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Domaine Maby Lirac Blanc

White wine that can age? Should I label it impossible? These silly, half-formed grapes pondering the lengths to which they can age?

HA! Yes. They should ponder… In Lirac, the appellation just across the river from Chateauneuf-du-Pape, their whites age… okay, maybe not 30 years, but my goodness, did tonight’s bottle need another few years to reach full potential.

Tonight, it had a scent of citrusy pears… also that of orange pith, parsley stems (that’s the Grenache Blanc talking), and unripe grapefruits.

The finish was just long enough to be annoying… taking a sip and waiting nearly a minute before you can start talking is a wonderful but annoying feeling.

With scallops seared in a blood orange and rosemary sauce… along with a couscous that featured fresh parsley, it was the best wine/food pairing I’ve had all year. The wine made the flavors of the food last twice as long, and the food made the wine’s green and yellow notes sing twice as brightly as they did alone before the meal.

Oh, yes, and seriously… try to guess the grapes involved in this!

…. Grenache blanc, Clairette, and Picpoul! Yes, Picpoul! My soon to be favorite grape makes an appearance… though it looks a little scared hanging out with two other cool kids of French grapes.. doesn’t it look sweet with its straight leg levi’s and its big, red hoodie?

Acidity, flowers, and aging potential

France, T.B. Ackerson Wines, Wine Reviews | No Comments

Ex Libris is mainly Cabernet Sauvignon, but it is anchored by 8% Syrah, 8% Merlot, and 2% Petit Verdot. Kudos to them for shaking it up a bit… thumbs down for them labeling it only as “Cabernet” and falling into the “stupid consumer” mindset that says American wine drinkers can only handle one grape at a time.

Upon first opening, it is nothing to blog home about- black cherry juice and a bit of over-ripe raspberry burp. Then after about two hours of breathing (or maybe it was the fact that the shop had finally quieted down enough I could bring my notebook over to the spittoon and really get my pen into my glass so to speak), it took on some real personality.

From the second it was opened, it had smelled “black,” but with a little air in the bottle to encourage it, it smelled like black fruit pits and black olives.

It was still “New World” though… not a bad thing… just a very “licks your face like a golden retriever” element to it… and very hard to pair with anything but chicken breasts on a George Foreman grill.

Cabernet Sauvignon, New World, T.B. Ackerson Wines, Wine Reviews | No Comments

Weird grapes from a weird region of Italy… it’s not the heel of the boot… it’s not the shin… it’s not even the toe.

Savuto Toe Jam Red Wine

It’s the JAM of the toe. Blackberries on wet cedar planks, rotten green apples dried out from the sun of south Italy. Even without the topsoil (with a little worm poo!) covered cherries, I would love this wine. 

I can’t lie… it’s *slightly* too old. Even just a week ago it would have been even better. I’m going to buy four and fake a reason for a party (perhaps, the 500th anniversary of the tomato touching European waters?)!

Italy, Old World, Wine Reviews | No Comments

The range between $20 and $30 gets you a big glass of fruit and a large shot of very smooth booze when buying California wines (huge generalization), but the same money in Bordeaux gets you all that fruit *and* a cabinet full of spices, a fist full of leaves, and a delicate enough wine that you can drink two full glasses and not worry about a hangover the next day.

Chateau du Moulin Rouge Haut-Medoc 2003

The Château Moulin Rouge Haut Medoc 2003 in particular gives of a nose of dark cassis, cedary raspberries, salty and cooked celery leaves, and just a bit of Starbucks chai. The palate is gritty, but pleasant… almost the feeling (but not flavor of) rinsing your mouth with water to get the dentist’s really gravely toothpaste out of your mouth.

I tried it with an ultra-hearty Italian stew (think pine nuts, rosemary, and sage in a beefy, tomato sauce), and it barely had enough body to stand up to it. The flavors though accompanied the stew very well… the wine added all of the brown spice components I wanted to dump into the pot but which would have turned the stew into a Morrocan melange (unlike a bottle of wine, once a jar of cinnamon is open in my house, I’m bound to want to finish it that night!)!

Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon, France, Old World, Wine Reviews | No Comments

Quite a boring  focused wine. Really nice black plum skins (like the waxy ones with the white dust on them that you find in the organic side of Whole Foods when you’re thinking to yourself “Yeah, this is me. I’m totally the kind of guy that eats organic plums!”) cover the nose and palate. A ripe tobacco leaf accompanies it only strongly enough to be smelled by people who just quit smoking and really wish they didn’t. I’m also tasting some bitter chocolate on the finish that I think might just be a mirage but which I’m loving anyway.

Tres Palacios' Vineyards

It’s the mouth-feel and tannin structure though that really do it for this $11.99 wine. Bitter red berries represent the tannins and a candy-smooth mouth-feel give the sour cherry and sour blackberry flavors an arena with which to shine. I’m loving this wine right now actually… and wondering where I can get some brie to go with it at 1 o’clock in the morning.

My only problems with this wine (and with many new world wines under $20) is that it tastes like both the beautiful vineyard pictured above and this very sterile winemaking facility pictured below.

Sterile, but tasty wine

Of course, that’s just me asking for way too much from a $10 bottle of wine.

Chile, Merlot, T.B. Ackerson Wines, Uncategorized, Wine Reviews | No Comments