REVIEW - 2007 Sequoia Grove Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, California

 2007 Sequoia Grove Cabernet sauvignon Napa Valley, California

SKU: 740382  

Origin: United States  |  California
Agent: Charton-Hobbs Inc.

This wine is done by winemaker Michael Trujillo who had taken over production at Sequoia Grove in 2002. He used estate grown fruit in this bottling along with fruit from the Tonella Vineyard that they recently bought. He also buys grapes from Morisoli and Beckstoffer in Rutherford, Stagecoach in Atlas Peak, Lamoreaux in the Oak Knoll District and Healy in St. Helena It's a 50 acre prime property in Rutherford. Sequoia Grove is named after one of the last remaining Redwood groves in the Napa Valley and they also boast about being environmentally friendly and sustainable practices, but I couldn't find anything on them actually being organic or biodynamic.

In the Glass – this wine is medium to deep purple, with purple deposits of colour on the legs in the glass

On the nose – It was nicely aromatic, with notes of oak and vanilla, red cherry, fruit jam with lots of cherry, black currant, toasty spice that reminded me of medicinal tobacco,  there was also a back ground of charcoal and chocolate.

On the Palate – This is a dry, medium acid Cabernet. It had good and persistent tannins, with full body, and flavors of cherry, vanilla and iron; like dark green leaf spinach. Coupled with a long finish, it was balanced and delicious. Easily quaffable.

Over all this wine was good, but it didn't blow me out of the water. I would look forward to trying some of their reserves and getting a more focused picture on what Sequoia Grove is trying make with their label

The blend on this is 82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Merlot, the remainder being Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. As far as location percentage it is all Napa Valley (49% Rutherford, 19% Atlas Peak, 14% Oak Knoll, 12% St. Helena, 3% Yountville, 3% Napa Valley). Clearly a Bordeaux-style wine made in the heart of Rutherford, and a alcohol content of 14.2%, i  would pair this with any red meat, especially grilled with veggies

Cheers!

REVIEW – 2008 FISHER CHARDONNAY

REVIEW – 2008 FISHER CHARDONNAY

SKU: 1081843  

Agent: Richmond Hill Wines

In the Glass – clear, deep lemon.

On the Nose – medium to pronounced aromas of oak, charred and smoky wood, pineapple, ripe/baked fruit  (clearly warm climate grapes) with notes of honey and cream.

On the Palate – I found this wine dry with medium acid, medium to full body. It has flavors of tropical fruit, apple pie, clove/cinnamon, butter, (lee stirring) weighty and richness with a strong to medium finish. It has a noticeable bitter/burnt finish, which is from the warmer climate.

This wine is 100% Chardonnay sourced out of the Oak Knoll district of Napa. They use yeast that’s present in the vineyard and facilities and they use 100% French Oak to age for 14 months. Now I have a bit of an opinion on American wine (and Canadian wine too for that matter).  Its considered new world, because we haven’t been making wine for as long as the rest of the world has. I’m sure there is a more technical reason for it but that’s basically what it equates to. Because we haven’t been doing it as long we don’t know what exactly which grapes work in all the different regions we have here. Which is fine. But I think a lot of the California producers have jumped on this Chardonnay bandwagon for the instant revenue when they should be trying to branch out to varietals that would better suit their land and help thin out an already saturated market. Every ones got an oaky Chardonnay in Napa. Everyone. Its like going through your sex ed. class in high school. We’re not really sure how putting the rubber on a banana is helpful but everyone has done it.

In the end I don’t think $42 for this wine is a far price unless you were really hard up and really want oaked Chardonnay, and even then I would probably point you to another one. But that’s just my personal preference. Yes, it has a full mouth feel, yes it has tropical fruit and yes it had the butter from the oak. But it didn’t blow me away; it didn’t really stand out or draw me in. it was just too simple to be in that price point. If some one ordered it for me I would certainly be happy enough to have it, but I wouldn’t order it my self.

Cheers

Food + Wine = Perfect The 2nd day of wine training, 3 of 3

This is the third and final entry of a 3-part post on my second day of wine training. This day we touched on three rather basic, but immensely imperative, ideas in the wine world; the evaluation of wine quality, food and wine matching and the classic white grape. Today I’m going to talk about some food pairing ideas.


Matching the weight of the wine to the food is probably the core of doing food and wine pairing properly. You have such a sliding scale with intensity, flavors and other properties but as long as the weight of the wine on the whole scale is factored in you should do just fine.

Light wine for light food like champagne and smoked fish.
Full body wine for rich heavy food like cabernet sauvignon, merlot and shiraz with red meat and gravy

Just a word of warning, the sides with what the wine is paired with should be taken into consideration as well, as things like gravies and cream sauces can change the dynamic of the meal.


Now, on to the big flavors in food and wine

Acidic food requires rich acidic wines, or else the wine can seem flabby. Watch out for lemon, lime and vinegar flavors in food, as they are hard to top, but not impossible. Italian reds can pair well with tomatoes dishes due to their high acid levels, where the acid from the tomato and the acid from the wine complement each other. It’s always good to pair oily foods with high acid wines, a great example of this is sauvignon blanc and calamari

Spicy foods pair well with wines that are chilled and that are intensely aromatic, a touch sweet or very fruity. Hot spices reduce sweetness in a wine. Chilling can take the initial bite out of a spicy dish, and the slightly sweet or fruity follow through will take the lingering sting out as well. Riesling, sauvignon blanc, gewürztraminer all go well with spicy food but be warned high tannic reds can make spicy dishes even spicier. I would never recommend big full reds with Mexican food.

Sweet foods should be paired with sweeter wines because it will make the food taste drier. It can also pair well with savory foods, where reds would be too tart in structure.

Salty Foods pair well with light body, crisp white wines. Some good traditional matches are olives with sherry, oyster with muscatel, and shellfish with Chablis. Sweet wines have the ability to balance off overly salty foods
When tannins clash with salty food the outcome is typically very bitter

With tannins and food the big thing to remember is that proteins softens tannins, and tannins in a wine help it stand up to a richer meat. Just be careful that you don’t pair a tannic wine with oily fish, as it has a tendency you give and unpleasant metallic flavor.

Basic pairing notes

·         Match weight

·         Complement flavours

·         Contrast intensity and texture

·         Sweetness, the wine should always be sweeter then the dish

How is it prepared guide
Cold food = cold wine
Steamed/poached/boil = light wine
Oil fried = high acid, light wine
BBQ, grilled, roasted = fuller body, oaked
Braised, stewed = big body

Stronger seasoning = fuller wine

This about sums up how I think people should go about pairing wines with meals. I think it’s a rather complicated process when you break down each individual item but if you look at the meal as a whole, and the entire dining experience and use your best judgement, you shouldn’t go wrong. And if you’re out for a meal at a restaurant ask your server or the sommelier, it’s what they are paid to know, do and help you with. And if you having some dinner with friends and/or family and you get that perfect match between meal and drink its fantastic but in the end it’s not really about what you’re eating and drinking now is it? It’s about the people and the experience so go with what feels right. 

Cheers!

Review - 2006 Trefethen Family Vineyards Merlot, Oak Knoll District, USA

2006 Trefethen Family Vineyards Merlot, 

Oak Knoll District, USA 

SKU: 716300  

Origin: United States  |  California

Agent: Lanigan & Edwards Wine Merchants Ltd.

Trefethen is the largest family run estate in Napa. How ever, they produce only 25% of what they grow, selling the rest to other wine makers in the region. Because of this we can expect to see a high level of quality and precision coming from their wines.

This wine is 95% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Malbec, and 1% Petit Verdot. With that 95% of the grapes are harvested from the main ranch and  5% are harvested from the Hillspring vineyards. It spends about 17 months in French oak before being bottled

Oak knoll is a cooler region of Napa. Merlot typically flourish in cool growing regions with humid soil the Oak Knoll district is actually perfect for it, a “sweet spot” between its warmer north and cooler south regions. This season in particular seeing a large amount of fog leaving the afternoons cooler drew out the harvest for one of the longest growing season in 40 years.

On the Nose - pepper, herbs and pie spices, chocolate and fur

On the Pallet – beautiful mouth feel medium to long finish, full blackberry, boysenberry and white pepper and hearty chili spices. 

Now the website listed “olallieberry fruit” and I had to wiki what that was but oddly enough I ate these things all the time while I was growing up, and I remember liking them more then any other berry. I just never knew what they were called! Neat!

This wine can more then hold up on its own with or with out food, but I would love to pair it with a duck chili, or true Italian sausage spaghetti.

Awards 

93 points/Editor’s Choice - Steve Heimoff, Wine Enthusiast - March 1, 2011   

Cheers!