This wine is a Côtes du Ventoux Contrôlée, which means it comes from a specific area between the Rhône and Provence, an area that has climactic conditions similar to the Rhône. A main feature of the limestone-ridden landscape is Mont Ventoux, rumored locally to be the source of the Mistral (the bitterly cold wind that blows through the Rhône).

Delas Frères has been around since 1836, and despite being bought by first Deutz in 1978 and then Roderer in 1993, flew low and under the radar for years, making so-so wines that did not receive much acclaim. In 1997 Jacques Grange took over (he who revitalized Chapoutier and served under Jean Luc Colombo). He turned things around and started paying close attention to vineyard and cellar practices. No more heavy-handed fining or filtration, careful pruning, and judicious use of oak improved the wines' reputations and gave new life to Delas.

This is a bright purple-red in the glass, and looks pretty young. The nose is slightly hot, and has plum, blackberry, and tobacco, along with peppery spice. It might be fading slightly because there is not a lot of fruit on the palate. It's not old, per se, but not as bright as it might have been when younger. The palate is all about chalky leather and pepper. There is some ripe fruit quality there, more blackberry and cherry, but not a ton of it. When first opened the finish had a bitter rigidity that you know I will blame on the Carignane, but after a while of being open that seemed to dissipate somewhat (I can still taste it's cardboardy-ness, though, so it did not go away completely). The finish, heavy on the savory spice and pepper, is a little short, but really, it is pleasant enough for a ten-dollar bottle of wine. Not particularly memorable, but drinkable and good enough.

I imagine other wines in their portfolio are more interesting and might have made a more interesting entry for WBW19, but this one was worthy in that you can tell what aspects it gets from the Syrah (pepper, blackberry), Grenache (spicy herbs, cherry) and Carignane (rigidity, bitterness).

Cost: $10

Overall: B-