The apartment has been deserted, except for this man; Spain awaits

Greetings from Hartfield Jackson airport in Atlanta, Georgia. I am waiting out a solid 3 hour layover before departing on the delta boeing 767-400ER for Madrid.. Happily the flight from sfo was a speedy four hour venture, only slightly marred by a very unhappy baby exercising his (her?) pipes, which were ample. There was also a toddler who would occasionally burst into wild, crazy simian yells. At one point another youngin chimed in, creating a call and response of 'A-YA-YA-YA!!' and 'OOH-OOH-OOH-OOH!'s. What a vocal interplay. It was awesome. Next post will be 'en directo' from the iberian peninsula.

Saludos, Jose.
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A pepsi-coke challenge weekend, wine style.

I enjoy comparative tasting. Whether tasting a few olive oils, wines, beers or chocolates, there is always something new to discover. Here are some recent discoveries:

DOES MENCIA REALLY TASTE LIKE CAB FRANC? 2004 PUCHO BIERZO AND 2002 OLGA RAFFAULT CHINON LES PICASSES WITH ROASTED CHICKEN.

To answer the question (and oft repeated statement) above, I would say, at least based on this particular bottle, 'Not really.' The '04 Pucho showed lots of dark fruit and more advancement than I was expecting. It was spicy and full of wet earth, albeit a dense chunky wet earth as opposed to a more nuanced, decaying wet earth. It was ok with the chicken, but came across as rather monolithic. Now the Chinon was a different story. It was initially strict, with that classic savory-herbal cherry-berry cab franc profile. As it opened up, though, I began to better appreciate the silky texture of Loire cab franc gliding across the palate. The savory and earthy flavors giving way to floral notes and bright acidity. Excellent with the roasted chicken, which I prepared very simply with salt, pepper, half a lemon, a few garlic cloves, and several sprigs of rosemary, popped into a 500 deg oven for 40 minutes.

VERMENTINO A LA GALLURA VS VERMENTINO A LA STEVE EDMUNDS.

Vermentino is certainly very much at home on the island of Sardegna, especially when it comes from Gallura on the northeastern portion of the island. The 2006 Mancini Vermentino di Gallura showed broad melon, apple and citrus flavors. It tastes bigger than its 12.5% alc would suggest.

Former folk singer/hippie Steve Edmunds pays tribute to his northern California musical heritage with his 2007 Heart of Gold, a blend of Grenache blanc co-fermented with Vermentino. Nearly 50-50. At first it tasted lean, citric and closed. After a day in the fridge, and serving at a more ideal temperature (cool room temp vs cold fridge temp) the wine was much more expressive. Another winner from Edmunds St. John. Way to go Alice for giving Mr. Edmunds some props in a recent SF Chronicle article.

OREGON VS CA PINOT NOIR

This was a brown bag tasting we did for customers at the store. Overall a pretty good selection; as predicted the wines were not always easy to peg as CA or Oregon the way that some people are stylizing PN these days. I don't have my notes in front of me, but I remember a few favorites ('06 Chasseur PN Russian River, '05 Foghorn PN Monterey, '06 Westrey PN Oracle Vineyard Dundee Hills), one disappointment ('05 Eyrie PN Dundee Hills) and a few utterly disagreeable wines ('05 Domaine Serene Evenstadt, '06 Et Fille Kalita Vineyard PN Yamhill-Carlton, Aubin Cellars 'Verve' Stoller Vineyard PN Dundee Hills).

The Group gets fancy; A flight of Gruve and '96 Echezeaux horizontal

Jerry outdid himself, or at least any other previous tasting group event I have attended. There was a selection of cheeses, duck that Jerry himself hunted (smoked and then a delicious duck leg confit with polenta and mushrooms), a flight of mostly 2006 gruner veltliner (by nearly all accounts a terrific vintage in Austria), and the piece de resistance, a line-up of 1996 Echezeaux. I'd say it's safe to assume that the majority of our group, myself included, has had precious little tasting experience of grand cru burgundy, let alone aged grand cru burgundy from a great, if controversial, vintage. So it was both a treat and a great tasting lesson. For anyone out there who is not already in a tasting group, but wants to learn about wine, get yourself in one. There is no better or more enjoyable way to learn about wine than to pool together financial and knowledge resources with a group of friends and colleagues.

Flight the first was humbling. The wines were all very generous and full of fruit, with a good dose of minerality in one of the wines, probably two in fact. The others seemed so fruity and simple, that I was thinking that the flight was a riesling around the world type flight. My favorite wine was a trocken riesling from the Rheingau, and the others were surely rieslings from elsewhere. Well, I was wrong. All old world wines, all gruner veltliner. Here are the wines, ranked in reverse order of group preference:

2006 Jager Gruner Veltliner Federspiel, Wachau
This was full of apples and a talcum type of minerality. I have 'good california riesling' in my notes; maybe I was thinking Montelena or Stony Hill or something.

2006 Stadt Krems Gruner Veltliner, Kremstal

Yellow stone fruits. My least favorite wine; it came across as one-dimensional.

2006 Nigl Gruner Veltliner Senftinberger Piri

Here was a wine with more minerality, higher toned acidity, an much precision. "Focused and laser-like" were some other descriptors mentioned (before the wine was revealed). These are words that are often used to describe Martin Nigl's wines.

2005 Salomon Undhoff Gruner Veltliner
There was a very creamy, leesy aspect to this wine, coupled with very high acidity and what I perceived at the time to be a slate type of minerality. What impressed me about this wine was how different it showed from the others. Surely it must have had at least 3-4 more years of bottle age. Interestingly, I have noticed once before that Salomon's gruner veltliners are good short to mid-term agers. They do seem to age fairly quickly though - maybe both instances have been cases of poor storage in the wine shop?

If the white wine flight was humbling, than the red flight was both humbling and baffling. Chalk it up to our collective inexperience with Echezeaux, or Vosne-Romanee from 1996. Only one person guessed that we were tasting Burgundy, here. Such was the intriguing combination of ripe, juicy, supple fruit, high acidity and more than partial integration of tannins. I found two of the wines to be soft and succulent, one wine to be a bid more advanced and less delicious than the others, and another to be simple, superficial and short. Once again, the wines from last to first:

1996 Domaine Robert Arnoux Echezeaux

I thought that this was supposed to be a solid producer. This wine had some mixed red/dark fruits on the nose, with a bit of horseradish and cooked black cherry. There was not the liveliness on the palate experienced in my two favorites of the night. Either the wine is in a dumb phase or it was poorly stored.

1996 Mongeard-Mugneret Echezeaux

Third with the group, but a clear second for me. Cherry liqueur, red fruits and a bit of orange peel on the nose led to a palate full of cherry, brighter than what the nose would suggest. Still very primary in its development.

1996 Domaine de Perdrix Echezeaux

Second with the group, an easy 4th placer for me. This wine was just too slick. Dark and concentrated nose, with some oak spice. But not much else. Soft, juicy and simple blackberry fruits on the palate. Tannins are fully resolved. Short finish. Here is a great example of how a grand cru burgundy, even from a good vintage, ain't a guarantee of quality. Far from it.

1996 Mongeard-Mugneret Grands Echezeaux

This was the clear favorite, and for good reason. While it's still very primary, the fruit is of such an intense, elegant, and long lasting quality. Delicious wine that absolutely provides the tough to describe grand cru burgundy tasting experience. True to reputation, this was by far superior to MM's very solid Echezeaux.

Wine tasting is a funny thing. While experience and context are very important, the wine, as Terry Theise (importer of our two top finishing gruner veltliners) likes to say, 'will have the last word.' Profound, I know.

Fw: Test run for posting blogs on blackberry from spain

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-----Original Message-----
From: jmanekin@gmail.com

Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 00:15:53
To:jmanekin.oldworldoldschool@blogger.com
Subject: Test run for posting blogs on blackberry from spain

Well, it's not a real test until I attempt to blog from espana beginning in a week. I am even attempting to attach a photo. No relevance to Spain, though. This is my uncle jack at home/work in the Austin St cafe, Marfa, Texas.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Brett and Fruit: GT Dave Kombucha, Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus

As a kid I used to eat lemons. When life gave me lemons, I might have made lemonade, but with, at most, half the sugar a typical recipe would suggest. I also loved fizzy drinks, except for soda, which of course was too sweet. As a substitute for soda, I used to mix Perrier with fruit juices. Orange juice and perrier, which I dubbed an 'oobie,' started my whole range of drinks, which would become popular with family, less so with friends. When I started getting into wine, I would satisfy my need for fizz and acidity by drinking champagne, cava, cremant d'Alsace, sekt, basically any well made sparkling wine. Recently I have expanded my horizons: during the day I satisfy my craving for tart and fizzy by drinking kombucha, and at night I have started to enjoy the occasional lambic, or Belgian fruit beer.

Kombucha is basically a type of sweetened tea that is slowly, naturally fermented over the course of 30 days. Aiding the fermentation are acetobacter bacteria (used in vinegar production) and several different yeasts, including brettanomyces. These days it is often flavored with fruit. Some CO2 is trapped in the bottle which makes the drink a bit fizzy. My only experience has been with the GT Dave brand, whose flavors I find to be uniformly delicious; try the grape, mango, and strawberry varieties - awesome with a sandwich or simply on their own for a late afternoon boost.

Lambics are spontaneously fermented Belgian beers. They have a strong acetic acid tang, as well as some barnyard like flavors due to the high count of brettanomyces in the brew. Often times the fruit beers you see in stores are sweetened for the mass market, and may not even be based on lambic beers. Cantillon, on the other hand, does things traditionally and naturally. Their rose de gambrinus is based on their geuze (a blend of 1 and 2-3 year old lambics) flavored with fresh raspberries, giving it an intense pink color. At first I loved the beer, with its refreshing framboise flavors and pleasant bitter snap to the finish. However, the more I drank I could not get over the increasingly persistent bitterness, which honestly came across as very bile-like. That right there might have been a deal breaker for many of you, and of course bitter, sour beers are not for everyone. But they're definitely worth a try, especially when made by a brewery as revered and respected by beer afficionados as Cantillon.

herb alpert - rise 1979

So I'm riding home from work, scanning the dial, slowly tiring of the ubiquitous rancheros on the radio. I come across what must be the local easy listening/smooth jazz station and this jam is playing. Instant relaxation! I know, I know, it's corny, but I too am corny. And this song was just what I needed after a Tuesday at the liquor store. Rock on, Mr. Alpert and your Tijuana Brass, rock on.

From the US - and highly recommended!

A few of you have asked me to suggest a few wines that are not too difficult to find and are good values. Well, I've added the qualifier that they be American, just to prove that this country does make some wine that I will happily drink, despite the european slant of my taste in wine. Here's a handful of wines to seek out. While these are all good for the price, I find it really tough to find good, honest, tasty American values that give you as much bang for the buck as the best of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany even Argentina (and very occasionally, Chile). Hence these are all in the $15-low $20s price range. Enjoy - I don't think I will do this again for a long time.

2007 Elk Cove Pinot Gris
2006 Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir
2005 Au Bon Climat Pinot Gris/Pinot Blanc
2006 Husch Anderson Valley Pinot Noir
2007 Preston Estate Dry Creek Valley Sauvignon Blanc
2006 Edmonds St John Bone Jolly El Dorado County Gamay

Feel free to contribute anything you think I'm leaving out.