One of the true joys is stopping by my local wineshop, The Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan, after getting a message about some new wines.  The first wine that I tried was Domaine Gerard Doreau Monthelie 2020.  Domaine Gerard Doreau has been a family concern since the end of the Nineteenth Century and producing local wines.  Monthelie is a village in the Cote de Beaune, a sub-region of Burgundy and has been awarded an appellation in 1937 for red wines made from Pinot Noir and white wines made from Chardonnay.  There are fifteen Premier Cru climates in Monthelie, mostly bordering the vineyards of Volnay.  The wine is a light burgundy color and offered notes of red cherries and violets.  On the palate this wine had tones of red cherries, medium acidity, and rounder tannins.  It reminded me more of a New World Pinot Noir, instead of an Old-World Style; perhaps geared towards the American market.

The next wine was Source & Sink Petite Sirah Sonoma Valley 2019.  The winery was created in 2018 by two Chicago natives who met during the 2017 wine harvest in Sonoma.  Rande Feldman was in Vineyard Management and Aaron Cherny was in Finance and Business Planning.  The name refers to the positive flow of energy “the source” and how it is sent to the “sinks” (i.e. roots, leaf tips and fruit).  The fruit comes from vines that were retrained to grow from Cordon to Goblet system, which yields large clusters from a single vineyard at the base of Moon Mountain.  Petite Sirah, or Durif produces deep inky-colored wines from the small berries.  The wine is a dark garnet color that offers notes of black fruits, tea, pepper, licorice and assorted herbs and spices, and violets.  On the palate a big wine of “jammy” fruits, chocolate, and full tannins with a medium count finish of fruit.     

The third wine that I tasted was Day Zinfandel Grist Vineyard Dry Creek Valley 2017.  Day is the Zinfandel project of Ehren Jordan, the winemaker behind Turley, Neyers, and Failla.  What he did for Zinfandel in St. Helena back in 2004, he is doing now in Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma County.  Grist Vineyard sits at one-thousand feet elevation on Bradford Mountain.  The area was originally planted around a hundred years ago, and was replanted in the Seventies.  The vineyard is fifty-eight acres and is fifteen miles inland from the Pacific Ocean and basically unspoiled forest between the two.  The soil is iron-rich, red volcanic soil which results in low yield and concentrated fruit. The wine was made using indigenous yeasts and aged in French Oak for eleven months and bottled unfiltered, unsulfured, and unfined.  A dark red wine that offers notes of blueberry, currants, cherry, pepper, cardamom, and violets.  On the palate, a fruit forward wine of cherry, plums, strawberry, spices blended with medium tannins with a touch of smokiness and ending with a medium count finish of fruit and graphite (terroir).