2009 Mollydooker Blue-Eyed Boy Shiraz

Crikey! Good Wine, Mate!

Mollydooker's Blue-Eyed Boy

My inexcusably embarrassing attempt to sound Aussie notwithstanding, I had some very good wine over the weekend, and felt compelled to share the news.

See, I haven’t been drinking much wine lately.

I’ll take your sudden, sharp inhalation of breath as a sign of shock. If you’re choking, call 9-1-1. If truly all you’re dealing with is the minor trauma that comes from learning that your favorite1 wine writer hasn’t been partaking of the juice a whole lot lately, then read on.

Way Down South

My mother-in-law had a birthday. I thought it might be a good idea to bring some wine, and frankly, the cellar is getting a bit full. Because I am completely clear about my status as a crapshoot, I have no qualms sharing wine that I’ve been sent by the winery, or a P.R. firm, or whoever else randomly sends me bottles on occasion.

But I do try to pay attention. And I’m glad I did.

Bottles of Mollydooker wine include the direction to do “the Mollydooker Shake” before drinking their wine. What is that, you ask? It’s this, actually:

Sounds patently ridiculous. But then, I’ve been known to do patently ridiculous things. At times in my life, with regularity. So screw it, I thought, I’ll give their silly little process a chance.

Since the Mollydooker Shake includes pouring out a touch of the wine that you can’t get back into the bottle, I took the opportunity to taste that first. It was nice, but nothing special. A run-of-the-mill syrah, with a hint of red fruit, but also some sharp, jagged edges that kept me from loving it.

Then I shook, or Shaked, perhaps,2 and followed the instructions in the video to the letter.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Quite the difference. Supple, silky, rich and creamy, simply bursting with dark red fruit notes. Raspberry and dark cherry flavors mingle with chocolate and espresso in this ridonkulous way. The wine may have been a bit one-note, but that one note had it pleasing everyone present.

I think I might need to drink some more wine. And soon.

Verdict: B+

(Sent to me by Mollydooker blah blah blah I’m in it for the samples and obviously cannot be trusted blah blah blah Parker doesn’t buy his goddamn wine, either blah blah blah FCC)

Footnotes

  1. Ed note: HA! ↩
  2. Damn proper nouns… ↩

2009 Bonny Doon Vinho Grinho

Growing Portuguese Grapes in Monterey County

I like Portuguese wine.

I like Randall Grahm.

So it’s no surprise that I like this wine. I don’t love it, not yet, but there’s so much to like about it, I’m still pretty excited.

By now, chances are you know the tale. Maybe you’ve even heard me tell it. The tale of the Rhône Ranger, Randall Grahm, who twenty-some odd years ago starting really going to town growing Rhône varieties in California, which had been dominated by the noble species of Bordeaux and Burgundy to that point.

But now, everybody’s growing grenache and syrah. OK, maybe not everybody, but still, the two grapes—especially syrah—are incredibly easy to find in California wine now. Randall doesn’t seem the type to do much laurels-resting, so where’s he headed next?

Portugal.

I don’t know of anyone in California—and please, please correct me if I’m wrong—making wine that is over 50% loureiro. Besides Bonny Doon, that is.

At 56% loureiro and 44% alvarinho (I use albariño’s Portuguese spelling here for obvious reasons), Bonny Doon’s Vinho Grinho (VEEN-yo GREEN-yo) is California’s first attempt1 at Portugal’s venerable Vinho Verde white wine. The grapes hail from BD’s Ca’ del Solo estate vineyards in Monterey County.

And it’s pretty damn good. It will kind of depend on what you’re looking for in a white, of course, but this was something I enjoyed, and my wife actually kind of raved about.

The wine is almost clear, light yellow in the glass. Kind of sauv blancish if you’ve never seen a Vinho Verde before, and kind of Vinho Verdesque if you have. The nose features pine and green herbs, but not heavy, very light in the air.

The wine is actually a bit fuller-bodied than I expected, but I would still characterize it as “light-to-medium” bodied. Minty herbs that reflect the aromas on the nose are greeted by a pleasant green apple note on the palate. The wine is not particularly acidic, and finishes pretty short, but it’s not meant to be big or bombastic.

I hope this is an example of things to come for California winemaking, just as Randall’s adoption of the south of France was in the 1980s. The world could use more wine from Portuguese grapes.

Verdict: B

2009 Bonny Doon Vinho Grinho

2009 Bonny Doon Vinho Grinho

Footnotes

  1. again, that I know of ↩

2009 Silver Birch Sauvignon Blanc (Octavin)

The Real Meaning of “Value”

I just don’t get it.

A few people I really like and respect have reviewed this wine ahead of me. Jason over at Jason’s Wine Blog (who, it should be noted, specializes in reviewing wine at the lower end of the price spectrum), while not formally giving the 2009 Silver Birch in the bladder inside the octagonal cardboard the once-over, did mention it in a recent post as “…impressive and… a crowd favorite.“

A couple of my homeboys (as it were), including fellow Trés Amigo Josh Wade at Drink Nectar wrote this guy up, and gave it a 3 out of 5, which I translate in my little head as something resembling an 80 on the Robert Parker point scale. Josh mentions specifically that this is a value buy.

The same score was given out by Those Who Are The Best New Wine Blog Twentyten at Swirl, Smell, Slurp, where both She and He gave, individually, a score of 3 out of 5. They refer to the wine as “good” after calling food They consumed “great,” so I have to consider that a less-than-rousing endorsement of the wine—but an endorsement nonetheless.

Liking this a bit more is my buddy and fellow fantasy baseballer Josh Sweeney at wine(explored). With his forgiveness, I am going to include here his entire review verbatim, including his 7 out of 10 (which, in my little messed up world, is something like an 85 on Parker’s scale):

2009 Silver Birch Sauvignon Blanc: 7/10. This is a classic, aggressive, beautifully flavored Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. I actually had a lot of trouble keeping my pace with this box. It drank so well for so long, I actually finished it a week early. If you can get the 2009 before we hit 2011, I highly, highly recommend it for anyone who likes a crisp, acidic Sauv Blanc.

Josh likes.

So, the consensus seems to be that this is average-to-good wine, that when coupled with its price (around $24 for a 3L box, or about $6 per bottle-equivalent) is recommended pretty much across the board by my blogging contemporaries.

I don’t fucking see it.

This is plonk. This is nigh-undrinkable, one-note, over-acidic plonk, and I can’t consider wine like that a “value” at any price, including free (which, because this was sent to me by someone involved in the promotion of this product, it was).

I think the wine blog whateversphere has found itself in the dangerous territory of trying to redefine “value.” High value is not necessarily correlated with low price.

The Chateâu d’Yquem I reviewed last week, regardless of how good it is (and oh my GOD it is good) cannot be considered a “value.” It costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-$400 per bottle-equivalent (and is much more common in the 375ml half-bottle). But that’s not why. It can’t be considered a “value” because that price point is basically the worldwide peak for Sauternes.

However, the $30 Napa cult wine The Prisoner is absolutely a value. It drinks like a $60-$80 bottle. Many people would argue that wine that costs $30 (or $20, or some other arbitrary number) cannot be considered “value” wine, because it is out of some people’s price range.

To me, this is a bastardization of the concept of “value,” and leads to situations like this: crap wine given more than its due simply because it costs less than a child’s ticket to the cinema.

So here are my notes.

The wine looks like a sauv blanc, very light yellow-to-clear in the glass. On the nose is a light alcohol sting (but not terrible), grapefruit, and some grass.

The palate, however, is all one note. This tastes like grapefruit juice. Almost sour, but really, it’s the high, unbalanced acidity here that is making me think “underripe grapefruit.” Can’t blame the grapefruit for that. Did I mention this tastes like grapefruit juice?

I can’t call that a value, personally. And I can’t recommend this wine.

Verdict: C-

P.S., since I compared everyone’s else’s score to the RMPJOHPS (Robert M. Parker Jr. One Hundred Point Scale), I will tell you that in my little world—where we are right now—a C- is something in the high 60s. Definitely under 70 points.

P.P.S., a 12-pack of 32oz bottles of Ocean Spray white grapefruit juice will run you about $35. That’s around $2.30 per 750ml. Just sayin’.

(full disclosure: this wine was received as a press sample. No way I’d pay for this.)

2009 Silver Birch Sauvignon Blanc

2009 Silver Birch Sauvignon Blanc