huevos con vino

It’s been a while since I purchased one each of the Le Cadeau Pinot Noir releases from the 2004 vintage. Here’s a quick refresher for you:

• Rocheux - Harry Peterson-Nedry and Mike Eyres made this wine for Le Cadeau; you can read my review here.
• Diversité - Cheryl Francis and Sam Tannahill made this release; you can my review of this wine here.
• Cote Est - Produced using fruit from a cooler part of the vineyard, this wine had been sitting in my wine fridge since January 2007; Josh Bergstrom had the honor of making this wine.

I also drank the 2003 Le Cadeau release a while back, which was the second vintage from this winery. All of these wines have been superlative, and so far I think the Rocheux is my favorite of the Le Cadeau wines I have tried.

The 2004 Cote Est is over 14% alcohol, but under 15%, so it’s in a good range in my opinion. The 2005 vintage added some Dijon 114 and 115 berries into the mix, so I will be curious to taste the 2005 and compare it to this 2004. I brought my 2004 Cote Est to Ray’s Boathouse in Seattle, the restaurant that is quickly becoming my preferred destination for a good Pinot Noir. I had the wood-fired sturgeon, which was insanely good with this wine.

So, what did I think of the Cote Est? Here are my notes; we did not decant this wine, but rather tasted some first, saw that it was ready to drink, and left the bottle open as we consumed the wine over 90 minutes.

• Aroma: Ripe and rich at first, with a pleasing barnyard note; opened up into a deeply rewarding cherry blossom, plum, and chocolate bouquet.
• Flavor: Complex notes of black cherry, black plum, black currant, coffee, baking spice, black pepper, and secondary notes of raspberry and dark chocolate. Extremely sensual flavor profile, very smooth with integrated tannins and acid. Very complex and deep wine.
• General impression: Delicious wine, comparable to many of the best 2004 Pinot Noirs from Oregon; well worth seeking out!

As these notes suggest, the Cote Est is probably my favorite of the three 2004 Le Cadeau Pinot Noir offerings. I like the other wines quite a lot as well, of course, but there is something more rich and complex (to my palate, anyway) and even more appealing about the Cote Est. My wife really enjoyed this wine too, saying that it complemented her king salmon nicely and that it was best at the end of the evening after 90 minutes of exposure to air.

So, another great release from the Mortimers at Le Cadeau. I look forward to the 2005, which I still need to buy!

Portugese table wines!  Nice.  I’m looking forward to another new varietal.  The host this time is Catavino.

I like this month’s WBW challenge, if I may call it that, because there are a few nuances worth noting:

• No Port
• No Madeira
• Try to taste something outside of Duoro
• Try to taste something other than Vinho Verde

Bonus points, such as they are, will be awarded if I manage to compare wines from multiple regions while tasting Portugese food.  My wife probably cannot eat Portugese food, but I’m happy to make her some grilled chicken while I indulge in a little stewed chicken instead.

Now, I could go back to The Spanish Table to find a Portugese wine.  They have a selection there that I will probably end up poring over, no pun intended.  But luckily, I noticed that one of my favorite Internet wine merchants, Wine eXchange, has Portugese wines galore.  Problem is, most of those wines are actually port, so I may need to keep looking.  Wine Library has a good deal on some interesting Portugese red wines (”tinto”), but they’re from the Douro and I want something even more exotic than that.

So!  I must keep looking…that’s half the fun, right?

I wanted to look long and hard for an interesting wine made from a lesser-known varietal. A wine made from only one type of grape that, ideally, is hard to pronounce and comes from deep in the hills of Spain, or Greece, or maybe even Vermont. But then I scratched Vermont off my list because their wines seem to come from apples rather than grapes. So instead, I focused on Spain and went in search of a wine that was new to me and true to the spirit of Wine Blogging Wednesday #37: Go Native!

So I went native. Like, totally. Super native. Way out there. And I managed to pick a wine that, hopefully, nobody else chose too.

After consulting with Catherine at The Spanish Table, I picked a bottle of the 2005 Bodegas Viña Godeval Godello, made from 100% Godello grapes. You might wonder, “Godello?” Yes, Godello, pronounced “go-day-oh.” The Godello grape is a native of Galicia, the region of Spain where you find D.O. Rías Baixas, an appellation that is famous for its white wines. They speak Galego in Galicia and they drink Godello…confused? I was at first too. But then I found this decent overview of Galicia, including the wines of Galicia. It’s worth a read until you get to the part where they talk about “elaborating” white wines. And then I got confused again. Keep reading, it gets better.

The Romans enjoyed a good Godello wine, apparently; this green grape produces fragrant white wines that Catherine at TST described in terms of fir tree needles and honey. I like those two things well enough that I was sold on the Godello. Plus, it’s another check on my path to the Wine Century club! Sweet.

This particular Godello release comes from a winery built inside an historic monastery: San Miguel de Xagoaza. I love that name, it’s so evocative compared to, say, St. Francis. Nothing against St. Francis, of course. Bodegas Viña Godeval rebuilt this monastery, which sits in the Denominación de Origen (D.O.) of Valdeorras, a name that translates into “Valley of Gold” according to Wikipedia. Godello has been back in this area, grafted onto US rootstock this time, since the 1970s.

The Bodegas Viña Godeval Web site is fascinating. It’s worth reading each of the sections to see just how carefully they built this winery back up from the original monastery, apparently staying true to the original structures and retaining the original stones whenever possible. With 15-year-old Godello vines, this winery has over 40 acres of “filoxerico”-free vines now. Other winery products include a fascinating Anejo liqueur made from Godello grapes.

To the wine. Here are my thoughts on the 2005 Bodegas Viña Godeval Godello:

• Aroma: Woodsy and nutty, but also peachy and floral; a bit like a Viognier, but without as much perfume.
• Flavor: A little spicy, very woody on the palate with an almost pine tree flavor in the aftertaste, sort of like mild retsina.  Dry, somewhat acidic, not a whole lot going on here.
• General impression: Hmm…that’s one woody wine!

Overall, it’s…woody.  That’s about the best way I can put it.  But, on the upside, now I know what to drink when I want something with a lot of pine tree essence in it!

I really like Riesling.

As a kid growing up in Washington State with a German mother, I got to try Riesling once in a while, but I never cared for it too much.  It seemed too dry at the time, but that’s probably because I was too busy eating Tootsie Roll lollipops to consider any wine “sweet.”  So I didn’t give Riesling too much thought until a year or two ago.  And then I had a 1998 Riesling Spatlese in Helsinki that blew my mind. It was more like an Auslese, and it tasted insanely good with King flounder. That reminds me, I need to get back to that hotel again someday.

Anyway, I like Riesling now, so I am trying to learn a bit more about the varietal and its historic locations in Germany.  The place to start may well be the Mosel region, formerly known as the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer region because of the Moselle River and its tributaries, the Saar and Ruwer. This region, as of August 1 2007, Auslese Riesling at European Vine Selections (EVS) recently. They had these smaller bottles on sale for $24, marked down from $40. Nice!  I wanted to give this sweet wine a try, and a half-bottle is a great way to do so.  Plus, at 40% off, why not?  I also knew that the 1998 vintage was great, but I didn’t know about the 1999 vintage when I was at EVS.  Later on, I found this vintage report, which attests to the interesting 1999 harvest and growing season.

Here are my notes on this wine:

• Aroma: Very faint bouquet of peach, honeycomb, and lemon; not much aroma to speak of, but the color of the wine is a promising golden yellow.
• Flavor: Strong minerality on the tip of the tongue, honey and apple as the minerals subside; sweet, smooth, I want more!
• General impression: Wow! Dynamite minerality, very smooth, delicious dessert-style Riesling. Extremely smooth and fairly sweet. Very nice.

Clearly this wine is good stuff.  I don’t have any more of it, which might be fortunate because it’s hard to stop drinking this wine once you open the half-bottle….

Because my wife is out of town, and because I had a good year at work, I decided to treat myself to a nice bottle of wine. After a lengthy discussion with Scott at the Capitol Hill QFC, I settled on the 2003 Domaine la Soumade Rasteau Cuvée Confiance. The Cuvée Confiance is a kinder, gentler Rasteau offering; not quite as potent as the Fleur de Confiance, this Cuvée came highly recommended from Scott.

I had just used the last of my gift certificate at European Vine Selection (EVS), also on Capitol Hill, but I had also purchased some marinated lamb for dinner. And lamb calls for something rich and strong, something red, possibly something Australian. I almost lucked out with a bottle of Standish Relic Shiraz/Viognier, but the price turned out to be $96 rather than $26, so I passed. I used my EVS gift certificate on a 1998 Riesling Kabinett and a 1999 Riesling Auslese, so clearly I needed to get a Syrah somewhere else.

So I cut across the Hill and went to QFC because I know they have a great Australian wine section. In fact, they still have Paracombe Somerville Shiraz and ordinary Shiraz, but I wanted something new tonight. Also, I should mention that, in addition to the lamb, I finally took the plunge and bought a loaf of Essential Baking Pain du George, a round bread that is Parisian in style, massive in size, and incredibly delicious. This bread contains organic whole wheat flour, water, and sea salt. That’s it. I love it. There’s a potent sourdough-style flavor and aroma that really tastes great, plus the sort of consistency you would expect from a French-style whole wheat bread. Amazing. Plus, at $4 on sale, it was hard to ignore for the 5th time this month.
Back to the wine. Scott at QFC described the minerality and complexity of this wine at length, which is partly what sold me on the Rasteau rather than 10-15 other wines. I like the complex French style of GSM wines as opposed to, more often than not, the proverbial “fruit bomb” style you find with Australian wines. I also wanted a wine with a little more age than the 2005 and 2006 offerings available now, and the 2003 Cotes du Rhone vintage is supposed to be terrific. Time to find out for myself!
This southern Rhone wine features an 80% Grenache, 10% Syrah, 10% Mourvedre blend. At 14.5% this wine is certainly dense enough to handle roast lamb. I liked this pairing a hell of a lot; here are my notes:

• Aroma: Potent and intoxicating on the nose; sharp, spicy bouquet of smoke and bacon fat plus some raspberry, cassis, and black cherry.
• Flavor: Blackberry, blueberry, and faint raspberry mixed with roast meat, earth, underbrush, black pepper, and dark chocolate notes; more dry than fruity at first with decent acidity and mellow tannins for such a young French wine. Grew into a smooth, fruity yet dry red wine that is worth remembering.
• General impression: A very full, rich wine with a dry mouthfeel that has nice black fruit on the side plus a meaty aftertaste. Decanted for 30+ minutes first, which was important. 2 hours later, the bottle and decanter are empty! I must have liked this wine.

Overall, I strongly recommend this wine. Robert Parker gave it 92 points, so it must be good, right? Seriously, take it from me: After a few glasses of this wine, I’m not sure it’s 14.5% alcohol, but I am sure it tastes delicious. Lamb marinated in black pepper and garlic only enhances the enjoyment. For $30-$40/bottle, it’s worth the cost; watch out for the stronger older brother, the Fleur de Confiance, which costs about $80/bottle. The bottles look almost identical, so it’s an easy mistake to make if you head for the checkout line with the wrong wine. I grabbed the last bottle available at the Capitol Hill QFC in Seattle, so you may want to try elsewhere for your bottle of Rasteau Cuvée Confiance!