2007 Columbia Crest “Two Vines” Cabernet Sauvignon

Mt. Rainier-Sized Washington State Value

I’ll be perfectly honest with all of you, because I think it’s important and I feel, at times, like you’re all just so open with me, that a little quid pro quo is due. I don’t shop for wine at supermarkets. Ever.

Does this make me a snob? I hope not. The majority of my wine purchasing is done at wineries and at wine shops. Part of this is the luxury of my geographic location: surrounded by many of Northern California’s best viticultural regions.

The other part is, admittedly, a kind of conceit. There are a bunch of wine shops near me, and I just don’t like buying wine at supermarkets. I’ll do the BevMo thing, but they don’t sell fresh produce where I buy my wine.

So at my mother-in-law’s for Mother’s Day, I saw this bottle, opened, on the counter. Decided to give it a shot. She’d bought it for cooking only, but the fact of the matter is, I know damn well that some “priced-for-cooking” wine can actually be quite drinkable. While no one is about to be blown away by Columbia Crest’s Two Vines line, it is significantly better than some cheap wine I’ve had recently.

The wine is fairly light-colored in the glass, with a garnet core that lightens just slightly to purple at the edges. On the nose is a little more noticeable heat than I’d like to see from a 13.5% ABV wine, but it’s also fairly common in my experience for “value” wine to show off more of its alcohol than better-balanced, better-structured (i.e. “more expensive”) wines. Hints of black cherry and lightly-toasted vanilla show up on the nose as well.

So, the taste: the wine is light-bodied, surprisingly light for a cabernet, and very fruit-forward. You gotta be down with some fruit to enjoy this wine. Cherries and jam, and the lightest still-noticeable oak I’ve seen in a cabernet in a while.

If this is indicative of how Washington State does value cabs, compared to how California does it, then head to your supermarket’s wine aisle and look for the Washington designation. Wine Searcher lists the wine between $5.50-$9 but I saw the receipt: my in-laws spent $4.99 at their local Safeway. Well worth that price, in my opinion.

Verdict: 83/100

2007 Columbia Crest Two Vines Cabernet Sauvignon

2007 Columbia Crest Two Vines Cabernet Sauvignon

2007 Ferrari-Carano Eldorado Gold

Rotten Grapes At Their Best

The Villa at Ferrari-Carano

Sometimes a wine is evocative of its place in this world. And I don’t mean in some figurative, allegorical way, like we all have a “place” or whatever; I mean it evokes a literal, physical place. Its home.

That’s the villa at the Ferrari-Carano Winery in Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma. It’s pretty impressive, as are the rest of the grounds and the pair of tasting rooms.

My wife and I visited, and befriended a fellow with a French accent named Philippe down in the Reserve tasting room where they serve up the good shit. I’m not saying the other wines at F-C are plonk, but then, I don’t know. What I do know is that this particular wine—a white dessert wine in the Sauternes style—is fantastic.

It was the last of a series of wines I tasted while sitting in the underground tasting bar surrounded by people who—by virtue of my eavesdropping, I could tell—knew a lot less about wine than they were trying to let on to their guests, or dates, or whathaveyou. In my experience, the more crowded a tasting bar is, the more likely you are to be around people pulling shit like that; partially this is because the more crowded the bar is, the more people there are, and because it’s harder to pull the ear of someone who works there, interested as they are in educating and chatting up their wine.

I think this is why Philippe liked me. Not necessarily because I know anything more or less than some of the others present, but because I don’t pretend to know what I don’t. I like to think that’s apparent when you meet me. So when I asked him if this wine, made up as it is of 90% semillon and 10% sauvignon blanc, was indeed botrytized, he smiled in the affirmative, and I knew I was in for a treat.

Botrytized? If you don’t know, the fungus that rots semillon grapes to give Sauternes wine its distinct sweetness is called botrytis cinerea, or “noble rot.” So it is with Ferrari-Carano’s Eldorado Gold.

As rich and golden as its namesake, the Eldorado Gold gives off the most incredible white raisins and vanilla on the nose. There’s a hint of honey, and a chalklike minerality that could have come straight off the white terrace out front of the villa.

I took a sip expecting great things, and got them: the Eldorado Gold is medium bodied and features dried apricot, honey, caramel and vanilla. The residual sugar makes itself present but doesn’t kill off all the good aromas and flavors that make the wine a delight.

Verdict: 93/100

(photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elcapitan/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Delightful Single-Vineyard Rosso Toscano

2007 Bibi Graetz “Soffocone di Vincigliata”

I am finding that I really, truly, love me some Italian wine.

I’m also trying to work my way towards joining the Wine Century Club, acceptance to which is earned by drinking the wine of at least 100 grape varieties. I’m working on it, and this wine recently helped me by scratching canaiolo and colorino (aka lambrusco) off the list.

The wine is 90% sangiovese, 7% colorino, 3% canaiolo, from a single vineyard named Soffocone in Tuscany, which overlooks the city of Florence on a southern-exposed hillside surrounded by olive orchards.

Damn, that just screams “ITALIA!,” doesn’t it?

The wine is dark garnet at its core, and lightens to a light red (not pink) at the edge. The nose is bright and cheery, with ripe raspberry and a slight strawberry note.

On the palate, the wine’s dark color is betrayed once again as it leaps forth with more raspberry, but also with a hint of black pepper. The Soffocone is light-bodied, and easily drinkable. Quite enjoyable, actually. In the glass it almost looks like nebbiolo or something similarly big, bold, and tannic. But the sangio from this particular vineyard gives a quite different experience from a big, complex, intricate Brunello (for example).

Verdict: B+

2007 Soffocone di Vincigliata

2007 Soffocone di Vincigliata