Last Week in Wine -- New series!

I often tweet out what wine I’m drinking during the week and highlight various wines from my region as well as from regions around the world, but I don't always have room in a tweet to elaborate on each wine. So I’ve decided to collect them in occasional posts called Last Week in Wine. Catchy title right? I got the idea from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

I doubt I will post this every single week, but this will be an ongoing series, a round-up of the wines I tried and some brief notes on each. Unless noted all wines were purchased with legal tender by me.

Here are the wines from the past week of November 2nd -8th, 2014

Stark Primitivo 2012
I’m not a big Zinfandel drinker, but I loves me some Primitivo. (Incidently both Zin and Primitivo are clones of the Croatian grape Crljenak.) This Stark wine from the Damiano Vineyard in the Sierra Foothills is just the ticket to send you on an Italian reverie (or perhaps a Croatian reverie considering the source) without the need to get on a plane. $38

Gloria Ferrer “Hands on Harvest” Pinot Noir 2010
This wine is not widely available. It was made as part of a Hands on Harvest event I attended in 2010 and the finished wine was sent to the participants. I’ve been holding on to these and this bottle showed some deeper characteristics from aging since the first bottle I tried in 2012. In my original notes I found it to be dry and spicy, but now it is much more lush, fuller, with rich dark fruit flavors and more balanced structure overall. Very nice indeed! (Priceless.)

Colonia Las Liebres Bonarda Argentina 2012 
I first came upon this wine when I was living in Florida and cruising the local Total Wine aisles for some decent wine to take my mind off the fact I was living in Florida. Anyway this wine did the trick. I love Bonarda (aka Charbono in California) and this one is a great value and a true representation of how lovely Bonarda can be-- dark in color, light tannins and good acidity with a hint of mint, dark cherry and concentrated plum flavors. Brambly and delicious. I bought it at Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa for $7.99.

Dingač Vinarija Pelješac  2012

Darker and richer than its sister wine, the Plavc, the Peljesac is has a medium body with a slightly sweeter base note on the palate. This is a bargain at $12.95. Buy a mixed case of this and the Plavac and see which you prefer. I think I’m leaning toward the Plavac, but it depends on what day it is. ;-)

Resources:

Colonia Las Liebres Bonarda Argentina

http://www.colonialasliebres.com/

Blue Danbue Wine Dingač Vinarija -
http://www.bluedanubewine.com/winery/dingac/

Stark Wine
https://starkwine.com/store/item/2012-stark-primitivo

The Waiting is Over--2010 Hands on Harvest Pinot Noir

Two years ago I attended Gloria Ferrer Hands on Harvest ( read about it here Part 1 and Part 2 ) and just a few days before this year’s Thanksgiving I got a wonderful surprise in the mail--

The 2010 Carneros Estate Pinot Noir is made from the grapes our Hands on Harvest group picked from the Seven Bays Block, one of the highest ridges at the Circle Bar Ranch property.

I opened a bottle the minute it arrived even though it was only 3pm, but hey, it’s called research! I’m happy to report the wine is delicious -- balanced and dry with a spicy finish. It’s fun to sip and to contemplate that I had a hand, albeit a very small hand, in the making of it. Most of all I’m very happy I don’t have to harvest all the grapes for the many wines I enjoy all year long. There is nothing like a hands on harvest experience to give one tremendous respect and appreciation for all the real hard work carried out on a daily basis by the professionals who make wine.

2010 Gloria Ferrer Hands on Harvest Team

Timeline:
Grapes were picked and crushed on September 14,1010
Wine placed in Barrels on October 5, 2010
Bottled and hand labeled on August 15th 2012

Details about the wine:
* Dijon 115 was the only clone used in the Hands on Harvest Pinot Noir.
* The grapes were de-stemmed, partially crushed, and cold soaked for three days to extract color and aromas.
* Thirce daily punch downs and pump over regimes were tailored to each lot of fruit.
* Barrel aged for nine months in two medium -plus toast 100% French oak barrels form the Allier forest.
* The Pinot Noir was bottled un-fined.

Production: 276 bottles

Thank you to Mike Crumly, Bob Iantosca, Steve Urberg and to the entire staff at Gloria Ferrer .

Cheers!!

How Did You Get Here? My # 1 Search Term of the Year.

As the year draws to a close it’s only natural to look back and reflect on what went down in 2010. I’ve had this wine blog for almost two years now and this year showed a marked increase in traffic to Come for the Wine. I’d love to think it’s because of my witty outlook and scintillating take on the wine world at large, but it’s much less honorable than that.

After reviewing my blog analytics for the year it has been revealed that the number one search term that brought people to my site this year was: “nuts and wine”. Nuts & Wine!!!

Apparently there are boatload of folks looking for information on nuts and wine and I seem to be the person to give it to them because about 60% of the people who come to my site with that search parameter stick around… for quite a while!

Nuts & Wine. Make of it what you will. I guess it’s not a complete random act that this search term delivers my blog as a result. After all, I did write a few things that do fit the category like: The Danger of Pine Nuts. And oh yeah my post called Pairing Nut's with Wine probably started it all. Or perhaps it was the Lamrusco incident that lead people to think I was nuts?

Go figure. I guess I will just embrace it. After “nuts & wine” the second most popular search term was “type of blogger” or “crazy type of wine blogger” which lead people to my most popular post of the year:

The Five Types of Wine Bloggers: What Kind of Wine Blogger Are You?

This post of course was a joke but you would not believe how many people took it as a serious treatise on the state of wine blogging. {well maybe it is} But Helloooo! Satire while grounded in the truth is still a parody, humor, and mirth! It’s amazing how many people don’t get the joke.

It’s been a good blogging year though and I have been very fortunate to get the opportunity to taste some amazing wine and meet some incredible people this year.

Highlights include events at:

2010 Diageo Chateau Estate Burgundy Tasting { I'm still thinking about the wines I had that day}

Meteor Vineyards

Willamette Valley

Hands on Harvest at Gloria Ferrer

In retrospect I have to say-- “Wine Blogging has been bery bery good to me.”* In fact I’m off to Portugal in the new year mostly because of this blog, so I can’t wait for that and look forward to blogging all about it in February. *{if you are too young to get that joke Google SNL-- Baseball has been bery, bery good to me}

I want to thank everyone who invited me to taste their wine this year and gave me so many great experiences to write about.

Happy 2011! Here’s to you and a new year filled with less nuts and more wine.

Hands on Harvest PART II

As I said in my last Hands on Harvest post, I learned more about the land and vines at Gloria Ferrer's Carneros region estate than I thought possible in two days. My palate was put through some rigorous paces as well with a parade of wine and food pairings.

I am a big fan of Va de Vi the sparkling wine Gloria Ferrer introduced last year, and familiar with all their sparkling wines as well, but I did not know they also made still wines, Pinot Noir in particular. You can find out more about the wines and history of the Ferrer family on their site. But for this post I wanted to focus the aspects of the land in the Carneros area that I found most interesting on the tour.

Walking Tour with Mike Crumly

Sustainability is a big buzzword these days. It’s bandied about for everything from hotels to shampoo. Sometimes is hard to know what exactly it means. During the Hands on Harvest we were led on a walk around the Circle Bar Ranch property by Mike Crumly, VP Vineyard Management, and given some insight into what sustainability can mean for a vineyard.

The Riparian Corridors & Land Conservation

I didn’t know that some species of birds won’t fly over big tracks of open land. They prefer to flit from tree to tree, so it’s important to break up big plots of vines with some trees to give the birds and other animals a path across the land. The riparian corridor at the Circle Bar Ranch was man made. Native trees and shrubs were re-planted in the gulch that cuts across the ranch and reinforced with mesh fabric to control slit build up that protects the watershed downstream and rocks to prevent erosion as from rainfall run-off in the winter months. Preserving the land is sustaining the land. You wouldn’t know from looking at this that is was all recreated.

Bluebird Boxes

The western Bluebird is most threatened when Oak woodlands are reduced by commercial development of land. The use of bluebird boxes gives the birds a nesting place and helps maintain their populations in the vineyards. During the rainy seasons the vineyard crew builds bluebird nests. Like the Keebler Elves making cookies, they build the boxes at the winery workshop and then thru a partnership with WillMar Center for Bereaved Children, the boxes are painted by children struggling though grief. Gloria Ferrer sells the bluebirds boxes in the tasting room and all profits go to the WillMar Center.

When Mike held up the bluebird box and told us the story of how healing an act it was for the children to work on creating a “safe home” for the bluebirds, I thought we were all going to bust out in tears. I think I even saw a tiny tear in Mike’s eye. I tell you, that guy is all heart.

The Midden & the Artifacts

One of the most fascinating features on the property was the Miwok midden. During a land survey prior to the vineyard development, evidence of a Miwok Indian Village was discovered. Artifacts including arrowheads made from obsidian and grinding tools made of stone were located and documented. A archeological survey identified the section of land as a Midden, a place where the hunter-gather tribes discarded their “kitchen’ trash such as mussel and oyster shells and an occasional body too. I guess you could say the midden is like a like a huge garbage disposal, a stone age KitchenAid so to speak, with room for any relatives who happen to kick it around the dinner table. Although the midden is adjacent to the active vineyard, the area is fenced off and left undistributed.

The Geology and the Trenches

When I saw the first trench I thought maybe this event was really an elaborate ruse to lure us into a trap and “harvest” our kidneys and other organs and then bury us in the freshly dug trench. I could barely walk at that point anyway so it seemed like a good idea. But that was not the case. The trench was part of an object lesson on the geology of hillside growing conditions.

I’ve been of tours where the geology is discussed before, but there was something about Mike Crumley's presentation and his ability to break down the information into component parts that suddenly clicked in my mind. To see the difference in the soil depths along the hillside slope was amazing. And then to connect that to the stress placed on the vines as evidenced in the differences in leaf canopy created by the shift in soil depths was startling. I’d never noticed that before, but then again no one had ever pointed in out and explained it so clearly either. Apparently it’s dappled light that makes the best Pinot grapes and thus the canopy on the “struggling” hillside vines is most desirable.

The People

One thing that stood out for me was, given the size of the Gloria Ferrer operation, everyone there seemed very relaxed. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company and had as much fun as their guests. I really felt like they would be great folks to hang out with for a few days. Oh wait, I guess I did that. So if the whole point of Hands on Harvest was to give an in depth view to the land, the wines, and the people of Gloria Ferrer, all I can say is—Mission Accomplished.