huevos con vino

I spent some time tonight with my aunt- and grandmother-in-law.  My aunt-in-law (I’ll just call her my aunt for brevity’s sake) started pulling out some really interesting wines from her very odd collection, which is contained in a number of treasure chest things spread out around the front entryway.  It’s quite a special way of storing wines, I must say.

She pulled out:

• A 1989 Riesling and a 1993 Riesling, both Spatlese-type releases
• A couple of 1988/1989 white Bordeaux wines, which may or may not be any good by now
• The bottle of 2002 Newton unfiltered Chardonnay I gave her a year or two ago
• A bottle of 2003 Yakima River Sof/Lem that I gave her as a gift a year earlier

We decided to share a bottle of 2003 Riesling Kabinett from the Rheingau region; I need to go back and see which one it was.  It was pretty darn good, though:

• Aroma: Caramel at first, then slight citrus and melon with a trace of asphalt/creosote.
• Flavor: Mildly sweet, lightly acidic, a delicate Riesling with great depth of flavor centered around crisp apples and lemon.
• General impression: A really good wine; I need to figure out what it was called!

The Yakima River was definitely a crowd-pleaser, although my aunt was a little tipsy by the time we opened it so it might have been as good as any other wine at that point.  I liked it, although it definitely gets a little cloying after a while.

I look forward to trying a few other wines in the next couple of days; I think we’ve got a wine tasting set up for Thursday.  Hopefully we’ll open up that Newton unfiltered Chardonnay…I’d love to see what that wine is like!

POSTSCRIPT: The name of the wine was Schloss Johannisberger, and it was a 2003 Kabinett release as I said above.  I’d definitely seek out this wine again, though I’d let it age a couple of years before opening a 2005.

Last night all of my in-laws and I went out to La Baguette, which is one of the finest restaurants in Oklahoma City.  Despite its high quality and French theme, you can still eat dinner here for about $8/person if you want to.  The only thing is, on Friday and Saturday nights they don’t have their delicious homemade quiche available, so you’re stuck spending a bit more and eating, say, rotisserie crispy duck with blackberry sauce (as I did last night).  Quel dommage, as they say in Oklahoma City.

The wine list at La Baguette isn’t very long, but it’s usually quite thoughtful.  I was fairly impressed last night although nothing jumped out at me.  I always crack up a bit, though, when a restaurant prices its wines by the glass in terms of ounces.  I have no context for 5 ounces of wine vs. 7 ounces of wine.  And when I ordered 5 ounces of the Justin Cabernet Sauvignon, I had no idea whether they actually brought me 3 ounces.  It looked like 3 ounces to me.  But hey, that’s not a big deal.

I have seen Justin wines around quite a bit.  I haven’t tried any of them yet, although a few interest me greatly.  So this particular Cabernet Sauvignon was my introduction to the world of Justin.  What did I think?

• Aroma: Typical Cab Sauv nose but with some bell peppers lurking in there too, which I have been told is a vegetal element and not what you want to smell in a wine (although the wine wheel makes no such negative distinction, categorizing “bell pepper” under “Herbaceous or Vegetative/Fresh”)
• Flavor: Smooth black fruit, slightly sweet in a blackberry jam way, with very little tannic activity or character of its own.
• General impression: A basic, tasty Cabernet Sauvignon without too many distinguishing elements to it.  Still, a nice wine and worth purchasing if you can get it at a discount.

I guess I liked this wine but I felt it was overpriced at something like $12 for 5 ounces.  But I am in Oklahoma City, which is much farther from Paso Robles than Seattle.

Mostly I just want to go back to the Metro Wine Bar & Bistro and see if they’ve still got that bottle of Titus Cabernet Franc in their cellar.  Now that would be a fun bottle of wine to try!

As I spend time with my in-laws in Oklahoma City this holiday season, I am trying to get out and look at the local wine selection.  It’s better than you might think, in part because there is a lot of oil money in town.  And, as you probably know, wine and money go together so well.

I went to The Cellar Wine & Spirits store yesterday.  I spoke with the wholesale buyer there; he and I chatted about Pinot Noir for 10 minutes.  The guy was very nice and engaging, and he was more than happy to show off the bottles of Goldeneye Pinot Noir he had (only 2 cases in the entire state of Oklahoma, apparently).  They also had magnums of Rudd, Silver Oak, and a bunch of other really interesting wines.  But since I don’t have $250 to blow on a big bottle of wine, I settled for some Abita beers.

Today I went back to the Metro Wine Bar & Bistro, which has been in business in Oklahoma City since 1988.  I went there last year and discovered Odisea, so my hopes were high going in today.  My mother-in-law and I ate lunch at the Metro this time around; apparently, she goes there fairly often for lunch and I was impressed they were open for lunch.  As it turned out, many people eat lunch at the Metro…the place was packed!

Lunch was terrific.  I had a cup of vichyssoie and a half-pound hamburger with Roquefort cheese.  Damn good.  I also had a glass of 2003 York Creek Cabernet Franc, which was quite a nice wine.  Here are the details:

• Aroma: A very interesting and complex display of peppery spice (in a good way), violets, black jammy fruit, and a bit of cedar.  Really nice bouquet.
• Flavor: Delicious blend of everything promised on the nose (gorgeous blackberry and cassis with a bit of floral essence) with nice acidity and tannic structure.  Still young, but very good already.
• General impression: A terrific discovery!  And at about $32-$36/bottle, it’s not necessarily an everyday wine but it’s certainly a wonderfully promising Cabernet Franc (one of my favorite varietals).

York Creek is an interesting winery with a vastly out of date Web site.  It’s a shame; if you’re going to spend the money on a Web site, you need to keep it up to date.  It’s really disheartening to look at the Web site of a winery you’ve just discovered only to find that it’s 2 years out of date.  I want to know about the 2003 Cab Franc, not the 2001…still, it’s fairly nice and I look forward to finding out more about this wine.

So, I am quite impressed with the wines and wine culture here in Oklahoma City.  Apparently there are even some wineries around the state, which I might check out in the coming days.  But I doubt it.  My schedule is already full…but hopefully I can squeeze in another visit to the Metro.  They had a Cabernet Sauvignon that I wanted to try (a Dashe 2003) and their butternut squash soup looked terrific.

Way back in the mists of time, back before Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey were divorced, before Britney and K-Fed were divorced, before Brad and Jen were officially divorced…well, before a lot of celebrities divorced each other, I knew very little about wine. 

Since that time, the summer of 2005, I have learned a lot about wine: How to taste it and appreciate it properly, how to store it, how to approve of a selection at a restaurant, and so on.  The result?  I know very little about wine, but now I have more of it.

One of the first good bottles I purchased for myself was a 2000 Chateau Lascombes.  I bought a bottle at Berry Bros. & Rudd, the venerable London wine merchant, after having a half-bottle the night before at the restaurant next door (L’Oranger).  I thought it would be fun to bring home some really good wine that, while it might be available in the US, would be straight from France without any weird additives or new labels.

Of course, this was back in the time of Jessica and Nick, so clearly I wasn’t thinking straight.  I didn’t consider what it meant to buy a bottle of 2000 Chateau Lascombes and then carry it around in the 90 degree heat of London that summer.  I also didn’t think too long or hard about getting the bottle back across the Atlantic Ocean in the belly of an airplane for 10 hours.  Finally, I didn’t think too much about how freaking heavy a bottle of wine can get when you’re carrying it in a messenger bag…with two other bottles of alcohol.

So, the simple truth is this bottle of wine might be corked.  There’s only one way to find out, though: Open the damn thing!

After opening and decanting, this wine has a nice aroma but a terrible taste…too tannic and acidic.  I think it’s off.

After tasting a bit here and there over 2 hours, it still tastes off.

After sitting down to eat some roast chicken, stuffing, potatoes, etc., the wine still tastes off.

The verdict?  Corked.

It’s a shame, but my friend just bought a few bottles himself so someday I’ll probably get to try this one again…something to look forward to, I suppose!

One of my favorite wineries, Hestan, has apparently asked for an increase in the size of the San Francisco Bay Area AVA, according to this article at Wines & Vines.

I first tried Hestan’s inaugural release (2002) of Cabernet Sauvignon in May 2005 at Morton’s in Chicago.  It was really darn good, particularly for a 3-year-old Cabernet; we had a Pinot Noir that night too but it was pretty dull compared to the Hestan.  On the strength of that one bottle, I bought 3 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon bottles direct from the winery early in 2006. 

The 2003 gets good reviews but I suspect the 2002 is better by a small margin.  Then again, the only way to be sure is to taste them both in one evening.  Unfortunately, the 2002 Hestan is becoming somewhat valuable; prices range from about $65 to about $110 for this wine, while the 2003 starts at $80/bottle and is still available from the winery at that price.  Finally, in case you’re wondering, a magnum of the 2002 will set you back $379.99 plus shipping.  Ouch.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting to see Hestan’s name pop up in an article as I have never seen a whole lot of press on this winery.  And if anyone wants to get me a magnum of wine for Christmas, might I suggest the 2002 Hestan?  It’s really good and I’d even share it with you….