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Sense of place, story, inheritance: Brooks Janus Pinot Noir, 2010

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Three years ago when one of my friends from wine class opened up a Brooks Winery Pinot Noir, I thought, “Man, I have to sign up for that wine club.”  I had never seen nor heard of it before, but this is why I was in wine class–to learn beyond the boundaries of my own experience and limitations.

I like wine, because like literature, there are many stories to discover.  Fast forward to a new reality series by Fox Business, “Strange Inheritance” and the wine I never saw in a store since that Sunday afternoon tasting was front and center on this series. (You can see the story on Brooks’ home page, or by Googling the winery and “Strange Inheritance story–the root of it is that at age 8, owner Pascal Brooks inherited the winery when his father and owner, Jimi Brooks, age 38, passed away.)

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The wine has a touching storied past, but it also has a visionary future, and one can sense this is the layered and complex tastes and textures of the wine .DSC_0527

I found the 2010 Janus Pinot Noir (Willamette Valley, 12.2%, $30-39) at Sunfish Cellars in Lilydale/St. Paul, Mn. (If you have never been, it is by FAR one of the best selections of wine in Minnesota).  Chris Blanchard, M.S.  will say of this wine in his tasting notes that this wine is “earthy and brooding” and I quite agree.  However, apart from the deep animal and mushroom notes he describes, I find a lightness in the taste akin to its delicate color–finding black cherries and strawberries, as well as a minerally graphite flavor that add buoyancy to the wine, behind the fruit.  Light in oak, almost to a vanilla tinge, Janus-the mythological god of beginnings and endings–can handle the juxtaposition of flavors in my opinion.

It’s a great story and great wine.  I can’t wait to discover more in the Brooks’ line as I keep adding to my own plot.

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Another Santa Barbara wine find: Foggy Veil 2012, Syrah/Grenache blend

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Yesterday, I wrote about one of my favorite Santa Barbara wines, Tercero Wines, and today after rummaging the shelves at Trader Joe’s, I’m beginning to think the Santa Barbara wine country can do no wrong.

During my own time in Santa Barbara during the Wine Bloggers 2014 Conference, I found truth in claims made of the area by the Santa Barbara Vintners: “The unique, transverse nature of the valleys of Santa Barbara Wine Country provides a patchwork quilt of microclimates and terrains, resulting in one of the most diverse grapegrowing regions in the country.” After tasting the Pinot Noir, Shiraz/Syrah, Chardonnay and other wines of the area, I found that these microclimates and terrains helped shape soft, subtle, layered and tasty wines of one of my new favorite wine region in the U.S.DSC_0511

Because of my trip there last year, I put my faith in a wine found on the top shelf of Trader Joes–the Foggy Veil, 2012 Santa Barbara blend of 75% Syrah/25% Grenache. (The $13.99 price point made it easy to try it out, too).  The low price point, even when compared to Rhone blends from France, would normally make me shy away from an unknown wine.  But I thought the “fog” in the title, which I fondly remember seeing during my early morning runs at the bloggers’ conference, really would make this a drinkable find.  I was right.

The wine was full of dark cherry flavors and spicy oak reminiscent of cedar-lined dresser drawers that have been aired by time and memory. Underscoring these great flavors were slight notes of green herbs.  Even with a 14.2% alcohol content which I thought was going to dominate the taste, the tannins and alcohol were mellow and balanced, making for a smooth-drinking red wine you could drink any night on its own, or like we did, with a juicy steak and butter-laced mushrooms. Try it, drink it, enjoy it.

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Practice makes perfect: Tercero-The Outlier, 2013 Gewürztraminer, Santa Barbara

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On a Saturday morning during the 2013 Wine Blogger’s Conference in Santa Barbara, California, I vowed to go light on the next round of tastings.  I had had a lot of wine to taste (by normal tasting standards, it was only 11:30 am) and I wanted to enjoy lunch and have some easy-going conversations with people I had been ignoring due to the focus on wine.   Then I happened upon a Tercero wine table, and I was smitten.

Crisp, refreshing and what I think are a new twist on old takes (Syrahs, Roses, White Grenaches, oh my!) I couldn’t get these wines out of my head several months later before I joined the Tercero Wine Club.

My memory served meDSC_0501 well, especially with regard to The Outlier 2013 Gewurztraminer. I hadn’t kept this wine in a refrigerator, but it is Minnesota, so it was opened and served slightly chilled.

The body and taste is voluptuous but restrained, as if viewing a curvy woman in a tightly woven bodice; revealing and refrained and showing a few mysteries one drink at a time.

A just-opened bottle, the wine offers aromas of stone fruit–some would say peach or more like lychee to me, as if some herbaceous hints lay beneath the surface.  With another turn of the glass and served with panko-and-parmesan breaded walleye, this wine’s lemon and green grape notes and medium plus acid complemented dinner in a beautifully balanced way.   The taste lingered, but not the tartness that usually turns me off of cheaper whites.

At $25 a bottle, I would stock up on a few bottles of this wine that goes just as well with winter fare as it will summer delights.  If Malcolm Gladwell is correct, and outliers are defined by 10,000 or so hours of practice, I have to believe a lot of practice went into making this wine a perfect dining (and drinking) companion.

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No Leap of Faith Needed Here: Stag’s Leap Napa Valley

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It is not unusual to see minus (insert number) temps in Minnesota during Christmas week. This is one of those weeks.

photo-97Nothing pairs better with snow, Christmas trees and steak dinners like a big, bold Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley. (Wine is the new black–in this case, black wearable sleeping bag to warm the insides).  This week the wine was: Stag’s Leap Napa Valley 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon.

Stag’s Leap is one of my favorites–maybe because the first time I had it (Artemis) I was on a beautiful veranda eating a great steak dinner with my friend Melissa as we prepared ourselves for a duathlon in the beautiful backyard of Ashburn, NC.  The sun was setting, we had the glow of tanned fitness on our faces, and the air was silent.  Sometimes, wine is the punctuation that helps us remember those important, quiet times.  In this case, Stag’s Leap is a comma, a breath and pause when you want it to go on.

This wine, Stag’s Leap Napa Valley, is another marker in a line of great wines.  Notes of blackberry, baked black cherry with a drizzle of chocolate on top, slight pepper and smokey hints, it is a big wine that likes to be paired with food.  (I loved looking at the leg’s on the glass, thinking this one could debut at Radio City). With 13.9% alcohol and a 2010 vintage, there was also a slight bit of herbaceous undertones–it is a younger wine that might need some air before serving, or perhaps a decanter,  as it tipped toward tannin and alcohol right out of the bottle. (My guess is that I would have loved, loved, loved this if consumed on night #2 as it started to open up with time and a bit of warmth.) That said, it was great when it started to open up-and showed a window on it’s potential.  It’s a drink now, or even perhaps, wait a bit wine.

If you ever see a bottle on sale, as I did with this one (retail $49.99, sale at $35), grab one–just to try your own take at creating a new memory.

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I beat Comcast! Wine by Joe helped me win.

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Newsflash: Moving sucks.

I know you know this, but it’s hard to move things in.  Set things up.  Get boxes down to a manageable size.  Re-wash things.  And then, there is the electronics world.

Comcast–land of the automated voice that keeps replaying on a circuit with a fake computer noise that wants you to believe it’s registering your concerns, even when you keep asking joefor customer service, only to be rerouted to the circuit or led to a representative that said you called the wrong number, “I’ll have to transfer you, but our transfer system is broken.  You gotta pen?” Tonight was that night where the automated demons walked the earth to foil all startup tech projects and eat the living for a snack. In a rush of frustration, I threw caution to the wind, threw the directions to the side, and managed to connect a TV, Internet modem and router, sync the TV with the remote, and change passwords without becoming one of the undead.  In a word, or few, I rocked the tech (knock on wood a thousand times here).

The Wine: With my new-found skills, and time on hold, I opened a bottle of “Wine by Joe” –a 2010 Pinot Noir from Oregon. Unlike a common plumber’s name, the wine was less than common, but like it’s description, not pretentious.  Good, in fact, for a light bodied, light-rubied pinot.

On the nose were earthy, aged cherries, spice of white pepper and a hint of black in the background, a touch of freshly rained on earth mixed with a hint of oak (the edge of the forest, if you will).  On the palette, the fruit came through, as did more of the spice as if an unexpected “welcome basket” showed up at your front door.  It carries with it a gift in a bottle, as It is extremely well-balanced, medium-low on the tannin and medium-high on the finish length and taste.

Bringing joe2joy down to the simplest denominator, it’s taste is like being on the childhood playground and equally balancing the teeter-totter with your best friend opposite you on a spring day.  Cue: rainbows and unicorns, this wine was that for me during a Comcast phone maze contest.

I have to miss the workout in the morning, because, as stated earlier, moving makes you her bitch and you are owned by a force greater than the sum of your zip code.  But, I would definitely pick up this bottle the next time I battle Comcast.  Or even just because I want a nice,  light, enjoyable wine.  If you would like to be rerouted to a red, press 1…or ask for Joe.

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