melissa

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It’s Not Only About Shiraz in the Land Down Under!

When most people think of Australian wines, they think of Shiraz! There’s obviously a reason for that. Syrah, or Shiraz as the Aussies like to call it, is the most widely grown grape “down under”. Cabernet Sauvignon, however, is now number two, and there are producers making some wonderful wines utilizing this number 2 grape!

In the 1960s, Australia was a lot better known as the land of kangaroos and surfing. Fast-forward to the 21st Century and things have changed! From 1988 to 2008 Australian wine exports increased over 98% and today Australia has become known for quality wine. They still, of course, have kangaroos and surfing! In fact, my husband and I had a wonderful Australian vacation a few years ago where we golfed amongst the kangaroos in Geelong!

I recently had the opportunity to taste wines from Bordeaux side by side with four Bordeaux blends from Australia, and I honestly was surprised at the results on my tasting sheet. Now I’ve had great respect for Australian wines for years, even traveling there to further my knowledge, but I have to admit that I thought that I’d prefer the wines from France. I was wrong!

Here are the Australian wines I tasted:

Balnaves The Blend 2012

51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 43% Merlot and 6% Cabernet Franc

This Bordeaux blend is from the Coonawarra region, known for its bright red soil called terra rossa over a limestone base. This soil combination is known for killer Cabernet Sauvignon!  The nose has a touch of mint and cedar, with lots of dark fruit. The palate has the fruit along with some licorice, and has a velvety mouth-feel. What a great wine for about $25 retail!

Yalumba The Menzies 2012

100% Cabernet Sauvignon

Also from the Coonawarra region, this wine takes its name from Sir Robert Menzies, former Australian Prime Minster and lover of wine! With cedar, mint and black currant on the nose, this purple colored wine has juicy blackberry, black currant, some tobacco and a bit of olive on the palate. It needs some time, but this wine is going to be lovely. The tannins are nicely structured and balanced with the dark fruit.

Woodlands Estate “Margaret” 2011

100% Cabernet Sauvignon

This wine is from Margaret River, Western Australia’s premier wine region known for its wonderful examples of Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2011 “Margaret” is very fragrant with dark fruit, dark chocolate, tobacco and pencil shavings on the nose. The palate is ripe, but well balanced with cigar box and a lovely earthiness. This wine will be absolutely dynamite after some time in the cellar!

Yarra Yering Dry Red No. 1 2010

Blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot

Yarra Yering Vineyards is located in the Yarra Valley, a short 28 miles from the beautiful and bustling city of Melbourne. Although mostly known for producing lovely examples of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the Yarra Valley also does wonderful things with Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.

The 2010 Yarra Yering Dry Red No. 1 is from estate Cabernet Sauvignon vines planted in 1969. This wine is very different from the others. The herbaceous nose has lots of earth, clove and pencil shaving, along with dried black fruit. The palate has violet, some nice dark fruit and some barnyard funk. This reminds me most of a Bordeaux, with great acidity and longevity!

By the way, the “No. 1” stands for their Bordeaux Blend, while the “No. 2” is their Northern Rhone blend!

While visiting Australia a few years ago, my husband and I had only two days to taste in Yarra Valley. I had my heart set on tasting at Yarra Yering, but unfortunately they were closed BOTH of those days due to the horrific bushfires that overtook the region the month before. Instead we went next door to Warramate Vineyards where we had a lovely tasting. Warramate also makes some beautiful wines, and we counted our blessings that they were open. We no longer have any of Warramate’s wines in our cellar, but we do have fabulous memories of their wine and the lovely young lady who hosted our tasting! I’m including a photo of us sitting on their deck overlooking their vineyards.

Back to my Bordeaux vs. Australia tasting, there obviously wasn’t a dud in the bunch! I of course still LOVE the wines of Bordeaux, but this tasting reminded me of the high quality of wine coming out of Australia and the fact that they can totally compete with the finest wines of the world!

If you every have the chance to visit Australia, jump on that plane. Not only is it a beautiful country, they have great wine and beer and some of the nicest people in the world!

 

Chocolate – It’s All About The Stout!

Okay, okay, I know that this is a WINE blog, but I drank a beer today that was just so darned good that I had to tell you about it.

Samuel Smith’s Organic Chocolate Stout is one heck of a beer! It is the most “chocolatey” stout I’ve ever had, and I mean that in a GOOD way. This beer is almost sweet, with a creamy mouthful and some vanilla and coffee flavors to add to the chocolate. It is well balanced and has a long finish. Some beer drinkers may think that it’s too much, but I really love it.

This stout is brewed with well water from the brewery’s original well, which was sunk back in 1758.  Samuel Smith brews in traditional coppers and uses stone Yorkshire Square vessels for fermentation.

Samuel Smith Brewery is located in North Yorkshire where my ancestors are from! Now maybe that makes me a little partial, but I don’t think that is the reason I enjoy this stout so much! I think it’s because they make some delicious beer. Who knows, perhaps some of my long lost relatives even help with the brewing!

To check out Samuel Smith Brewery’s website, click here:  http://www.samuelsmithsbrewery.co.uk/site/

A “WOW” Wine from Sicily

I had a beautiful wine last week. I lucked out, because a friend shared it with me after a tasting session that I didn’t even attend!

There are some nice wines coming out of Sicily, but I’ve never had one that truly wowed me. Until this one!

The 2012 Girolamo Russo San Lorenzo from the Etna DOC has the color of a concentrated Pinot Noir. After a three-hour decant, I found raspberry, violets and some vanilla on the nose. The texture reminds me of satin, with dusty raspberry and blackberry on the palate. It has a long finish and is very well balanced with good acidity and smooth tannins. It may LOOK like a Pinot Noir, but it reminds me more of a medium plus bodied wine from Piedmont.

This lovely wine is made from the Nerello Mascalese grape (along with 2% of Nerello Cappuccio), grown on the volcanic slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily. Girolamo Russo has 16 hectares of vineyards and is Certified organic.

Nerello Mascalese is a dark-skinned grape that ripens late, and is grown in areas as high as 1200 meters on the slopes of Mount Etna. Harvest is often not until late October or sometimes even early November and holds its acid well, has gentle tannins and can be consumed in its youth or held to age.

I’m definitely going to be searching for more bottles of this wine, other wines from this producer, and also wines in general from the Etna DOC.

To learn more about Girolamo Russo and Giuseppe Russo (a trained pianist with a degree in Italian literature who has managed the estate since 2004!) check out their website here:

http://www.girolamorusso.it

Are You Waiting to Arise??? Meet Blackbird Vineyard’s Arise!

I’ve always been a Right Bank kind of girl. Now don’t get me wrong, I love wines from the Left Bank as well. How the heck could anyone not????  But for me there is just something about the smooth, easy to drink wines from Pomerol, St. Emilion, etc.

Blackbird Vineyards has a great example of a Right Bank Bordeaux blend from Napa. Made of mostly Merlot (which means blackbird in French patois), founder Michael Polenske named this particular blend Arise, taken from the Beatles’ song Blackbird. In fact, the label is fabulous! It features nine blackbirds (as the notes) sitting on a telephone wire (as the music staff) representing the beginning notes of the Beatles’ song. Check it out! It’s true!

Please excuse the sloppy wine stain dribbled down the label. That was a bad pouring job on my behalf and was not intended on the label. I’ve therefore included an example of the label from their website as well. I wanted to be sure to include my tarnished example too, however, because I absolutely love the feathers on the bottle above the label. I’m not sure what they represent, but I like to think that it’s a symbol of the flock of people it takes to make a great wine.  And this is a great wine!

The 2012 Blackbird Arise is a blend of 58% Merlot, 32% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. The garnet colored wine has licorice, blueberry, blackberry and black cherry on the nose. The well-balanced palate has lush black cherry, blueberry, cocoa powder, tobacco and a long smooth finish.

It’s hard not to sing the Beatle’s song while drinking this lovely wine. “All your life … you were only waiting for this moment to be free”! It’s like a bottle of wine, isn’t it? Opening the bottle on a specific day determines the experience the wine will become. The wine is waiting for the moment to become free from the bottle and to arise. The 2012 Blackbird Arise is drinkable now, but it will truly “Arise” with some time in the bottle. I’m going to stock my cellar with a few more and try one again in a year or two, and then another a year later. I have a feeling that I’ll then be singing “All your life … you were only waiting for this moment to arise”!

If you’d like to learn more about Arise and Blackbird Vineyards other wines, check them out here: https://www.blackbirdvineyards.com

Looking for Beer in Orlando?

Living in Florida makes winery visits a travel adventure. Okay, we have fruit wines here. We even have a few wineries utilizing hybrid and muscadine variety grapes, which I really do need to check out sometime. A visit to wineries using the Vitis vinifera varieties that I so love, however, requires either a plane ride or a long road trip.

Brewery visits, on the other hand, can be made in abundance. Nice and close to home for me is The Crooked Can Brewery, only about a 15 minute drive from my house. And the beer? Pretty darned good!

Located in Winter Garden, Florida (a suburb of Orlando), Crooked Can isn’t the only show in town. Winter Garden is turning into quite the spot for food and beverage.

Plant Street Market in historical downtown Winter Garden is home to a fun array of shops, restaurants and this fun spot to drink. It reminds me a lot of a very clean, mini version of Pike Place Market in Seattle, without the fish throwing! Some of the many vendors include a bakery called Euro Bake World, a great coffee shop Axum Coffee, a pretty flower shop called E Fusion Botanical and the wonderful Market to Table Cuisine, where one can purchase fresh cooking ingredients and products to take home! I bought some truffle artichoke dip, leek & truffle premade soup, maple pecan butter, an Italian marinade and more!!!!

But I digress. I’m here to talk about the beer!

We started out having their Chocolate Stout. It was my favorite of the day, but actually seems more like Coffee Stout. I really like it though. It is brewed in collaboration with Axum Coffee Shop (mentioned above) by using a variety of their coffee beans. It is a deep colored stout with lots of coffee flavors and a bit of cocoa powder on the palate. With only 5.1% alcohol, I could have had another!

Instead, after finishing off our glasses of Stout, we decided to order a flight. I love their flight presentation, using an “airplane” to carry the small glasses of beer.

Our personally selected flight included:

Domestic Bliss – This is a Belgian style Ale with a beautiful golden color and a wonderful rich and creamy mouth feel. There is lots of spice on the palate, especially clove! I really enjoyed this Ale. This goes down very easily, but at 9.5% alcohol, beware of how many you order if you’re driving!

McStagger Imperial IPA – This is a Double IPA with grapefruit galore on the palate. I enjoyed it a lot, but it’s 9% alcohol, so again, drivers beware of too many!!

Cloud Chaser Hefeweizen – This German style wheat beer has some fruit and spice, along with a bit of a medicinal Band-Aid essence on the palate. My husband liked this one a lot, and at only 5.3% alcohol, drink away!!!!

Stout – This is another deep colored Stout with lots of coffee on the nose and palate. I really liked this beer, but still preferred the Chocolate Stout. This has 6.7% alcohol.

Crooked Can Brewery is a really fun place. We’ve been here a few times now. We often sit outside on their huge patio listening to live music while hanging with friends. They also have a service window from the outside, which makes it very convenient and easy to grab another brew.

Oh, and if you prefer cider, they have that too!!!!

For more information, check them out here:

http://www.crookedcan.com

 

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