A Wish

Posted on January 1, 2018 by thewineraconteur

We just want to take a moment and wish everyone a Happy New Year and may the new year bring you plenty of love, luck, health and happiness from this point on.

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The Best Laid Plans

Posted on December 30, 2017 by thewineraconteur

Tradition has it, that we have a brunch on Christmas Day at my Mother-in-Law’s house and everyone eventually gets there. The snow had kind of abated, but there was still some more coming down, but the travel time was not that bad. Everyone was a bit tired after the night before and the long drives that everyone had. It was a nice simple brunch of pastries, design your own omelet, fresh Kielbasa, bacon and Mimosas. It is hard to think of a brunch without a Mimosa. Mimosas are a very simple drink for an early day drink of orange juice and something bubbly. I have always been of the belief that when one has a mixed drink, the liquor can be a standard grade and not a top shelf item. I mean Canadian Club is fine for a Whisky Sour, but if I am having a Canadian neat, then I prefer Crown Royal. The same holds true for a Mimosa, I think it would be a sin to use Dom with orange juice, so we used Korbel California Champagne, which is produced in the time-honored way of “Methode Chanpenoise” and it is a blend of Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, French Colombard and Pinot Noir. A perfect way to start off the day.

Normally after the Christmas Brunch, we end up going to another house for dinner, but they are only going to do it every other year, because of their son’s marriage and his new in-laws live in another state, that is life and families all make adjustments. My Bride was going to try to have everyone come to our house for a dinner, but over the years other traditions have been enjoyed. We ended up going home and having a nice quiet dinner of some of the leftover ham and Armenian Pilaf from the night before that my Bride had made. After having a big meal, the night before and then the brunch, we really were not ready for another big meal. I guess maybe we are slowing down, or maybe just maturing.


I went down to the cellar and grabbed a split for the two of us to enjoy and I thought I would look for something different and interesting. There is always a chance that a split may not have as long of a shelf life as a full bottle or a magnum, I thought it was time to check it out. We shared a bottle of Duckhorn Vineyards Howell Mountain Merlot 1995. Duckhorn Vineyards was one of the pioneers of Merlot in Napa Valley when everyone else was interested in Cabernet Sauvignon. Howell Mountain is one of the most prestigious sub-region AVA’s in Napa Valley, and they were awarded the designation in 1984, Napa Valley was awarded their designation in 1981. There is no actual Howell Mountain, but it is a long and narrow hillside (mountain side) and named after the Howell Mountain Township, which is up above Calistoga. Since we had bought the wine at the winery and I am such a pack rat, which has helped over the years writing about wine, I actually found the winery tech sheet. The wine is 76% Merlot, 14% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Cabernet Franc; and 96% of the fruit was harvested from Howell Mountain and the rest was from Napa Valley. The wine spent twenty months in French Oak of which half was new. I was a little concerned because the cork crumbled as I tried to open the bottle, and I had to decant the wine using a funnel and a coffee filter, and it was a good thing that I did decant it, as there was a lot of sediment that had settled on the side of the bottle during all of that cellar time. The nose was delightful and filled the room during the decanting period. The color had softened and was not as deep as a young Merlot would have been, as it had a little brown in the mix. The taste was sublime, the tannins had all mellowed out and it kind of reminded me of an aged Chateau Cheval-Blanc, it was that smooth; and it was too bad that we only had to oversized glasses of the wine to enjoy.

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Christmas Eve

Posted on December 28, 2017 by thewineraconteur

Christmas Eve has passed and now it is a memory, as so many others before it, in my life time. We normally have the meal at our house, but another sister of my Bride wanted to celebrate it at her house, before her work schedule gets totally out of control and she has no life, and I can readily appreciate that feeling. I think this year there were too many people wishing for a white Christmas, now don’t get me wrong, I like a white Christmas, but just a dusting where the grass is covered, but the streets and sidewalks are clear. This year I think too many got carried away with their wishes as we had about six inches of snow. A trip to their house usually takes about forty-five minutes and this time it took twice as long, and the return trip was almost twice as long as getting there. It is a bit of a white-knuckle trip when you see multiple trucks and four-wheel drive vehicles on the side of the road that end up in the wrong direction of the traffic flow. Then there are the individuals that feel that if the speed signs say seventy, they feel that they drive at that speed regardless of the weather and road conditions, and I will never understand that thinking.


After getting to the house and unloading our car of the ham, the Armenian Pilaf, a pot of stuffing that she baked and the Caesar Salad that had to be tossed, I looked at the kids playing video games and went back outside to shovel the sidewalk, I mean my Mother-in-Law would soon be arriving and she uses a walker for assistance. I guess at sixty-three I can still shovel snow, as long as I pace myself. Then my Brother-in-Law came out with his snow blower and finished the job that I started. And speaking of my Brother-in-Law, this Canadian has become a Michigander for all intents and purposes. Here we had six inches of snow and still falling and he was trying out his new “greaseless” deep fryer for the turkey on the front porch and he was barbecuing pork tenderloins on the grill in the back yard. Something about Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. You know have a feeling for the menu for the evening, along with the many other side dishes, appetizers and desserts, made for a pleasant meal.  Afterwards there was a long period of gift exchanging, because with that many people, it takes time.


There were plenty of adult beverages to enjoy, though with the weather, there was not as much indulging as there could have been. I will discuss two of the wines that we brought for the party. We started off with a white wine to compliment the snow and the appetizers. The first wine was “Thurissey” Vire-Clesse 2014. Appellation Vire-Clesse Controlee is relatively new, as it was created in February 1999 and applies only to the driest white wines from the villages of Vire, Clesse, Laize and Montbellet in the Maconnais district of Burgundy. Domaine Saint Barbe has a total of 8.2 hectares in the villages of Vire and Montbellet where they grow Chardonnay. I had been looking forward to trying this wine and I am glad that even my Bride liked it, as it was much different compared to the Sonoma Chardonnay wines that lately have been our “house” wine. It had a very pleasant terroir that was immediately apparent with a nice aftertaste that lingered just long enough, making you look forward to the next sip, and it had a nice color and a soft nose. The second wine that I had brought is a varietal that I like to pair with turkey and pork, though some think that I am in a minority on the pairing. Domaines Lupier El Terroir 2011 of Navarre was from the husband and wife team of Elisa Ucar and Enrique Basarte that I have befriended over the years in my writings and on Social Media. The fruit was harvested from twenty-seven different plots with vines from sixty-eight to one hundred years old. All those vines of Garnacha, in Spanish, that we more comfortably know as Grenache, dating back to 1903, and there were 1,688 cases produced. This wine bowled me over from the nose and the first taste and I knew that I had chosen correctly. It is one of those meaty wines that one can chew while tasting it and could hold its own against the deep frying and the barbecue flavors. Thank you Elisa Ucar and Enrique Basarte for your fine labors of love, and I feel that this wine was even better then when I first tasted it, because of the additional cellaring time.

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A Very Merry Christmas

Posted on December 26, 2017 by thewineraconteur

My Bride and I want to take a moment to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. While I am typing away, she is in the kitchen preparing dishes for Christmas Eve and making plans for Christmas Day. The holidays are upon us and I wish you all plenty of love, luck, health and happiness. If you get a chance add a couple of wines for the festivities as well, and I will be back with the more stories about food and wine, family and friends, and back to a more traditional schedule. As we say in Armenian Shnorhavor Surb Tsnund.

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Two Bocksbeutals

Posted on December 24, 2017 by thewineraconteur

I received two splits of wine that are in the historic bocksbeutal bottles. The two wines were a gift from The Wine Raconteur Jr and he brought them over from a business trip that he had in Germany. The gift was greatly appreciated, because it is now a real pain to try to pack wine for a flight home. You may ask, and it is understandable that you have never heard of a bocksbeutal, but this wine bottle is even recognized by the Common Market as a distinct item for Franconian wines, a wine district in Bavaria and unlike most German wines. Franconian wines are typically described as dryer, more bodied and having more terroir than is usually encountered in the tall slender bottles that most German wines are marketed in. The bocksbeutal is a short, squat rounded bottle that looks more like a flask, and the half bottles even look squatter, if I may say so.


The first bottle is Weingut Geiger and Sohne Muller-Thurgau Kabinett Halbtrocken 2016. Weingut Geiger and Sohne was founded in 1850 and is the oldest winery in Thungersheim am Main. One of the unique differences about Franconian wines is that Riesling is not the leading grape of choice. As one can tell from the label the grape varietal is Muller-Thurgau, which is now the leading grape of the area. This wine has the Pradikat of Kabinett, which means that the proprietor feels that this wine is better than the basic wine, but it is not a late harvest pick like a Spatlese, and that this wine will have even more nuance and traits of what they feel is true for them. The wine is also “semi-dry” or “half-dry” as the label indicates “Halbtrocken.” I could not find any production notes on this wine, but perhaps by the time I drink it, I will.


The second half-bottle is Burgerspital Wurzburg Silvaner Trocken 2015. Burgerspital is one of Germany’s oldest charitable foundations that owns a wine estate, and this wine comes from Wurzburg, probably the most known and important village of the area. This wine is made from the Silvaner grape, which used to be the leading varietal for Franconia. This wine is listed as “dry” from the notation “Trocken,” and some writers have likened the wines of Franconia to be more like a French white wine compared to the “classic” German white wines. I am looking forward to trying both of these wines, probably with the same dinner, I just have to think of something special to pair it with, and once again a big thank you to The Wine Raconteur Jr, his Bride and his family.

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I Am Impressed

Posted on December 22, 2017 by thewineraconteur

We went to have a Christmas dinner with The Wine Raconteur Jr and his family. He chose his own nom de plume when he wrote his first guest article for me years back. I have known this young man since I had a hand in hiring him when he was a student at the university back in the day and I have been impressed with his knowledge and maturity ever since. I have watched him over the years grow and observed qualities that have made him a well-rounded individual with many interests, and some of them intertwine with my own interests. My Bride has also taken him as family from the first time she met him and we have had the honor to attend his wedding and to watch his family grow and prosper.


We had dinner over at their house, and I think it was partially so that his children could keep themselves entertained with their stuff. We started off with some appetizers of a home-made tomato based dip with crackers and some Fontina cheese. It turned out that the dip was made with Eggplant and it was the first time since I was a child that I have eaten Eggplant and the dip was excellent, so I may have to rethink my stance on Eggplant. The entrée for the evening was Lasagna, another dish that I do not like, as most restaurants have always slopped on the Ricotta and the Mozzarella and made an unpalatable dish for me. Once again, I was totally impressed with the dish as it was not what I was expecting and perhaps it was a Sicilian version that I had not encountered before, but my man, The Wine Raconteur Jr and his charming Bride did an excellent job changing my viewpoint on two dishes that I have not had for maybe forty years. Afterwards we had a tart of pecans and cranberries and he did remember that my Bride and I are delicate and require decaffeinated coffee.


We brought the wine for dinner, even though I knew that he would have something special, but we could not let them cater the entire meal without some input from us. We started out with a bottle of Spanish Rosé from a new region for me, which was fine with the appetizers. The Bodegas Cesar Principe Clarete de Luna 2016 is a very pretty deep pink color in the bottle. I could not find much production notes for this wine, but I must presume that the skins were left after the pressing for a couple of days to get this deep color. The winery has been in production since 1982 in Cigales, which is just north of the Duero in Castilla y Leon and this wine had five thousand cases produced. The wine is eighty percent Tempranillo and then evenly split among Verdejo and Albillo. The wine had a good nose and a soft finish and I did not see any problems with it when paired with the tomato-based Eggplant dip. Our second wine, I might have changed, if I had known the entrée of choice, but it still worked out well, even though the dish was Sicilian and the wine was French. We had a bottle of Domaine Savoye Morgon Cote du Py 2005 which is from the Beaujolais region and is made from the Gamay grape. Morgon is one of the ten Cru du Beaujolais districts and Cote du Py is a Climat of Morgon. Cote du Py is considered the best in Morgon and is known for having excellent aging potential. The hill of Py is the highest point of Morgon and was once a volcano and hence the ground is basically basalt, which imparts a unique terroir to the wine. The wine had a nice color, good nose and a decent finish, and after pouring out half of the bottle among the glasses on the table, I realized that I should have decanted the bottle, but it was too late, after seeing the tell-tale sediment line from where the bottled had rested since it had been cellared, so we worked around it. There was enough richness in the wine that it worked quite well with the dish and it was not showing any signs of age. It was an excellent evening and we had a great time, and The Wine Raconteur Jr impressed me that he could make an old curmudgeon change his opinion not once, but twice that night.

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A Doctor in the House

Posted on December 20, 2017 by thewineraconteur

We are busting the buttons off of our shirts and blouses, as my Bride’s God-daughter is now a PHD. I wrote earlier about how we went to observe her defense of her doctorate thesis and I said it was all Greek to me, but it made perfect sense to her and the people that understood it. We went to see her get her award and her “hooding.” The afternoon was full of pomp and circumstance from the moment they all entered the arena preceded by a marching bagpipe procession. The ceremony was for the Masters and Doctorate graduates. There were twelve of us there to witness the honor and we got there very early to block out our seats right in the front two rows.


There were even more that came out to celebrate afterwards at the newest location of Bigalora Cucina in Rochester. We have been to several of the Bigalora locations and the food is very good in a lively casual atmosphere. As the place settings state the fast terms of their secret success is “72 hours, 900 degrees, 90 seconds.” The pizza dough requires 72 hours before being used, the wood burning ovens are set at 900 degrees and the pizza bakes for 90 seconds; all to deliver the lightest pizza crust that you have ever had. As all of the guests arrived and before we went to where our party was going to be, we all sat in the bar area, munching on focaccia bread and fried Shishito peppers with sea salt. Afterwards we all sat down for family style servings of salad, endless supply of three different pizzas of Pepperoni, Margherita and Funghi. There were also platters of Rigatoni with both Marinara and Bolognese sauces. The meal was finished with Frittelle, fried Bigalora dough with house made chocolate hazelnut spread and a strawberry compote. There was also a large sheet cake with the proper salutations on it.


While we were in the bar the guest of honor tried one of the house wines. This house wine is not only featured at Bigalora Cucina, but also at Bacco Ristorante. The Baia Estate Rosé 2016 had a beautiful color and nose, but alas, I can find no information about it, other than it is being produced in the Leelanau County area of Michigan and made to Old World standards. My Bride and I started with some Spanish Coffees and then we got a bottle of wine. We had the Feudi di San Gregoria Greco di Tufo DOCG 2014. The Feudi di San Gregoria winery is a young winery established in 1986 in one of the oldest wine regions of Italy, namely Campagnia. Campagnia’s most famous white wine is Greco di Tufo, which as the name suggests is a clone of Greco Bianco brought over to Italy by the Greeks centuries ago, and there are only eight villages that are allowed to use this DOCG designation. The Tufo refers to the tough volcanic soil which imparts its terroir in the form of minerals that blend easily with the acidity of the grapes. By law this wine must be eighty-five percent Greco di Tufo, but the rest may be another old resident grape of the area Coda di Volpe Bianco. I think that it was fitting that the doctoral thesis and the wine varietal were both Greek to me, but we couldn’t be happier with our new Doctor.

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An Invitation

Posted on December 18, 2017 by thewineraconteur

Most of the times that we go out for dinner, we usually meet at a restaurant. One of the couples that came to our house for Thanksgiving invited us over to their house. This couple are old friends of my Bride and precede our time together. They ended up moving from the East side to the West side, which is rather unique in the Detroit area, most people just end up moving farther east or west and a few move north and some move Downriver; if you look at a map of Detroit, if one moves south they would be in Windsor, Ontario, Canada and that is the only point where Canada is south of the border.


So, we drove over to the other couple’s home which is only the next community over from us, and we met their neighbors, who had also been invited over for the dinner as well. As is customary, during some small talk, we found mutual associates and locations that we had in common. The other couple had brought a salad that started the meal off. The main entrée of the evening was a roasted pork tenderloin that was cooked perfectly and it was with a gravy and a couple of vegetables on the side. There was also dessert, which my Bride and I both passed on, as we were full, and normally we don’t have dessert.


Most of you won’t be surprised that we brought the wine for dinner, and not knowing the menu, I chose a white and a red wine. The white wine was Joullian Roger Rose Chardonnay 2014 from Joullian Vineyards Ltd. and the fruit came from the Roger Rose Vineyard in the Arroyo Seco AVA. The funny thing is that we had just received another wine from Joullian from our wine club “A Taste of Monterey.” We started off with this wine while having some appetizers and a chat in the living room. The fruit of this wine is actually from Dijon Chardonnay clones and since the vines are twenty to forty years old they survived the drought year of 2014. They have strived to maintain the concept of a Burgundy Chardonnay by using French Oak that has been cured for three years to minimize the oakiness that could occur. There were one-hundred-twenty-five cases made of this wine and it was delightful and it still had a lot of freshness to savor. The second bottle that I opened at the same time to let it breath was Pessagno Pinot Noir Four Boys Vineyard 2013, and I have had their Pessagno Chardonnay Sleepy Hollow Vineyard 2010. This wine comes from the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA and I cannot say enough about the Pinot Noir wines that I have enjoyed from this area. This wine was made from lightly crushed berries with about forty percent of the berries left whole for fermentation. They used both Burgundian yeast and native yeast cultures and they made this wine Sur Lees and stirred over an eleven-month period. There were one-hundred-fifty cases made of this wine and while it was a good Pinot Noir, I thought it was a little light for what I have come to expect from the Santa Lucia Highlands. All in all, a charming evening, even if my Bride thought that a certain Raconteur controlled the conversation, and perhaps she was right.

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Some Reserve Wines

Posted on December 16, 2017 by thewineraconteur

I just opened up my new carton of wines from “A Taste of Monterey” which is my wine club that we have belonged to for years. We opted for the Private Reserve Club which delivers three bottles of wine four times a year. Our thoughts were that we would get smaller boutique type wines that would not make it to Michigan otherwise and so far, we have been correct. I also have to say that we have been pleased with the selections and this shipment will make us smile in the future as well.


The first bottle is from a new winery to me, Comanche Cellars is a small winery that produces under a thousand cases of wine, and it is named after the horse that Michael Simon had when he was ten years old, and Comanche’s horse shoes are on the label. The bottle of Comanche Cellars Chevera Vineyard Pinot Noir 2015 comes from the Arroyo Seco AVA, and the vineyard is owned by Frank Stanek who named the vineyard after his two granddaughters Charlotte and Eva and the vineyard is high above the Arroyo Seco valley. The brochure claims that it has strong nose and flavors, as well as muscular tannins. The aging potential for this wine is six to seven years. There were one-hundred-thirty-four cases produced and the label even gives the count of the bottle, as was bottle 566 of 1675.


The second bottle was from a winery that I have had before and I am looking forward to this bottle. Joullian Vineyards is in the Carmel Valley and they grow multiple clones of each varietal at different elevations and soils to add extra nuance to their wines. The Joullian Family Reserve Syrah 2014 is from a one-acre parcel of the “Estrella River” clone grown at the highest elevation of the vineyard. The wine was aged for thirteen months in Center of France thin-staved barrels and racked every three months, it was then bottled unrefined and unfiltered, so it will probably require decanting when it is opened. There were one-hundred-ninety-nine cases produced and the aging potential is seven to eight years.


The last bottle was also from a new winery that was established in 2015 by a band of artists, craftspeople, and lovers of life brought their wandering imaginations to a piece of land in Carmel, California. They named this location Folktale Winery and Vineyards. The Folktale Arroyo Seco Chardonnay 2015 has a whimsical label truthful to the image of the winery. The wine began in a vat and then was aged for six months in French Oak of which twenty percent was new. The wine is described as creamy with mineral notes drawing from the Le Mistral Vineyard on their estate. This wine has the largest production of the three wines that I received at just under a thousand cases, and the aging potential is claimed for five to six years, though I hardly ever have a Chardonnay that long in the house. There will be three more wines that I will look forward to having in the forthcoming years.

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Hiding Out

Posted on December 14, 2017 by thewineraconteur

For some odd reason some people find me shy, while most would describe me as gregarious. The other night, I think the first would be a better fit. It was the first Friday night in December and tradition holds that my Bride was having her annual Lady’s Christmas Party. This little party has been going on since before we met, and even though she frets about all the minor little things, it always ends up being a nice party. They do all sorts of things like games, hopes and inspirations, group photos and a gift exchange. I am wise enough to realize that it is time for me to be a docile church mouse and hide in my office, until it is all over. Even though, I probably know everyone there, I just don’t fit in, and I can accept that feeling one night a year.


I hide in my office and kind of keep the door slightly closed, because we are not the best at filing and getting things put away, so that door is usually shut for any event at the house. I usually wait until I can hear that most of the guests have arrived, because that is my cue to go downstairs, say a group “hello” and fill up a couple of plates of food and go back into exile. The food part is my excursion into the unknown. All of the women bring a platter of food, a type of “pot-luck” affair, and even though I don’t like to generalize, women tend to like appetizers and finger-food, as opposed to stick on the ribs dishes. So, each year, I maneuver around salads and casseroles, foraging for enough to hold me, until the morning. I mean it would be in bad taste to order a delivered pizza. I normally can make a meal on a platter of shrimp cocktails, little meatballs, charcuterie and cheese, chicken wings and some of the best deviled eggs, year after year the winner, but it would be tacky to take the whole platter upstairs with me.


Man does live by bread alone, and I have to say that most women don’t either. The table that is set up in the library had multiple bottles of wine open, with adjacent wine glasses, and those little glass jewelry charms that one can put on the stem to identify the glass that you are using. When I am home, I tend to always use the same wine glass, and Lord knows that I am a creature of habit. I looked at the assortment of wines that were opened and there was a couple of popular sweet wines of Moscato and Riesling. There were also a couple that I recognize would be nice to write about, as they were not expensive, but different, and popular priced. The first wine that I tried was Josh Cellars Chardonnay 2016, a California Chardonnay from a winery that was founded in 2007 and a self-described negocient brand, as they have no vineyards. The fruit was harvested with a blend of Mendocino and Monterey county grapes. The winery was founded by Joseph Carr and named for his father who was a volunteer fireman, and the winery is dedicated to raising funds for assorted volunteer firefighter organizations. This wine is under the umbrella of the much larger Deutsch Family Wines and Spirits group. The wine was a good Chardonnay and very easy to drink, especially with the assortment of foods that I was nibbling on. The other wine that I tried and from the label art, was one that I had my doubts about, but I was game for trying. The Cherry Tart Pinot Noir 2012 was from Jason Woodbridge who also makes a single vineyard Pinot Noir called Cherry Pie Wines. He calls this wine a “multi-single vineyard blend.” The fruit came from single vineyards in Sonoma, Monterey and Santa Barbara counties and aged in French oak. While not stellar, it had a nice flavor from a very finicky grape and like I said, it was affordable and good for a crowd. I was able to hide most of the night, until I was summoned to take a group photo, and all the woman crowded around the dining room table and I took a couple of shots, to make sure that my Bride could find one that she approved of, since the very next morning she took all of the photos and had them developed so that she could make another page for her photo album devoted to her annual party.

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