Wine review: Persona Non Grata 2013 Lake County CA red blend

This is from just north of Napa/Sonoma. Their estate red grapes include Zin and Syrah.

I have nothing against a Syrah-Zin blend. Why not? But this wine has a limited appeal. The nose is actually pretty good-it harkons to darker fruits and a nice balance, and in a world where some winemakers don't achieve (or even care about) any aromatics at all (??? the nose discerns 10,000 aromas, and the tongue, six. Duh!), this bouquet is nice to have. But at 14.8% alcohol, the wine is too hot--it doesn't have enough flavors to stand up to all that alcohol. What flavor there is comes off as very dark fruits, and admittedly I'm not a huge fan of black fruit flavors (I tend like the red-to-purple space; for my palate, these grapes are grown in a place too hot for them). I had a filet mignon left over from our first winemaker dinner this past Saturday--so much work--we cooked an 8 lb beef tenderloin, encrusted with dijon-rosemary-cracked pepper, with barley risotto and roasted root vegetables, and served it with my Double-Gold Cab Franc (2019 Seattle Wine Awards) and this was a leftover piece.  It went well enough with this wine--the leftover beef was great, and the wine was just OK with it.

The winery markets this wine as "Persona Non Grata" (meaning, "Napa Valley gets all the attention; BS on that!"), and, as much as I support that sentiment, and as much as I'd love to support any winemaker who makes wine away from the trendy places (as I do), and suffers from the comparison, and enviously eyes Napa's overrated reputation, this wine is just not all that good.  But it's always good to try new wines!

Death of a major figure in Beaujolais: Georges DuBoeuf

A sad day. Georges DeBoeuf had a huge impact on his wine region. Beaujolais Nouveau celebrations (the first of the year's wine releases) have spread worldwide due to his efforts to drive both wine quality and wine marketing. We visited his winery/museum/wine town, and were very impressed. Tasting there, we found many high-quality wines that never make it to the US, all made from the overlooked Gamay grape.

Even in the Willamette Valley, growers tend to plant Syrah, not Gamay, as the climate warms, whereas the natural order (with increasing climate warmth, as you head south in France) is Pinot Noir, then Gamay, then Syrah.  This is unfortunate.

Coincidentally, as he was dying, we were hosting a Beaujolais Nouveau dinner party (with a great duck ragout dish), and that wine was widely perceived, around the table, as a great wine. So fascinating, that a wine could be so good after just a months after harvest.

Here is a nice short article mentioning DuBoeuf's contributions.

What a dinner! Review of J. Drouhin 2019 Beaujoais Nouveau, with duck ragout

Wow! Just finished a dinner party.

I cooked: Duck Ragout (Epicurious recipe), served over egg noodles.

I served: 2019 Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais Nouveau, from Winebow. We loved the 2018, so we happily bought the 2019 and were not disappointed. What a great wine! Enough acid to marry with the food; great cherry flavor; just a near-perfect wine. Astonished that it could be so good after just a few months from harvest. If you haven't had this at a B.Nouveau party, do it!

Later courses were baguettes with a Brittany Brie, and then Vosges Chocolates (OMG!)  from a wizardess in Chicago--highly recommend haute cuisine!--and then I made cocktails from Angeleno Amaro and Sprite and orange slices. What an evening! This is how you cement friendships.

Review of 93-point Castelli Martinozzi 2012 Brunello di Montalcino

I've been drinking and collecting fine wines for more than 40 years, and have been making wine for more than 25 years. Wine Spectator gave this wine 92 points in 2017, saying:

"Underbrush, scorched earth, dark spice and grilled herb aromas slowly take shape on this full-bodied red. The chewy, enveloping palate doles out mouthfuls of fleshy black cherry, juicy blackberry, ground pepper and clove while ripe tannins provide support. The lingering finish closes on a mocha note. Drink 2018–2026."

Wow. And we drank it tonight inside its drinking window. It was pretty bad.

It is NOT full-bodied. Way too thin. It has the right acid, but no fruit. Makes me wonder who spiked the bottle that Spectator tasted, because usually they are trustworthy.

This kind of evening makes one wonder if cellaring good wines for years, under proper conditions, is worthwhile. Seriously, you can buy $12 Sangios that deliver more fun than this (and this was $45). 

It takes no skill to overpay for wine. Any fool can do it. And we're all made fools when an expensive wine that's supposed to be good, isn't.

You can't trust all wine shops to carry wines that are all good

Total Wine is a huge retail chain of wine stores, with probably the largest variety of wines in my state.

I had a coupon for Total Wine, and used it to buy six different sparkling and Prosecco wines. Each one had a long, detailed tasting note sheet (a "shelf talker") praising the wine. Total Wine is so large that it has the resources to provide such (usually helpful) shelf talkers.

But, the first bottle was awful. A pour-out. A Prosecco, and too sweet for my taste, which I wouldn't blame Total Wine for, except their shelf talker didn't make any reference to the Prosecco's being a sweet one and it should have said so), and it was also poorly made and entirely disjointed. Very disappointing. It makes me wonder if Total Wine has a practice of over-hyping a doggy wine, in order to move it out the door. That is an unethical practice and they need to make sure they don't do it.

If you want a 100% honest wine retailer, join my email list and buy from me ;)  (photo credit: Shutterstock)

UC Davis releases five new modern grape varieties

These are the kinds of grapes that will save the wine world. Read their description here.

None of these are early-ripening enough to grow here in the PacNW. Instead, they were bred (and it took 20 years!) to resist Pierce's Disease, a bacterial catastrophe that kills vineyards in the SE US and also in southern CA. As far as I know, these new varieties don't have immunity against powdery mildew, so that's another reason they wouldn't do well here (unless they were treated with soil fauna-killing inorganic sprays or expensive organic sprays).

The commentator in the linked article thinks the wine drinking public won't cotton to these new grapes. I think he's wrong. Although maybe half of  my wine customers aren't open-minded and don't order or even come to taste my wines made from modern grape varieties, the other half are interested, and will taste and often buy the wines.

In order to save the world of wine from the effects of climate change and environmental degradation, we growers and winemakers need to work hard to make great wines from these new grapes.

Surprise, surprise! Insurance companies refuse to cover "smoke taint" in wine, from forest fires

Read this article about it.

If Smoke taint is severe, it ruins a wine. Who knows whether the insurance companies specifically excluded smoke taint, but I doubt it. Another interesting example of how having insurance does not mean you are protected. I wish I could say something nicer about insurance companies.

(photo credit: Getty Images)