Not the wall that causes a lot of political fighting, but the main wall in my cellar, and all the wines have been identified and inventoried, now all that leaves is four other racks in that room, plus the wine vault in the family room. When all was said and done, I ended up packing and unpacking eighteen cases of wine, and let me tell you, that my back is rather tender from all that bending, stooping and stretching. I tried to get it all organized. All the French wine, and then the domestic wines by varietal, winery and vintage, followed by the rest of the Old World, and then the balance of the new world, and even all the Splits are done. At least I have a better idea of what may or may not make the cut, but even then, I have fooled by what we have discovered as I have been slowly raiding the cellar, and still doesn’t seem to be making a dent in the collection. I don’t know if that is good or bad, but I will accept it as a good sign.
I have plenty, I hope, of the plastic or cardstock tags that can go over the corked end of the bottle, so that each bottle doesn’t need to be disturbed again for a while. Supposedly the tags were supposed to be such that I could write on them, and then wipe them clean to use over and over, that didn’t work for me. I was using “Post-its” and applying them to the hanging tags, but over the years there were different sizes being used and they would stick out beyond the tag and the secondary stickers would fall off and eventually be on the floor. I found a size that I could actually get two labels from and they wouldn’t stick out beyond the hang tag. Then with my spidery printing, I came up with a template that I could include the vintage, the grape or type, the region, the name and the winery. All of this information was also printed up on lined paper, by column and row. I will then get it entered onto a spreadsheet, so that if I have to make subtractions or additions, it will be easier on the computer.
It was more work than I had anticipated, as I had to box up half of the wall to create a work zone and did column by column and I was working out of cases that I first sorted by varietal, and then started sorting by vintage, and thank God for sturdy empty cartons that I could put on the floor and then place another carton on top of, to make it easier on my back, as well as the different heights of the steps on the staircase going into the basement. I don’t know if it makes me appear to be smart or to be lazy or maybe a combination of both, but it was a work out, and so will all the other racks that I will do, in the future. I guess that I have a certain amount of pride, as I actually built the entire cellar room from scratch, as it was just an empty corner of the basement with poured concrete walls. If nothing else, I will work up a thirst.
Raiding the cellar seems to be a popular diversion for the last couple of months. First all the restaurants were closed and then they were only open for carry-out and then finally they were allowed to open, but at thirty to fifty percent capacity. So, the wine bloggers that have been collecting, not hoarding, wine have been able to survive in relative peace and harmony, as long as they have food to go along with the wine. It has been an interesting time for observations and for pundits as well, but I will try to refrain from getting into the fray. I have had the good fortune to have retired, before all of this insanity occurred and I have been taking a good inventory of what we have amassed, as well as reorganizing the entire collection. I had cases of wine all over the basement, as I had to box up some of the wine, to make room on the wine rack to start recording every wine, and I am doing it first old school with lined paper and pen. It is also been a great time to start pulling some of the wines that had been forgotten about, so that we can drink them, and hopefully they haven’t gone bad. At the moment, I think that we have discovered four bottles, so that is not too bad, but I am sure that by the time this is over, we may find more that have not survived, just like the restaurants and businesses.
One of the first things that I did was try to get all the white wines together, so that they can find a new home up in the wine vault in the family room, which is another job in itself. The white wines have been a bit scarier, as the odds are that they won’t age as well as a First Growth or a Barolo, which need time for the tannins to soften and mellow out. I found a bottle from a wine shop that went out of business long prior to what is going on. The wine was imported by American Wine Distributors, Inc. of San Francisco, California and they are out of business, as I was doing some research. The wine was made by Fetish Wines Pty Ltd. of Adelaide, South Australia; and they also appear to be out of business. A very catchy name for a company and surely it would have attracted attention on the shelves. Rolf Binder was the winemaker of the wines by the company and I have found Wine Spectator scores for some of the wines at 89 and 90, and they also had acclaim by Robert Parker. Some of the wines had very interesting names and labels such as: Moscato Field of Dreams, Playmates Grenache, Playmates Shiraz, Playmates SGM, the Watcher, the Wacker and Tawdry Shiraz. All kind of intriguing labels and names, to say the least.
Which leads me to the wine that I discovered in my collection Fetish Wines “The V Spot” Viognier Barossa Valley 2008. I have to say, that even the back label was rather intriguing in its write-up and ballyhoo. “You definitely know it when you find it, and, once you find it you will never forget it. Fetish “The V Spot” Viognier is the sort of wine that you’ll want to find over and over again.” I had good fortune with another older Viognier, but I did have my concerns as this wine had a screw cap, but then so do some of the Chateau d’Yquem wines. The wine still had a floral nose, though not as pronounced as a fresh Viognier, and neither of us could put into words what the wine was, but it was delicious, smooth and rather mysterious, perhaps we had found the V Spot, and alas never to find it again. Another happy ending for a twelve-year-old white wine, that has no provenance per se, but it surpassed all expectations, so a good lesson and a fun moment, and in these times, we do need fun and good news.
It was one of those nights when we just wanted to go out for a change of pace. We haven’t been going out as much as we used to, before the lockdown, but we still try. Also, we have stockpiles of gift cards, that we should really start using up, in case some of these restaurants join all of the other businesses that are now the way of the Packard Motor Car Company. I would be a shame to lose that money or to see any more businesses be forced to shut their doors after coming this far. The gift cards are like found money, and we may as well redeem them, and there is a large amount of them in a box from maybe a half dozen different places.
We went to one of our usual places, when we usually go see a movie, but we haven’t seen one of those in ages as well. Though drive-ins were finally allowed to open, I guess they just have to keep the cars six feet apart or something like that, but they were actually closed as well. Oh well, no movie, but a quick dinner and it is rather sad to see how some restaurants even after removing or closing down tables are still empty. We put on our masks and walk to the booth and as soon as the water glasses were brought to the table, the masks were off. My Bride was going to go with a salad, but whenever I can get her to get something else, I am happy, since she makes the best Caesar Salad that I have ever had, I always wonder why she would want a poor imitation. I found a dish that I thought she would like, as she enjoys that vegetable that people grow in their backyard gardens and then spend a couple of weeks pawning it off on friends, enemies and strangers; yes, I am talking about zucchini. She had their Shrimp Scampi Zucchini dish. Zucchini ribbons sautéed with lemon, garlic and white wine, tossed with fresh Italian parsley and then mixed with Shrimp Scampi, though she was asking about the dish, the waiter suggested that perhaps she would like if they made the dish with have Zucchini and half Angel Hair Pasta and my Bride was in Seventh Heaven. I actually tried some of her dish and it was better than I had expected, as I am not a fan of zucchini, in case you couldn’t have noticed, whereas my Bride likes all vegetables. I had the Jambalaya Linguini as I enjoy some heat in my dinner. A dish of blackened chicken and shrimp, Andouille sausage and Tasso ham all tossed in a Cajun Sauce with the linguini. I seldom see linguini on menus anymore, ever since Neil Simon introduced “The Odd Couple” on the Great White Way. If you don’t know what I am talking about, you need to watch the original film version to appreciate, why I am smiling as I type this.
Since, we were only having a quick dinner, and this restaurant offers a nine-ounce pour, if chosen, we each had a different wine. My Bride had the Francis Ford Coppola “Rosso & Bianco” Pinot Grigio California 2018. The Francis Ford Coppola of the Godfather films fame, among others, bought and resurrected the old Inglenook Estate, and his Rubicon is now back under the original name of Inglenook. A little side note, is that Francis Ford Coppola was born in Detroit, as his father was a musician with the Detroit Philharmonic Symphony, and Henry Ford of the Ford Motor Company was a major benefactor of the Symphony and he was also instrumental in the creation of the Ford Hospital System of Detroit, where Francis was born, and hence the middle name that sounds rather incongruous, but now makes sense, just in case you ever wondered about it. The winery was so successful with the several different label series and at several different price points that Coppola moved all of the popular price wines to Sonoma along with his film museum to Sonoma, and even tossed in a bocce court there as well. This particular wine series “Rosso & Bianco” is his opening price and carries a California designation. The wine also has some Sauvignon Blanc and is a bulk wine that offers a bang for the buck, and my Bride has been on a Pinot Grigio kick these days. I had the Clos du Bois Chardonnay California 2018 which is another safe bet. Clos du Bois is a California wine producer that was originally and still located in Sonoma County. It was founded by Frank Woods in 1974 and his first wines were a Chardonnay and a Pinot Noir. In 1978 he introduced the first Sonoma “Bordeaux Style” wine. In 1988, Frank Woods sold the winery and it is now owned by the monster beverage corporation Constellation Brands, Inc., which also owns among the many labels, Robert Mondavi Winery, Kim Crawford and Ruffino. This was just an easy drinking Chardonnay and it paired well with the heat of the Jambalaya. Once in a while, it is good just to get out have a quick meal.
I really enjoy belonging to a wine club, actually we belong to three and the Fine Wine Source of Livonia offers the biggest selection of surprises. I say that because the wines that we receive are probably not wines that I would readily grab off of the shelve. I think that there is a bit of snobbery in anyone that starts collecting wines, they look for certain areas and grapes that they are comfortable with, as well as certain price points which is very important, unless you happen to be an athlete, celebrity, or politician. If it wasn’t for a wine club, I would probably miss out on a lot of wines, and one of the perks of this particular club is that you get case price, even if you only buy one bottle of wine. Also, there are the chances to discover a great wine for the house, that is still so good, you can offer it to guests as well, and don’t have to hoard it for yourself. And I am really looking forward to when we can start having wine tastings again, which is a major part of this wine shop’s allure and enticement. How many times, have we ended up adding to the cellar, because there was a wine that was just a knockout, even during a quick tasting. As I have been going through the wine cellar, rearranging and doing an inventory, I will kind of smile when I get to some wines resting and remind myself of the time when these were bought.
Horse Heaven Hills in Washington State is from what I understand, is one of those regions that evokes the old John Wayne and Randolph Scott westerns of the Thirties, in regard to the landscape and scenery. The land and terrain and the Columbia River Gorge offer a dramatic Wild West that was romantically recorded for years in the oaters. The early pioneers found great ranching in the early 1900’s and then it all came to a screeching halt when fierce winds and scorching temperatures wiped out even the grazing areas for decades afterwards. After the population left for greener pastures, and that is basically the impetus for naming the estate the Dead Canyon Ranch. Back in the Seventies a farmer got the idea that since wine grapes only produce great juice, if they suffer, this was one of the harshest tracts of land. If grapes are grown in rich soils, the grapes become flabby with no character and they become table grapes, because if you ever taste wine grapes at the time of harvest, you will never want to taste an ordinary grape again, I liken it to plucking sugar cubes off of the vine.
Dead Canyon Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon, Horse Heaven Hills 2017 is one of the labels by Mercer Estates of Washington State. Mercer Estates planted their first wine grapes in Horse Heave Hills in 1972. They have taken advantage of the soil and the desert climate to produce some elegant tannin Cabernet Sauvignon, as well as some other wines. Their first vintage was in 2005 at Prosser, Washington. They have a state-of-the-art winery giving the winemakers the luxury of temperature control and the ideal settings for fermentation. Their barrel rooms allow for long and varied aging, so they can do things their way, and as they see fit. This wine is described as offering a nose of black currants, blackberry and blueberry fruit, and secondary notes of graphite and roasted black truffles. A gutsy wine, with integrated tannins and very affordable. This wine has been touted as being perfect to pair with grilled lamb chops or steaks.
I was getting ready to stop by the Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan and pick up my August wine club selection, as I am finally getting back on track. Perhaps soon there will be wine tastings again and the ability for every business up and down the food chain to start making a living again. Since the state is collecting valuable tax money on wine, you would think that would be high on the list, because tax revenues came to a screeching halt, when everything was basically shut down during the lockdown. Also, because I had ordered another case of everyday white wine, back when the lockdown began, to try to help a local business, and my case and probably another forty-nine cases of it came in the door as well.
Giacomo Sperone SPA was founded in 1911 by Antonio Sperone Sr., who had started a craft-made production of Vermouth and fortified wines in a small cellar in the outskirts of Turin. He was also selling bulk wine to customers and consumers and he started off with horse drawn wagons, but there was a slight pause during The Great War. The company kept expanding production and business, and Antonio’s son Giacomo became an oenologist and began innovations and initiating changes in the way business was proceeding. In 1960, Giacomo built a new facility in Cusano Milanino and added Asti sparkling wine to the list of products. In 1983, the family purchased seventy-five acres of prime vineyards in Piedmont and built their current facility in Mombaruzzo near Monferrato. In the Seventies, Giacomo’s sons Paolo and Antonio joined the family business. They began Tenute Nairano, which is centered on the production of quality wines from the Piedmont. In the last ten years they also began Caravello Limoncello, one of the leading brands marketed in America.
As the family business grew and expanded, one of the newer wines is “FS” Franco Serra Rosato Piemonte DOC 2018. Piemonte has more DOCG and DOC appellations than any other area in Italy, with a wide range of special grapes designated for certain areas. Barbera is a workhorse for the Monferrato region and certain designations even have the name of the grape as part of the title. This particular wine is almost entirely Barbera, except for five percent which is Dolcetto. This Rosé wine is described as being elegant, light-bodied and dry with fruity, floral aromas, sweet cherries, raspberries and watermelon flavors with a bright acidity. It is touted to be served chilled and perfect as an aperitif or with appetizers and first courses.
Every morning around seven, we go out for our daily 3K walk and it takes us about forty minutes and then we come home, clean up and get dressed and have breakfast. Our normal routine now, though I don’t have to get as dressed up anymore as I am retired and making sure that I get some of the money that I put into it, for fifty years. When the lockdown began and it was an experimental short term, that no one expected would become a life sentence, we use to see plenty of people in our subdivision walking hand in hand, walking their dogs and seeing kids on their bicycles. Now as it has dragged on and there are still no legally sanctioned gymnasiums to try to keep some semblance of physical fitness, one would think that walking, and for those that want to be cool jogging would be on the rise. Instead there is this new ennui and as we walk, I have started to observe and count the other people, and this morning there were three people; one woman about twenty years my senior pulling weeds and one man about twenty years younger than me jogging. Even the dogs have given up and have become complacent to house arrest. After seeing how svelte my Bride has become, I am attempting to join in her endeavor to lose weight, though I probably won’t be as successful as she, as she is now at the weight that she was when she married me. I want to scream when I am outside “where did all the people go?” The third person, might respond to my cry, or he may not, as he is usually sitting out on his patio smoking a cigar, and I wish that he would smoke a good cigar, because I can remember how good a quality cigar smelled.
I am still trying to keep busy, as I have noticed that there is plenty of inertia and people are getting depressed from being in a mandated solitary confinement, but one would think that they would at least want to get out and walk, get some sun and some fresh air. I am sure that the convicts that were released from the real jails early, because they might get the disease, are enjoying their time in the sun and fresh air. Anyways, one of the projects that I am doing, besides making sure that I still have an article every other day, is rearranging the wine cellar and actually recording what is down there by column and row, the old school way with lined paper and a pen. So far, I have discovered only three bottles that were not drinkable, but I am sure that there will be more, but out of a collection of almost fifteen-hundred, I am hoping the odds are pretty good. I went and boxed up some of the wine for the short term, to make some sorting room, and I am making new neck labels for every wine as well.
As I was moving some of the bottles to make room, my hand got very sticky grabbing the neck of one bottle, the plastic seal was still secure, but some of the wine had seeped out, and if you look at some older bottles you will see that the volume in the bottle looks low, and that is called ullage, and it is mentioned by the catalogues when one is bidding on wines at an auction. I don’t remember the bottle at all, so I will presume that it was given as a gift and forgotten about, as alas these things do happen. The wine is Weingut Weinhaus Gebr. Endlich Rudesheimer Kosterlay Rotwein Kabinett 1990 from the Rheingau and though it isn’t stated, I will presume that it was made with Pinot Noir, which accounts for five percent of the grapes grown in Rudesheim in the Rheingau. From what I can gather from the label and doing internet searches, the wine was made for a small hotel that had “strangers’ room” availability. I took the bottle and placed it in one of the refrigerators to chill, and when I went to open the bottle, I removed the plastic seal, there was no cork at the neck of the bottle. The nose from the bottle was not what I would call enticing, but I did pour some of the wine into a glass and even the color was wrong, as it was dark with a brown cast, and most red wines as they age tend to lighten in color. I did not attempt a taste, as the wine continued to open up in the glass, it became even less enticing. When I poured the wine down the drain, I discovered that there was a cork sitting in the bottom of the bottle. This was just an addition to the new ennui of the times, and it makes me yearn for the days of “Angel Eyes” and the old ennui.
We were in Ann Arbor for the first time in ages meeting with The Caller and his charming wife. It is the first time that I can think of, where driving in Ann Arbor was free and easy, as it tended to be more of a white-knuckle experience in the past. It was even easy to find a parking lot and spaces near the restaurant, and yes I had my mask in one of the interior pockets of my sport coat; I think that is why I enjoy wearing sport coats so much, because it makes it easier to carry the little things that one needs and not to have bulging pockets or a handbag. What really surprised me, was that basically everyone was walking outside in the fresh air with a mask on; my Bride and I walk every morning outside without a mask on, and that concept has been even blessed by the powers that be, but the minions must have missed the memo. As I got to the outside door I hastily put on my mask and went in to secure our table as I think all four of us were looking forward to this evening. As we were crossing the street, The Caller had honked his horn at us, so my Bride waited outside for them, while I got our table.
We had requested the French Room, which is our favorite spot in The Earle. I have to explain that the Earle in the basement of a building, so it is not we are asking for a table with a view, actually the only ambience to the room is some large wall decorations utilizing corks, and I am sure that they have a large supply of them and the several arrangements of empty, dusty vintage wine bottles that I or any wine lover would enjoy having. It seems like whenever other diners are taken to the French Room, they request a different table, I don’t know why, but it is always the case; and I know that I had showered before getting dressed for dinner. I am not sure how long The Earle has been open, but if it means anything, we own a book of matches from there and they have had The Wine Spectator Award since 1999. They offer 1,100 different wines with an inventory around 19,500 bottles including splits and magnums.
The Earle offers dishes with an emphasis on French and Italian offerings. We all started off with some orders of Roasted Garlic, crostini and with assorted sides, and the perfect way to start the conversation off on the right foot, as there was so much to catch up on. The Caller and his wife both had salads after the appetizers, while my Bride and I just get the conversation going. The two women both had repeats of one of The Earle’s top dishes, which is Coquilles St. Jacques al crème de Xeres, or Sea Scallops sautéed with mushrooms and garlic, pan-sauced with Sherry and cream with rice. The Caller went with Chicken Saltimbocca, lightly breaded chicken breasts with Prosciutto, pan-sauced with white wine, lemon and sage. The Caller made my decision a little easier, by telling me that he could handle whatever wine I wanted to order with his entrée, a true gentleman of the old school. I had to order a dish that I have missed ever since the lockdown began, as we don’t have it at home. I had the Sautéed Duck Breast, boneless and prepared medium rare, pan-sauced with Applejack Brandy, Cider, apples and brown sugar with rum plumped raisins served with a potato-turnip puree. I was a bit concerned about the dish, as I was afraid that it might be too sweet, but our waiter assured me, that it was savory instead of sweet (and he was right). Afterwards there was an order of house-made Basel Sorbet with four spoons, as you can see, we practiced social distancing.
The Earle was using the computer icons for their menus, where you hovered the camera of your phone over the icon and the menu appeared on the phone, and that worked perfectly for the menu, but it was not a good idea for the wine list, which is very extensive, and eventually they brought me a wine menu in a loose-leaf binder with each page in plastic, so that it could be wiped down, because I am such a pain-in-the-arse. I knew that as soon as I started looking at the wine list, that they were all going to gang up on me to get a bottle of the Maison Chanzy Bouzeron Clos de la Fortune Monopole 2015, but alas they did not have any more of that wine. I found a white wine that I thought would be very interesting and then the women could finish it off with their entrées. We started with Domaine Fourrey Chablis Premier Cru Cote de Lechet 2015. The Cote de Lechet Premier Cru is on the west bank and is a non-official designation, but non-the-less highly regarded and esteemed climat of Chablis Premier Cru. Domaine Fourrey is twenty-five hectares of vineyards that has been in the same family for four generations. The wine was a beautiful and crisp dry Chablis with a finish of flint in the terroir, that we all found fascinating. The second wine, was ordered as soon as the Chablis was opened and four additional wine glasses appeared for this wine after it had time to open up. We were sharing a bottle of Domaine Blain-Gagnard Chassagne-Montrachet 2015. Domaine Blain-Gagnard is a producer in the village of Chassagne-Montrachet and founded in the 1980’s. They cultivate eight hectares of vineyards with a mixture of young and old vines, and they produce three Grand Crus and eight Premier Crus. The Pinot Noir crops are harvested prior to the Chardonnay crops and the red grapes are destemmed and macerated for about two weeks, before they start harvesting the white. The Pinot Noir harvest and wine production accounts for twenty percent of the crops. The wine was excellent, affordable, and dare I say, without sounding totally selfish, perfect for the duck breasts. It was appreciated by all at the table, because it was what a good Pinot Noir should be. Unfortunately, the evening ended, but we already have our next date planned and it will be a special dinner, even if I do say.
We have been doing Zoom sessions quite a bit these days, along with probably the rest of the country that has been under lockdown. It is a great way for the families to keep in touch, and we have sessions from four people up to about twelve or thirteen, sometimes the screen resembles an old show called Hollywood Squares, though without the clever repartee. Even though we can now start seeing people and visiting without the concern of neighbors potentially reporting us to the authorities, we are still maintaining the sessions. Outside of the usual conversations, I was asked if I could give a lesson on the proper way to open a bottle of wine, as one of the nephews just got a job working at a private country club.
Earlier that day, I had sent his Mother a photo of a “Waiter’s Corkscrew” and suggested that he invest in a good quality version, as the most important part is the corkscrew itself, as I have had some where the screw ruins a cork as it attempts to screw into the cork. There I was teaching a lesson in wine service etiquette at the table, not that I have ever been a waiter, but I have certainly had enough wine bottles opened for me over the years. Explaining each step using the tool, seemed like overkill, but I thought it was necessary, especially since it was being done on a video screen, instead of being in person. There have even been times when I have offered to do the service, when I realize that the waiter or the waitress is a novice. Everyone has to learn it sometime, and who wants to carry a bulky battery powered new-fangled one in their pocket, when a Waiter’s Corkscrew is so sleek and elegant.
Well since, I had to demonstrate, and even though with dinners at home all the time, we have a collection of bottles of wine opened and at various levels of volume, I did need another fresh “lamb for the slaughter” I guess you could say. I went and grabbed one of the newer white wines that have been chilling, I didn’t want an older one in case the cork started crumbling, as I figured that would not happen at the country club. I went and demonstrated on a bottle of Reserve de Castelnau Entre-deux-Mers 2017 from Chateau de Castelnau. Entre-deux-Mers translates to “between the two seas,” but here the two water ways are the Garonne and Dordogne Rivers of the Bordeaux region, and the area is one of the hardest to keep track of, because it has several small appellations, and the region grows red and wine, dry and sweet, and then some of the wines go under the generic listing of either Bordeaux or Bordeaux Superiore. The appellation for Entre-deux-Mers is actually for white wines made from Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Muscadelle and Ugni Blanc. This particular wine was sixty percent Semillon, thirty percent Sauvignon Blanc and ten percent Muscadelle. This was just a pretty and enjoyable wine, especially for the Summer time and it was refreshing for both of us, especially, because my Bride was such a kibitzer during the presentation of opening the bottle, that she had worked up a thirst as well as I had.
With the situation as it is, I have been trying to keep busy and away from the essential worker in the house. Writing a blog, is still fun, and it probably is a God-send, because I have been so used to working for all of these years, that I have to give myself goals, so that I don’t get lazy. We get up and walk about two miles in the morning, and we water the lawn while we are walking, and it may be the first time that we are actually growing more than dirt, but there are a couple of patches that just seem to defy our attention. We try to have our three meals each day together, which is almost a new experience for us. After breakfast she begins work, and I have created blocks of time to get certain jobs done. The most interesting thing is that I have actually now gone through the entire main wall of the cellar, and am moving the white wines to the wine vault in the family room, and I have been slowly boxing and re-boxing cartons to make the wines ready to be re-inventoried, and it has allowed me to see what has been totally forgotten about. Sometimes good and sometimes bad. For years, we ate out so much, that I rarely drank wine in the house, now that has all changed, so it has been fun chronicling the older wines that we have been enjoying.
There are plenty of wines from the cellar that are on the critical watch list and I have been stocking extra white wines in the one refrigerator, just in case one wine is bad, we have a backup ready to go. Unfortunately, this was the case and I am sure there will be other such incidents, as we slowly go through the cellar and update what we have. We had a wonderful experience years ago when we were in Niagara-on-the-Lake to attend a wedding, we took an afternoon off to go visit some wineries and one of the wineries was Hillebrand, which is part of the much larger Andrew Peller Limited. In fact, at that time we went first to Hillebrand to do some tastings and then we went to Peller Estate for some more tastings. It appears that Hillebrand and Trius have been merged together, as the two are usually mentioned at the same time on a search that I just did for some updated information for this article. At the tasting we were really impressed with the Hillebrand Artist Series Limited Edition Sauvignon Blanc Niagara Peninsula VQA 2010. Alas, this wine did not age gracefully, and I am afraid that we may still see more examples in the future, as we drink more wine at home.
The second and back-up wine that I had chilled was a Darioush Chardonnay Napa Valley 2000, and I was praying that this wine would be fine, as just a few weeks earlier, we opened up a bottle of Darioush Viognier Napa Valley 2001 and it was a delight. History repeated itself and shows the dedication that this winery has, for a relatively newcomer to the wine scene. This wine was pure Chardonnay that had a late harvest, and underwent whole cluster pressing to small barrels for primary fermentation and then inoculated for malolactic fermentation. The juice was then aged Sur-Lies for eleven months in French Oak barrels from the Burgundy region of France, and then the wine was bottled without fining or filtration. A beautiful bottle of wine was enjoyed by my Bride and I with a dish of Chicken breasts with Capers and Artichoke Hearts. The wine was totally mellow and reminded me of some excellent aged white Grand Crus I had a chance to try as a kid back in the early Seventies. So wine, like life is a bit of a “crap-shoot” and I am going to the give the benefit of the doubt to each and every bottle that has been resting, and for those that don’t make it, there are always the memories.
It wouldn’t be right, if I didn’t write about the domestic offering from my wine club, the Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan and this is one of the July offerings, even though I know that we are in August. Who would have ever thought that I would have an abundance of articles to write, even with this lockdown that I guess will never leave us? I am always glad to see the tenacity of some businesses that just won’t roll over and die, because at least here, the major players got the breaks and the little guys were ignored. I would probably roll over and die, or at least cease writing, and maybe no one would notice, if I had to get my groceries and wine (God forbid) from big box stores like Walmart, because I have never set foot in one. I guess working my entire career for small independent merchants, I just have a natural loathing for anything big in structure.
Mercer Estates planted their first wine grapes in the Horse Heaven Hill is 1972. They have taken advantage of the rich soil and the desert climate to produce some elegant tannin Cabernet Sauvignon wines, as well as other wines along the way. They had their first vintage year in 2005 at Prosser, Washington. They have a state-of-the-art winery giving the winemakers the luxury of temperature control and the ideal settings for fermentation. Their barrel rooms allow for long and varied aging, so that everything is not cookie-cutter and rigid by-the-book production methods. They have seven different brands, and this particular wine is not even on their web page.
Mercer Estates Dead Canyon Ranch Red Wine Blend Horse Heaven Hills AVA 2017 is the wine that I will talk about. Horse Heaven Hills AVA is part of the much larger Columbia Valley AVA in Washington State. The region was granted an AVA in 2005, but it has the distinction of being the home of Washington’s oldest Cabernet Sauvignon vines that were planted in 1972. The wine is a blend of fifty percent Syrah, twenty percent Cabernet Sauvignon, seventeen percent Merlot, eight percent Malbec, three percent Petit Verdot and two percent Mourvedre. The tasting notes mention dark fruits like blackberry, blueberry jam and ripe plums, along with notes of sage, sweet smoke and vanilla in a balance wine (and you know that is not how I tend to describe wines, that old school methods of mine. With all that Syrah, I have to think of this wine for barbecues and more exotic meats like game or big roasts. I just have to find the right moment and dinner.
The Wine Raconteur 