Wine

It has been a while since I’ve reviewed an Australian cabernet sauvignon, but when I tasted this wine I knew it was time to change that. This is a delicious wine from the Barossa region in Australia and comes from Château Tanunda, the oldest and largest château in Australia.  Its history dates back to 1890 and the estate is responsible for some of the earliest grape vines in the Barossa Valley.  But while the château has a long history, it has had its ups and downs.  In the past 15 years it has been going through a revival, since John Geber purchased the estate in 1998. The Château Tanunda brand is part of the Banfi portfolio of wines. The nose on this wine has just what I would want from a cabernet sauvignon—a harmonious blend of aromas like black currant, black cherry, vanilla, leather and blackberry.  All of that comes with just the right amount of intensity.  In the mouth this wine is juicy and delicious, with plenty of ripe black currant, blackberry and blueberry flavors and a smooth mouthfeel.  There’s just a touch of baking spice flavor too.  The finish is quite long, with tasty ripe berry flavors lingering on and on.  This is a fantastic wine. Wine: Chateau Tanunda Grand Barossa Variety: 90% cabernet sauvignon, 5% cabernet franc, 5% syrah Vintage: 2010 Alcohol: 13.5% Rating: 90 Price: $16.00 Find Chateau Tanunda Grand Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon with Snooth Disclosure: This wine was received as a sample.

This is an amazing wine. It’s from a now extinct Quinta in Carcavelos, Quinta da Bela Vista. The last crop from this vineyard was in 1969, and Carlos Fonseca (of Companhia Agricola do Sanguinhal, who bottled the wine in 1991, and holds the remaining stock) reckons that this particular wine, which is a non-vintage, has an average age of 70 years. They looked back at the records and found that 400 litres were produced in 1969. The total amount of wine in the cellar was 14000 litres, hence the calculation. The reason Carcavelos has pretty much disappeared is because the vineyards were located near Cascais, next to Lisbon, and the value of the land for development far exceeded that of vineyards. There is just one 10 hectare vineyard remaining, owned by the state, in Oeiras. The grape variety here is Moscatel Galego. This wine is fortified, but it’s not sweet – it reminds Carlos of a Sercial from Madeira, and I see where he’s coming from. Quinta da Bela Vista Carcavelos NV Portugal Deep yellow in colour with some bronze hints, this has a lively aromatic nose of spice, raisins and casks. It smells sweet, but it’s not. The palate is rich and powerful with some fresh, spicy, citrussy notes counterbalancing the nutty, slightly figgy richness. The key facet though is an incredible length: the flavour persists for ages. A lovely, beautifully balanced fortified wine of real interest. 95/100 Find this wine with wine-searcher.com

Hello Friends, I recently had an opportunity to join the good folks over at CellarPassTV for a live virtual tasting with Robert Mondavi Winery. CellarPassTV, who I have done previous tastings with, is an informative (weekly) live wine broadcast where some of California’s top winemakers, winery owners, and people in the food and wine industry are interviewed by host Sarah Elliman. Their website, CellarPass.com, is a leading destination for online winery reservations that’s well worth checking out if you’re thinking about visiting California wine country. The Tasting Lineup This broadcast featured special guest, Chef Jeff Mosher, and was recorded from the Robert Mondavi Winery kitchen. Chef Mosher prepared two dishes that sounded amazing to pair with the Robert Mondavi Winery 2010 Unoaked Chardonnay and Stags Leap District 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon. Since Robert Mondavi Winery was one of the first producers to promote tours, arts, and culinary programs, it was quite fitting for CellarPassTV to do their first wine and food pairing segment from the winery’s kitchen. Sarah, the chef, and Rich Arnold, who focuses on white wine production, later enjoyed the marriage of food and wine from Robert Mondavi’s beautiful (special event) vineyard room. Click here (Part I, Part II) to watch the video recordings. The segments are fairly informative and may give you some pairing ideas for Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. See my review of the wines below. Cheers! Robert Mondavi 2010 Unoaked Chardonnay 1) Robert Mondavi Winery 2010 Unoaked Chardonnay (SRP $32): While unoaked, this Chardonnay undergoes (partial) malolactic fermentation and sur lie aging, which gives it a moderate richness and luscious texture, yet retains a good amount of brightness and balanced acidity. In the glass, it shows aromas and flavors of soft tree fruit with refreshing hints of orange blossom and shy floral notes. It really comes into its own around cellar temperature (55°F); highlighting its moderately curvaceous figure and vibrant food-partnering acidity. I enjoyed this wine on its own and with grilled tilapia the following day. This is a winery exclusive selection that can only be found at the tasting room or winery website. 1,224 cases of this wine were produced. Click here to find this wine. Robert Mondavi Stags Leap 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon 2) Robert Mondavi Winery Stags Leap District 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon (SRP $85): Nicely crafted and deeply colored, full-bodied wine displaying succulent red and blueberry fruit aromas/flavors with black currant, mocha notes, and a light dusting of sage and sweet baking spice. Velvety textured, it shows a sense of elegance with refined tannins, lovely acidity and a pleasant lasting finish. It’s drinking well now but the overall structure and acidity provides potential and longevity. This selection can only be found at the winery or the Robert Mondavi website. 679 cases were produced. Click here to find this wine. Image from my visit to Robert Mondavi Winery Have a question about this post? Feel free to drop me an e-mail at myvinespot@yahoo.com or hit me up on Facebook or Twitter. Stay tuned ...more to come. Happy Sipping, my friends! Disclosure: These wines were received as a media sample for an event. Thoughts are my own. Click here to get my blog posts delivered to your inbox! Live, Love, Laugh, Tweet, Sip, Enjoy! Please Click Here to vote Dezel's My Vine Spot as your favorite wine blog - You can vote 1x per day! Click Here to follow me on Twitter. Friend me up on Face-Book here. Thanks for reading and please tell your wine-loving friends about the blog. Cheers!

From Another Wine Blog - Because Another Wine, Food, Beer and Travel Blog would have been way too %#&@ing long!Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against wine blogs, wine bloggers, nor as far as I can tell without having actually attended one, circle jerks. I did enjoy the band that went by that name, so who knows? … Continue reading →If you are not viewing this at Another Wine Blog or its RSS feed, then chances are that the person running this page is a content thief.

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For the second year in a row, Nomacorc is helping lead the way in wine closure recycling at the Wine Bloggers Conference. This year, Nomacorc will be collecting all types of corks during the conference, and they’ll be working with new partners to ensure that used closures are recycled and upcycled in the most efficient and effective way. Partnering with retailers across the U.S. has allowed Nomacorc to regionalize recycling programs and focus on supporting local communities. For example, in Texas, they’ve placed bins at Spec’s Wine & Spirits’110 store locations to collect used closures, which are “upcycled,” or repurposed for other uses like crafting. All proceeds generated from this upcycling program are donated to a local breast cancer awareness program. In Washington, Nomacorc has partnered with Total Wine & More and AtWork! to help streamline the cork collection process. Located just outside of Seattle, AtWork! is a highly supportive and innovative conduit between adults with disabilities and mainstream employers that provides customized jobs for AtWork! participants. After closures are collected at Total Wine, they are sent to AtWork!, where employees will separate and sort natural and synthetic corks, which are then sold to various recyclers. Currently, there’s strong demand for post-consumer synthetic corks, and most synthetic corks can be recycled and made into many plastic-based items including cell phone cases, park benches and outdoor plastic tiling. All proceeds generated from the sales of the used corks are donated back to the AtWork! program. Based on our location, all closures collected during this year’s Wine Bloggers Conference will be recycled via the AtWork! offices in Bellevue, Washington. You’ll also see new collection bins for the conference this year. In addition to our large collection bins, Nomacorc has created smaller, more convenient tabletop containers. Made from recycled plastic, these cube boxes will be placed on tasting tables throughout the conference, making it easier for pourers to recycle closures after uncorking. Each day, the cube containers will be emptied into the larger bins. At the end of the conference Nomacorc will recycle all used closures via the AtWork! center. So, when you taste that crisp, refreshing glass of Okanagan Pinot Gris at WBC this year, do your part to be eco-conscious by dropping off used closures into one of Nomacorc’s Cork Recovery Bins. See you in Penticton! The post Nomacorc Cork Recovery Program at WBC13 appeared first on Wine Bloggers Conference.

Above: Werner Morandell netting his vineyards in the Mendel Pass (image via his Facebook). As Giovanni notes today on his excellent blog Terra Uomo Cielo, this is the time of year when grape growers treat their vineyards with sulfur and copper to reduce the risk of fungal diseases, chiefly oidium and perenospora. At the sound of the tractors’ motors revving up on their way to the vineyard, he is reminded that “not only do the products used to safeguard the fruit pollute. So does the movement of the tractors” belching out diesel aromas more offensive to Giovanni, he writes, than the smell of the sulfur. There is at least one grape grower in Italy who believes he has found a chemical-free solution to fungal disease: Werner Monrandell (above), winemaker in German-speaking South Tyrol, where his “super-organic” vineyards have no need of sulfur or copper treatments thanks to disease-resistant hybrids he has been developing since 1993, Solaris and Bronner. The latter is named after the researcher who developed it. The former, evidently, after the 1961 novel and 1972 film. According to a post by Corriere della Sera wine writer Luciano Ferraro, published on Saturday, the dried-grape Bronner is already available for sale in Italy and the Solaris, while not commercially available, has been offered to Italian sommeliers and viticultural research institutes where it is being studied. Morandell is one of roughly fifteen grape growers, mostly from Trentino-Alto Adige but also Piedmont and Veneto, who are working together on this project. “Every year in Europe,” say Morandell in an interview with Luciano, “72,000 tonnes of poison (pesticides, fungicides, insecticides, herbicides, etc.) are scattered on the fruit crop. Roughly 70% of those are employed in viticulture and they leave a residue on the grapes. It’s time to stop this [practice] because it’s possible to make fabulous wines even without chemical treatments to combat oidium and peronospora.” Some winemakers remain skeptical, like Giovanni, who recently became a grape grower himself. “I wonder if Solaris will have the same results if it’s planted elsewhere,” he writes.

Dear Readers: Again this blog has been named a finalist in the Best Wine Review Blog category in the Wine Blog Awards. If you appreciate what I do here and profit from the approach I take in terms of writing about and describing wines and providing background information of a historical, geographical, technical and philosophical nature, then I in turn would appreciate your vote. Here’s a link to the awards page: http://wineblogawards.org/from-the-organizers/the-finalists-in-the-2013-wine-blog-awards-are-announced/ Thanks for your confidence and for your readership.