I'm taking over for Kajal this month's wine club blog entry. We met at Gia's apartment to try our assortment of Organic wines. Surprisingly, our fare was mainly red wines at a 5:1 ratio, which ended up dispelling some myths about organic reds (mainly that due to lack of sulfates, they would not be as good) and playing risk with the white carpet. Thankfully, we were all (carpet included!) happy with the results of the evening.
The first wine we tried was a Bonterra Cabernet Savignon, 2005 vintage. Bonterra is a California vineyard in the Mendocino region. We found it a very drinkable, basic red. It had a mellow taste and was described as a good steak wine. We felt that it would hold up well to food without overpowering it.
Our next wine was a Vicien Syrah, 2004 vintage. Vicien is an Argentinian winery in the Catamarca region. It had a much more distinct almost peppery start and moved to a quick ending. As a group, we were not sure how we felt about it at first, but by the end, it ended up being one of the favorites of the evening. It was a definite "buy again" wine, and at around $11 a bottle, an affordable one at that.
This was followed by the Arbanta Organic Rioja, 2005 (I think. There was not a date on the bottle or on FreshDirect). This wine had a yeasty smell that was almost bread like. Someone described it as apple-pie like, though we were not sure if that part was coming from the apple crisp that was warming in the oven. The wine started with a fruity flavor on the tongue- a little bit of cherry or plum- and ended on an almost citric note with hints of grapefruits.
Our last red was a Frey Syrah, 2006 another California wine. It starts with a walnut like aroma and then has tastes of grapes (ha!), cinnamon, black cherry and has a peppery burst.
The last wine of the evening was our white. Because it was a Riesling, we felt that we should save it for dessert and pair it with the apple crisp we had been smelling all evening. The Domaine Mittnacht Freres Riesling, 2005 was our only French wine. At first taste, we did not feel it was a very Riesling-ish Riesling. It was a dry wine with a bit of an alcohol-y taste to it. However, it was not a bad wine, and the more you drank it and didn't have expectations for it, the better it became. Though unexpected, it was not a bad way to end our evening.
In addition to our usual gossip and chatter, we had a more wine-topical discussion as well. We realized that despite holding our monthly meetings for almost a year, we weren't sure we knew that much more about wine than we did before. Were Syrahs always peppery? What were the qualities of a good Cabernet Savignon? Sadly, none of us could really answer these questions, though we felt like we should be able to. Were we gaining knowledge in our monthly meetings, or only hangovers? We had tweaked our methods before- taking smaller portions of each of the wines in order to have a clear head by the last bottle- and have decided that we are going to try to have the worthy goal of having learned something about the wine (or wine in general) by the end of each meeting. We also decided that we should continue our tradition of having sparkling wines as January's wine club. See why you shouldn't miss meetings Kajal?
The first wine we tried was a Bonterra Cabernet Savignon, 2005 vintage. Bonterra is a California vineyard in the Mendocino region. We found it a very drinkable, basic red. It had a mellow taste and was described as a good steak wine. We felt that it would hold up well to food without overpowering it.
Our next wine was a Vicien Syrah, 2004 vintage. Vicien is an Argentinian winery in the Catamarca region. It had a much more distinct almost peppery start and moved to a quick ending. As a group, we were not sure how we felt about it at first, but by the end, it ended up being one of the favorites of the evening. It was a definite "buy again" wine, and at around $11 a bottle, an affordable one at that.
This was followed by the Arbanta Organic Rioja, 2005 (I think. There was not a date on the bottle or on FreshDirect). This wine had a yeasty smell that was almost bread like. Someone described it as apple-pie like, though we were not sure if that part was coming from the apple crisp that was warming in the oven. The wine started with a fruity flavor on the tongue- a little bit of cherry or plum- and ended on an almost citric note with hints of grapefruits.
Our last red was a Frey Syrah, 2006 another California wine. It starts with a walnut like aroma and then has tastes of grapes (ha!), cinnamon, black cherry and has a peppery burst.
The last wine of the evening was our white. Because it was a Riesling, we felt that we should save it for dessert and pair it with the apple crisp we had been smelling all evening. The Domaine Mittnacht Freres Riesling, 2005 was our only French wine. At first taste, we did not feel it was a very Riesling-ish Riesling. It was a dry wine with a bit of an alcohol-y taste to it. However, it was not a bad wine, and the more you drank it and didn't have expectations for it, the better it became. Though unexpected, it was not a bad way to end our evening.
In addition to our usual gossip and chatter, we had a more wine-topical discussion as well. We realized that despite holding our monthly meetings for almost a year, we weren't sure we knew that much more about wine than we did before. Were Syrahs always peppery? What were the qualities of a good Cabernet Savignon? Sadly, none of us could really answer these questions, though we felt like we should be able to. Were we gaining knowledge in our monthly meetings, or only hangovers? We had tweaked our methods before- taking smaller portions of each of the wines in order to have a clear head by the last bottle- and have decided that we are going to try to have the worthy goal of having learned something about the wine (or wine in general) by the end of each meeting. We also decided that we should continue our tradition of having sparkling wines as January's wine club. See why you shouldn't miss meetings Kajal?
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1 comment:
we were allowed reds at gia's and i missed it?
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