huevos con vino

I really like Cabernet Franc.  It’s not a grape that gets vinified into 100% varietal bottlings very often.  Certainly one of the few Australian wineries that even bothers with this grape is Paracombe.

I have talked about Paracombe extensively in this blog.  I really like their range of wines and their interest in offering multiple levels of Shiraz.  They also just added Pinot Gris to their list of wines too, which is an interesting choice.  Clearly they’ve got a terrific climate and some perfect plots of land because they grow everything from Riesling to Cabernet Sauvignon to Sauvignon Blanc to Viognier.  Nice!

The thing that’s killing me at the moment is Paracombe has on offer a degustation dinner event in October.  It would cost thousands of dollars just to fly to Australia, let alone stay there for any length of time, so it sucks to be stuck in Seattle while lucky punters are treated to a six-course meal with “current and library” Paracombe wines amongst the barrels in their cellar.

Damn.

Anyway, on to the wine.  I noticed that Central Market is still stocking the 2000 Cabernet Franc, so I decided to crack open and decant the bottle I’ve got at home.  Here are my thoughts on this wine:

• Aroma: Strong black cherry, black plum, faint violet and tobacco, and damp earth are the predominant aromas.  Perhaps a hint of blackberry too.  A very luscious scent overall.  I am fascinated by the musty earthiness aroma that seems to waft here and there as I drink.
• Flavor: Surprisingly dry and supple, with potent red currant and black cherry and some slight peppery spice at first.  Settles into a firmly tannic yet quite drinkable wine.  This one almost demands some food, though, which is a shame since I ate dinner a couple of hours ago.
• General impression: Very deep purple color and thickly scented nose betray the depth of this wine.  The lack of filtration and fining is apparent in the appearance.  Quite a nice wine!

The 2004 Cabernet Franc is the latest release; in the US, we run about 1 year behind the Australians in terms of getting our grubby hands on Paracombe wines.  The 2004 release received a 91-point rating from critic James Halliday, which is good to see.  He described that wine as follows (original citation available here):

“Strong colour, powerful leaf/tobacco leaf/black fruit aromas, the palate follows on with spices and black fruit.  A serious wine.”

I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Halliday!  After a few years in the bottle, the 2000 release features a little more refinement and red fruit, perhaps, than the quite young 2004.  It’s a good time to drink this particular release and maybe play a little Battlefield 2, which I’m sure every wine connoisseur does on a Saturday night.

One last note: At the Paracombe Web site, they have a recipe associated with their Cabernet Franc.  The recipe is for Possum Curry.  That’s “possum” as in “opossum,” which is the sort of edible delicacy I associate not with fine wine, but with buckshot.  I’d have some trouble obtaining 1 kilogram of possum meat in Seattle…well, actually, it would be easy to obtain fresh possum meat in the wild.  The trouble would occur when it came time for me to skin it, clean it, cook it, and then eat it without passing out.  Yikes.

I called up LA Wine Co. today and made my next wine purchase, which will bring my September total to…uhh…a lot of wine purchased.  But I had my honeymoon this month.  That should mitigate the total a little, right?

So what did I buy, exactly?  Here’s a quick rundown:

• 4 more bottles of 2004 Ramian Page One Grenache.  This wine is outstanding for $15 and it will make the perfect Christmas present for some of my in-laws.
• 1 bottle of 2003 Ramian La Morra.  A Barolo-style blend of Dolcetto and Nebbiolo.  Only 125 cases.  It’s worth a try at $30; I’m sure my aspiring gourmand friends will like this wine with the sort of food they make.
• 1 bottle of 2004 Hirsch Pinot Noir.  My recent favorite!  This one is a birthday present, though, for someone who will certainly appreciate the robustness and smooth mouthfeel of a great Pinot Noir.

Everything should reach me at the end of this coming week, assuming the shipping system doesn’t do something weird to me again.  Remember how I hated Ikea?  I hate UPS much, much more.

On a separate note, I should soon receive my 6 bottles of 2004 Radio-Coteau La Neblina Pinot Noir, 3 bottles of 2003 Domaine Drouhin Laurène Pinot Noir, and 3 bottles of 2005 Domaine Drouhin Arthur Chardonnay.  I am very excited to get all of this wine, although it does raise the safe storage question yet again.  Ahh well, I should be able to drink most of this wine soon.

One last thing: The gentleman at LA Wine Co. told me that they’re about to get some “interesting” new Pinot Noirs in stock next week.  He mentioned Domaine Alfred’s Morrito release, which costs MORE than the Califa release that recently garnered such a high Wine Spectator score.  Even their Estate Pinot release scored a 93 this year.  I’m beginning to think that 2004 was either an almost unseasonably great year for Pinot in California, or else their vines are generally maturing and producing better and better fruit each year.  I’d like to believe the latter.

Actually, that’s one thing I read about in the Haeger book on Pinot Noir: Young vines can produce good grapes, but you definitely want at least several years of maturity to produce really great grapes.  I noticed that about 68,000 wineries in California seemed to start producing wine in 2002.  The 2004 vintage was great all over the state.  Let’s hope global warming doesn’t push everything too far before those vines can produce some excellent grapes.

We went back to Smash Wine Bar in Wallingford recently.  It had been a month or two since I first tried out this new wine bar in the Seattle area.  The first time, I was fairly critical of the place but I did like it overall. 

This time, I noticed all of the same issues that I pondered before, but I wasn’t quite as bothered by them.  I realized that offering lots of cheaper wine pours, not showing you the bottle before you pour, and offering really delicious desserts and cheeses makes the entire affair…well…less like a wine bar and more like a place where I want to hang out.

2001 Chateau Patache d’Aux Medoc:

• Aroma: Thin red fruit with a bit of smoke and roasted meat.
• Flavor: Very acidic raspberry and cranberry flavors; extremely tart for a red.
• General impression: Very dry and blah wine.
• Note: Someone agrees with me about this wine.

2004 Serra Da Estrela Albarino (a very young winery, apparently):

• Aroma: Lovely floral, citrus, and melon notes.
• Flavor: Very lively, lots of rich fruit flavor with a bit of honeysuckle and rose plus grapefruit.
• General impression: Delicious white wine!

Overall, everything was a lot more fun this time.  I look forward to going back!

We went over to our friends’ apartment tonight for a wonderful dinner, all of which was homemade:

• Artisan cheeses, including blue, manchego, and cheddar; toasted baguette slices; roasted almonds; green olives
• Toasted baguette slices with sauteed mushrooms
• Fresh gazpacho
• Braised, slow-cooked lamb shoulder in a chile sauce with masa harina buttermilk dumplings
• Nectarine galette with fresh whipped cream
• Mixed berries with shortcake

As you can see, it was quite a feast.  I knew ahead of time that things were going to be toward the gourmet end of the spectrum, so I decided to bring a bottle of 2002 Domaine Drouhin Laurène. 

After decanting for about 2 hours, the wine turned out to be fabulous as you would expect.  Here’s the lowdown:

• Aroma: Deeply floral and berry fruity bouquet; lovely as it opened up.
• Flavor: Thick yet smooth tannic activity with lovely black and sour red cherries on the tongue; soft mid-palate with a slight spicy earthiness to it; fairly long finish with great acidic balance.
• General impression: As always, a terrific, earthy and subtly spicy, complex, Burgundian-style Pinot Noir.   It really did take 2 hours in the decanter to bring all the elements together, though.

So yes, the Laurène was a great match for the lamb dish.  My wife had halibut and mashed sweet potatoes, so her dish was also good with the wine but quite different (and much milder with regard to spice and seasoning) than the lamb.

Every once in a while, I get this feeling while I’m eating.  It’s unrelated to the company, or the atmosphere, or the location.  It’s just this feeling that washes over me as I’m eating really terrific food.  If I had to describe the feeling, it’s sort of a slightly euphoric feeling that always makes me grateful for such wonderful food.  It’s a rare feeling and it can happen at odd times in odd places.  I guess it’s the way I feel when the food I’m eating is precisely what I had hoped to eat at that specific moment in time.  Maybe.

Anyway, I got that feeling tonight as I took a bite of lamb with dumpling.  Damn.  I look forward to many more such incredible dinners!  I’ve got enough wine to go around for a while….

While the wife and I were on honeymoon in California, we bought a bottle of 2004 Ramian Page One Grenache.   I almost gave it away because I didn’t have space in my luggage, but then we bought another cheap duffel bag for the complimentary robes (no, they weren’t stolen from the hotel), so I had room.

I’m glad I did.  I decanted this wine into my new Riedel Vinum Magnum decanter.  Booya!

• Aroma: Blackberry and cassis with subtler essences of rose, violet, earth, and a certain dusty texture.  Very nice, rich, and complex.
• Flavor: Thick tannic structure, somewhat rosy on the tongue, with plenty of ripe cherry and strawberry flavor and accompanying sweetness on the palate; fairly long finish, particularly for a $15 Grenache (as opposed to a $50+ wine).
• General impression: What a surprise!  This wine is terrific; Patrick at LA Wine Co. is a stand-up guy for recommending this cheaper wine with all the other more expensive stuff he has in the store.  It’s a delicious Grenache, but it’s also just a generally nice wine.  It would be good during the autumn with a relatively hearty meal as opposed to summer fare and weather.

I’d love to buy more Ramian wine.  Their wine club is a very interesting concept: limit the subscriptions to 100 people who get lots of cool stuff, including personalized silk shirts and whatnot.  Now that’s a smart marketing idea! 

LA Wine Co. also had some of the other Ramian releases, including a bottle of their Barolo blend, “La Morro.”  I should have bought that bottle too, but lately I have developed a new wine-related mantra for life:

There is always another bottle to buy.

I have to say this to myself about 18 times a day.  Otherwise, I spend way too much on wine.  Then again, it’s tempting to buy more 2004 Hirsch Pinot Noir…that wine was incredible!

But hey, there is always another bottle to buy.  Plus, we need a sideboard for all of these wine glasses.

POSTSCRIPT: I double-decanted the Ramian right after I opened it.  Now, about 14 hours later and after a night in the fridge in the original bottle, it still tastes wonderful.  I think double-decanting might be the way to go with some of these more robust, less delicately floral wines (like Pinot Noir).