Here’s how it went, today at 5:50: “Hm, I guess while the kiddo is watching a special treat TV show before dinner, I’ll surf around wine blogs for a sec.

Wait, is it Wednesday?

Wait, isn’t there a WBW coming up?

Wait, is today the effing 16th?

GD it, I was going to drink that crisp white in the fridge tonight.

Hell.

Do I even have any Rhone varietals in the closet?

Cotes du Rhone, Morgon, Bourguiel… Oh!  I forgot about this little Garnacha.

Campo de Borja, cool.  $7.50, easy to open for no other reason than blogging.

Plus, that’s all I’ve got that works.

OK, let’s crack it open, snap a photo and get to writing.”

So I poured out a glass and got started 10 minutes before dinnertime.

This is a pretty little wine; purple in the glass, with ruby-red tints, it smells of raspberries and mint. Tart on the palate, with pepper and flavors of unripe blackberry now, as well as a hint of… tar?  Then the tannins come and chase everyone out of the room; the finish is pretty long, with cane berry flavors re-emergent and lingering.  A decent level of complexity for this wine I spent $7.50 on at Austin Wine Merchant, though more of a quaffing wine and less of a food wine, to my mind at least.

I am confident of the latter statement because I happened to make barbecued chicken thighs, anasazi beans and baked sweet potato fries tonight for dinner, which was, I thought, fortuitous.  I like Rhone varieties with barbecue flavors – Syrah especially, of course – but Spanish Garnacha can be so heavily extracted that they can sometimes pull off that sweet fruit/charred notes match.

With the Santo Cristo, though, the barbecue sauce on the chicken really brought out the tarry notes in the wine.  Maybe if there were more acidity in the wine to offset the tomato… but the creamy sweet potatoes and beans didn’t match very well either.  If I knew then what I know now about this wine, I’d put it with a fattier meal, like a grilled sirloin, or maybe just not tricky-dick barbecue sauce.

Garnacha is my ticket in to Wine Cast’s Wine Blogging Wednesday #71 because it is the Spanish version of Grenache, that staple grape of the Southern Rhone.  Grenache/Garnacha is a high-producing vine that is known for its spice, ample berry fruit and high sugars (which translate to high alcohol).  When the Spanish vinify their really old, old vines, however, the resulting Garnacha wine bears only superficial resemblance the French Grenache.

OK, so this is probably my worst WBW post ever.  I did not plan, so I have not had time (had people over this evening after I got the kid to sleep, and it’s late – for me at least – now) to really research the producer or write a cogent breakdown of the region or the grape. I really like the Campo de Borja region for wines that drink way above their price tag, just so you know.  And I am in favor of Rhone varieties wheresoever they are planted.

Drink Garnacha.

Scamp out.

So I’m very glad that this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday theme was chosen by Joel at Wine Life Today to be “comfort wine,” because I could really use some right now. Tearing up my kitchen is starting to have a rather profound effect on my psyche; something about chaos affecting the hearth makes my house feel less like a home and more like a take-out dumpster.

But from this destruction will arise a phoenix of a kitchen: a kitchen with more than 36 inches of counter space, with more than 5 cabinets and enough room for all of my appliances! (For the record, “all” equals 7, including the toaster, coffeemaker and blender. OK, I meant for that to seem like Not A Lot, but instead it seems like A Lot. How many appliances do you have?)

And I have my comfort wine to keep me warm in the meantime. It’s not fancy by any means, and I mean that: La Vieille Ferme Rouge is a mere Cotes du Ventoux, a blend of Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Carignan. It’s a friendly little table wine from the Perrin family, the makers of the iconic Beaucastel Chateauneuf-de-Pape, and I discovered it when I was in the wine business. As you can see from the label, it’s not much of an eye-catcher on the shelf, and thus it’s a well-kept secret. I’ve been drinking it for years; some vintages it’s a little lighter and sillier, some vintages it’s more intense and rich.

Dark, deep red in the glass. Nose of grape must and raspberry juice, as well as dusty earth and a hint of white pepper. Pretty structured this vintage, with brusque tannins, dark earth, cranberry and blackberry on the palate. Really, this wine would go better with barbecue or kielbasa than the turkey and dressing I frequently pair it with (it’s been a go-to Thanksgiving wine for many years now). Also, it’s less of a quaffing wine this vintage; however, it sells for about $6.99, tastes damn delicious, and really takes the edge off of a slight mis-calculation in kitchen dimensions and the subsequent gnashing of teeth.

Thanks to Lenn at Lenndevours for inventing Wine Blogging Wednesday, the wine blogosphere’s most enduring meme, and to Joel at Wine Life Today, for reminding us that wine can soothe just as much as it can excite.

And for the record, Joe also wrote a lovely haiku for WBW #42.  And then he was told (in haiku format) that he had missed an important aspect of haiku writing, as I did apparently, by missing the reference to a season.  I think perhaps in the writing of winehaiku, perhaps a wine descriptor word (oak, fruit, tar) should replace the kigo?

If there is someone out there writing wine reviews in sestinas, I demand that they step forward immediately.

I know that the idea behind the Wine Blogging Wednesday #42 seven word limit was meant in a whimsical way, but it got me to thinking about the words we use to talk about wine. Of course, this has been a subject on my mind lately, as evidenced by the poll I’ve been running for a week or so about whether or not winespeak makes it difficult to learn about wine.

The results to the polls indicate that while occasional words are confusing (technical words like carbonic maceration and battonage, I’m guessing), on the whole people get what we wineaux mean when we babble on about aromas and flavors. Or at least, 8 of the 13 voters said so.

I can’t blame them; some of the more technical words having to do with wine are not things that you’d natrually just pick up on the side of the etymological road.  And you won’t get a chance to use them very often, unless you have lots of wine geek friends or you work in the business.

So that’s been kicking around in my head, along with all the other maundering thoughts of recession, elections, new jobs and the old What I Should Be Doing Right Now.  And then Andrew Barrow of the British wine blog Spittoon (love that tag line) proposed that we review a wine in only seven words, I thought “Boy, that’s going to be tough.”   My reviews tend to run about 200-500 words, and the tasting notes alone run 30-80, depending on the wine.  How to truly sum up a wine for my readers in a mere seven?

Poetry to the rescue!  Mr. Rogers got me writing poetry since before I could write (I dictated to my mother); I don’t write many poems these day, but if you want to communicate a lot of sensation in few words, a poem is your magic bullet.  So I figured I’d take those shockingly few seven words and make them a haiku.  It was tough, but I was happy with the results.

So now I’m thinking… why not other poetic forms? Why not a sonnet about a wine you love dearly? A villanelle about a wine you drink often? Drinking a wine that’s so complex it seems almost impossible, try a sestina! For a rustic vin de table, a limerick?   If poetry communicates the ineffable, then it seems made for wine, as anyone talking about wine is describing a completely subjective, sensual experience.  Poetry and wine!  Game, set, match.

Smoldering pomegranate
undulates; cherries,
corseted, explode briskly.

Thanks to Spittoon for an interesting WBW review challenge!

So I might fiddle around with some ideas for the Wine Blogging Wednesday Logo Contest, but I harbor no illusions that I might actually win. I will definitely take to heart the excellent recommendations from Tom Wark as I fiddle. But you — are you good with the graphics? Worldwide fame certainly awaits you if you can create the new WBW logo. Your deadline is March 31, so you’d best get to cogitating!

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First, I decided that my unreasoning, stubborn resistance to Pinot Grigio, even when I knew it would be well made and really interesting to drink, is unnecessary and stupid. Great wine is great wine, no matter how many people make plonk from the same grape all over the place. Second, I saw this adorable bottle with its cute little twig wrapped up in ribbon and a strong recommendation from the wine buyer at Specs. Cute, almost definitely good, and cheap? Italo Cescon Pinot Grigio Friuli Grave DOC 2006 here we come!

The twig, by the way, called a tralcetto in Italian, is attached to the bottle as a tribute to patriarch Italo’s grandmother Anna, who had a practice of keeping a bit of dead grapevine in her pocket after harvest as a remembrance of the vine’s rebirth in the spring. Or at least, that’s what the back label said.

Anyway, here goes tasting wine with one nostril tied behind my back: Straw-gold in color. Mineral and floral aromas abound, with a brisk lime zest undertone. Also getting an unripe pear or green apple aroma? Orange peel?

Great texture on the palate: rich and mouth-filling, but with a snappy slash of acidity and mineral character. Tart Granny Smith apple, slate, a touch of steel and lightly spiced white peach flavors. Fucking wish I had all my olfactory powers with this wine! Really very sophisticated and full of flair. Racy like anime! Great wine for only $11.59! OK!

This wine really wants shellfish to play with, but I had neither the werewithall nor the fundage to cook myself up some tasty scrimps, this being a lean month at the Castello di Scamp. Thus, I tried our fancy-tasting but reasonably priced wine with two sets of leftovers I had in the fridge; the first, avgolemono soup with spinach and wild rice. The soup really brought out the tart citrus in the wine, and did not complement the floral character or the minerality at all. The mineral, in fact, got quite strident when following the soup.

Second, pork chops baked with mushrom gravy, buttered egg noodles and German-style red cabbage. (The lovely organic red cabbage was in my CSA share from Johnson’s Backyard Garden. They rock my world! OK!) The Pinot Grigio got all clattery, all elbows and knees, with the creamy mushroom gravy (no soup cans here, thanks). OK, so if we didn’t know it already, no creamy ingredients with our PG. What I liked very much was how the wine brought all its spice to market when accompanied by the red cabbage, which has a dash of clove in it. The sweet/sour/spicy nature of the cabbage was an excellent playmate for this wine; I can almost see trying sauerkraut with it. There’s that German influence!

The region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia borders Slovenia and Austria, and proximity has influenced its white wine style. In the last 40 or so years, modernization of winemaking tachniques came into vogue, bringing in its wake cold fermentation, a minimizing of oxygen contact (which can damage the freshness of aroma and flavors), and stainless steel tanks. Italo Cescon’s winery, founded in 1957 and still run by the Cescon family, is a very model of this modern way of winemaking. Their Pinot Grigio Tralcetto (which is a Friuli Grave DOC) is made with all the hallmark modern techniques to make bright, refreshing young wines.

Thanks to Jack and Joanne of Fork and Bottle for a great idea for Wine Blogging Wednesday, and thanks to Lenn at Lenndevours for thinking up this crazy world-wide tasting in the first place! Drink more Friuli! OK!

I found this Peirano Estate Vineyards “Heritage Collection” Petite Sirah 2005 at Grapevine Market, where it was one of a 6 bottle discounted case I bought, so I got it for $12.59. Tasted with carnitas on brown rice with sides of acorn squash mashed with gorgonzola and cornbread baked in a poblano cup.

Inky maroon in color. On the nose, mint is very strong, but not as strong as the waves of blueberry jam pouring off of it. There’s some coffee there at the end too, but really this is all about the minty blueberry madness. The palate presents juicy, sweet blackberry fruit, roundly passive tannins and a dark chocolate finish of medium length. This is a fairly rich wine, not flabby but certainly chubby. But hell, I’m not one to be snotty about a wine that carries a few extra pounds; I liked this one.

With the carnitas, which I thought would be a nice pairing if the wine was pretty tannic, this Petite Sirah was so-so. I screwed myself by squeezing some fresh lime over the meat, and frankly the wine didn’t have the acid to handle it. The gorgonzola-mashed squash was a nice pairing, as there was relatively little cheese and the sweetness of the squash synergized (to repurpose a BS business word) with the ripeness on the wine. The cornbread was from a mix, so it was sweeter too, and it plus the muted fire of the poblano also really went well with the wine. It stood up to the chile better than it stood up to the lime, that’s for sure.

Peirano Estate is an interesting mix of old and young: their estate of 300 acres of Lodi vines has been in the family since 1895, but Lance Randolph (his mother was a Peirano prior to marriage) only started bottling wine in 1992. The family’s Zinfandel vines are over 100 years old. I can’t tell how long ago they planted their Petite Sirah, but it is estate grown. Their website has a strong 90s-era feel, with little backstory about Lance, who is both owner and winemaker. For this wine, he uses a rotary fermentation, to maximize extraction. I didn’t know you needed help extracting PS, but there you go. That plus twelve months of French oak, and Bob’s your uncle. Oh, and the grapes are harvested by hand, which arguably makes for much better wine: less beating up of the grapes before it gets to the press, and all that. Peirano is pretty well known for their blend “The Other,” usually a combo of Syrah, Petite Sirah, and Cab. Reviewed here and on Wine Library TV, in a very early episode.

As you may remember from my treatise on Petite Sirah when I reviewed the Rosenblum, the grape tends to be less fruity and more tannic, overall. Also called Durif, Petite Sirah is “petite” in its berry size: the grapes are small and the skins are thick, resulting in a higher skin-to-juice ratio than you get on other wines, and thus more tannin and color. I mentioned in that post that hotter climates do well with PS, and Lodi certainly fits the bill. This is a real crowd-pleasing, reasonably priced Petite Sirah, one with which to introduce friends painlessly to the variety.

Wine Blogging Wednesday #40 is being hosted by Sonadora of Wannabe Wino, and she’s chosen the theme of Petite Sirah or Durif.  Can’t go wrong with that grape in my book!  I’ll look for something I haven’t tried yet, maybe see if I can find a French or Australian Durif to taste against a California PS? 

Thanks to Lenn at Lennedevours for inventing Wine Blogging Wednesday, a chance for the wine blogging community to come together in spirit, if not corporeally, once a month!  Just so you know, you don’t need a wine blog to participate!  Mark your calendar, taste a wine, and write a review to email to Sonadora this December 12!  Join in — everybody’s doing it.

Hey, that was MY wine! Why he gotta be like that?

Well, Brooklynguy is right — this wine is sick. Sick, we say in thronging chorus! And all for about $24 per bottle, in Texas at least.

Pale straw gold in color. Lush, vibrant aromas of quince, lemon, cream and a brisk steeliness. On the palate, there are hard corners of minerality, with intense flint character, as well as pear, smoke, lemon and golden delicious apples. Usually a wine inspires me to either sniff or sip repeatedly; this wine demanded both, exhaustively. The finish just didn’t stop; this is exactly what I want from a white Burgundy, but more so. Run, don’t walk, to buy it. I got mine at Vino 100 Lakeway.

The Cheveau family farms a little over 30 acres in Pouilly. Grandfather Andre founded the domaine in the 50s, and now son Michel and grandson Nicolas run things. They hand-pick their grapes and farm without fertilizers, according to their importer the Mad Rose Group.

The appellation here is Macon Solutre-Pouilly, which is a sub-region of Pouilly-Fuisse (pronounced poo-YEE fwee-SAY), which is located in the Maconnais (pronounced mack-on-AY). The Maconnais is known for passable, affordable Chardonnays, sometimes blended with Pinot Blanc. Wines from the Maconnais and the Cote Chalonnaise are a great way to get your Burgundy on without breaking the bank. Trust me; I’m cheap and I know these things.

Pouilly-Fuisse has a cachet that has lasted since the 70s, though I’m not sure how it earned its love… it’s like all of America learned how to pronounce one French wine name and then had to drink it for at least ten years. Well, lucky them! Finally, a trend from the 70s that we can proudly carry on.

But wait, there’s more!

I couldn’t stand to be scooped, so I headed out to Specs Monday night and talked to Smokey, my favorite wine salesguy. He is a bit of a Burgundy-head, as it turns out, and he turned me on to an interesting little wine: this Chateau de la Greffiere Macon La Roche Vineuse Vielles Vignes 2006. It was the last one on the shelf, and I couldn’t resist buying it.

Then I rather impulsively stopped by the grocery store and picked up some comestibles I thought might match up with this new fancy wine of mine. I thought, OK, Maconnais: we’re talking maybe creaminess, hazelnuts, maybe lemon, some mineral. The menu I came up with was: a starter of brie on baguette rounds with crushed hazelnuts and (homemade!) fig preserves. Main course was lemon-pepper-cornmeal breaded catfish, mixed wild and basmati rice, and acorn squash mashed with nutmeg and Gorgonzola. For dessert, ripe pear and some more brie. Unfortunately, I forgot that the camera was in the back of my husband’s car, so I got no pictures of my tasty dinner, but that’s life.

OK, so the wine: Clear hay yellow in color. Lemon and minerality on the nose, with a slight buttery cast when cold. Upon warming, the nose showed white flowers and yet was steelier, with some interesting hints of tart green apple and effusive, blathering pear. Nice texture: very oily with a powerful mineral bite on the tongue and at the back of the throat that lingered for a long time. I love how minerality can be super-spicy like this; and the contrast between the slick mouthfeel and the razor-like minerals was really entertaining.

My pairings were more slightly problematic as I didn’t expect such strong minerality on the wine. The an appetizer of brie/hazelnuts/fig did not pair super-well; the nuttiness did not jive. The wine was really quite nice, though, with the catfish I baked. The lemoniness is what it needed, I guess, and the pepper really brightened up the flavor of the wine. The Gorgonzola-mashed squash was a mighty tasty pairing, too. I love mashing blue cheese with baked squash; you don’t even need to butter, and the bitterness of the cheese is drowned out by the sweetness of the squash. The pear was fantastic with the wine, with a little brie to sass it up. The best thing is, I can eat some tasty leftovers all week for lunch!

There are so many people who still stick to that tired, limp “Anything But Chardonnay” drinking policy, and I feel sorry for them. If they only knew what rich, racy, spicy, elegant, powerful, reasonably priced wines made from Chardonnay that they could be drinking right now!

If there were ever a white made for winter, that season when we all hibernate back into our glasses of Red and More Red, it’s white Burgundy: the wealth it brings to the glass is definitively Yule. Use it to complement your turkey this year, or take it to all those obligatory parties you’ll be attending next month! Nothing warms the cold prospect of another year winding down like a bright glass of “silver Burgundy:” wines from the Maconnais and Cote Chalonnaise.

Kudos, Brooklynguy for a great Wine Blogging Wednesday theme!