Syrah

Which Wines To Pair With Decorating? You Choose!

Which Wines to Pair With Decorating? You Choose!

I’m a little crazy about Christmas. My husband and I absolutely love the holidays and we decorate our house from top to bottom. We love to relish in the festivities of December and the holiday season, and with everything going on this year we’re determined to make our house provide us with lots of joy!

After bringing up all of the boxes of decorations, we pick out a gem of a wine (or two!) to enjoy while beginning the long (but fun!) process of turning our Florida home into a winter wonderland.

This year we started with my favorite beverage in the world: Champagne!

I opened a bottle of the Baron-Fuenté Grande Réserve Brut. This non-vintage sparkler is light gold in color and has wonderful richness with some brioche yeastiness, meyer lemon, red apple, peach and a lovely nuttiness. I’m a lover of Pinot Meunier (one of the three Champagne varietals), which provides great fruit characters. I really dig this wine and at about $35 retail, this is a great bang for your buck! Great Champagne at this price point makes me very happy!!!

While we were sipping Champagne, I was decanting a bottle of 2013 Gramercy Cellars Syrah “Lagniappe” from the Columbia Valley region of Washington state. Gramercy Cellars produces some of my favorite wines of Washington. After decanting for about two hours, we were ready to pour. On the nose are dark fruit, violet and pepper. The palate??? OLIVES!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, how I love the olive flavors I get on good Syrah! Along with the olives are some smoked meat, black pepper, baking spices, black cherry and blackberry. There is definitely a lot going on in this wine. No wonder I love Gramercy so much!

The Baron-Fuenté Grande Réserve Brut and 2013 Gramercy Cellars Syrah “Lagniappe” were a great way to START our holidays! I’m looking forward to what the rest of the season has in store for us!

https://gramercycellars.com

https://baronfuente.com/en

 

 

 

 

A Not To Miss Tasting In Sonoma? Balletto!!!

They hadn’t been on my list. In fact, I hadn’t even heard of them before! A staff member at Gloria Ferrer (who’s become a friend because I visit so often!) told me about her favorite rosé in the world. She told me that she just couldn’t get enough of it! So … I had to check them out!

Balletto Vineyards is a family owned winery located in the Russian River Valley AVA in Sonoma County. Started as a successful vegetable farming company, in 1999 they started the shift from vegetable farming to vineyards. Today they sell 90% of their grapes to other wineries, using the other 10% producing their lovely Balletto Vineyard wines!

So, the day after visiting Gloria Ferrer last month, my husband and I stopped by Balletto for a tasting. I couldn’t wait to try their rosé! This pretty pink wine (made of 100% Pinot Noir) has strawberry, a touch of rose and lively acidity to balance it perfectly. I can see why my friend finds it difficult to not finish the bottle in one sitting!

Rosé, however, is not all they do at Balletto! I also made sure to buy a couple bottles of their lovely (not too oaky) 2014 Sexton Hill Vineyard Chardonnay. They also make some rockin’ Pinot Noir (we bought some Burnside that tasted like Strawberry Twizzlers!), Syrah and Zin! A super nice bonus is that their prices are very fair!!!

Looking back I’m surprised and disappointed that I hadn’t heard of them before, but boy oh boy I’m thankful that I know them now! I also want to spread the word about their really nice wines and great tasting experience!

Don’t only PUT them on your list … bump them to the TOP of your list!

http://www.ballettovineyards.com

 

Tis the Season for SYRAH!

Merry Christmas to me … so I opened a bottle of my favorite varietal tonight! SYRAH!!!! I do believe that I picked a nice one!

Sol Rouge (red soil in French) is a winery located in the Red Hill Lake County appellation, which was designated in 2004. Their seventy- acre estate contains rich red volcanic soil. That would explain the name chosen for Bryan and Jill Kane’s winery!

I wasn’t familiar with Sol Rouge until this bottle, but I’m thankful that I stumbled across it. Located in California’s Lake County (north of Napa County), the winery produces wines using varietals from France’s Rhone Valley and Bordeaux. It also uses a lot of France’s viticulture principals; letting the high elevation vineyards do much of the work.

The ruby red 2011 Sol Rouge Syrah has aromas of raspberry and violet. With flavors of black raspberry, black current, and some black pepper, it is very well balanced with smooth, yet structured, tannins. Sol Rouge has created a very enjoyable wine, and I will seek out more of this and their other wines.

They have a conveniently located tasting room on famed Treasure Island in San Francisco for those who can’t get up to Lake County.

To learn more about Sol Rouge and their wines, check out there website here: http://www.solrouge.com

Looking for a GREAT Napa Syrah???

Oh boy! I opened a bottle of wine last night that I absolutely love!

A few weeks ago a friend brought over a Bedrock Wine Co. Cabernet Sauvignon and I really enjoyed it. I liked it so much that when I found some Bedrock Syrah for sale I bought a couple of bottles. If only I’d known … I should have grabbed a couple of cases!

Bedrock’s 2012 Hudson Vineyard Syrah is fabulous! The fruit comes from the T and S blocks of the famous Hudson Ranch, which lies in Napa Valley’s Carneros AVA. The purple colored wine has a wonderful nose of smoky meat, violets and ripe red fruit. On the palate are blackberry, cassis, black cherry and licorice. I get some tobacco too! The finish is long with a hint of black olive. There is definitely a lot going on in this complex wine!

While drinking this gem I kept thinking of how it reminds me a lot of a wine from the Northern Rhone.  Well no wonder. After doing some research on the wine I realized that a smidgen of Viognier is added to the Syrah, just as they do in the Northern Rhone’s Côte-Rôtie region.

Considering I’m a huge lover of Rhone Valley wines, it’s not surprising that I’m such a fan of this Napa Syrah. Now I just need to figure out where I can buy some more!

To check out more information on Bedrock Wine Co. and their other wines, click here:  http://bedrockwineco.com

This Wine is “Fergalicious”!

I’m having a “ME” night tonight. The hubby is off working and I’m on my own with a good book and a hopefully good bottle of wine. So I went into our cellar and pulled out a bottle of 2011 Ferguson Crest “Fergalicious”, knowing only that it’s a blend of 56% Syrah, 25% Merlot, 13% Grenache and 6% Cabernet Sauvignon. I’m a huge lover of Syrah (in case you didn’t already know that) and the price wasn’t outrageous (I feel guilty opening an expensive bottle with my husband off working), so I grabbed this bottle thinking that it was the perfect wine for the night.

I popped and poured it without decanting … and actually really liked it right off the bat! I’m used to Syrah from the Rhone Valley, which this is NOT! Well, of course it’s not! This is only 56% Syrah, and it’s from the Santa Ynez region of California’s Central Coast AVA. The “Fergalious” is an interesting blend of Rhone varietals with Bordeaux varietals. It’s a lush, full-bodied wine with lots of dark fruit, violets and some spice on the nose. On the palate are the ripe dark fruit, mocha, olives and sweet tannins.

Holy crap! After reading up a bit on this wine, I realized that it’s a family-owned boutique winery established by Pat Ferguson (whose passion for years has been growing many different types of fruits) and his daughter Stacy Duhmel. In case you don’t know, that’s THE Fergie! Yes, THAT Fergie, the vocalist from Black Eyed Peas. I had no idea that she has a wine!!!!

I want to try to find a few more of these, hold on to them, and see how they taste after a few years in the bottle. I can’t help but think that they’ll get even better than they already are. I also look forward to trying some of Ferguson Crest’s other wines!

Meanwhile, I’ll be sure to save the other half of this bottle for my husband to try tomorrow night! It’s right up his alley, AND he thinks that Fergie is hot!

If you want to learn more about Ferguson Crest, check out their website here:  http://www.fergusoncrest.com

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