Last weekend we stopped at Chateau Davell's brand new tasting room on our way to a jam sess in the Bay Area to pick up a friend's wine club shipment. WOW!! The view is spectacular, the grounds peaceful and inviting, and the wines are as good as ever.
I am posting my first ever VLOG or video blog on our visit - which is here:
Two of our favorites were the 2015 Charlotte's Cuvee and the 2015 Verlyn. The winemaker, Erik, names his wines after members of his family and includes beautiful portraits of them on every bottle. Charlotte is his daughter, and she was happily doing cartwheels on the front lawn while we sipped her namesake wine. Verlyn is Erik's grandfather.
We are definitely blend people, and both these wines are blends. The Charlotte is an Estate wine and a blend of Cabernet, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. Our friend John Worley served it at our jam sess where it was definitely a hit. It has an inky deep reddish garnet color with a blonde coffee noise, big fruity middle tones, and a cardamom and clove finish. It is both delicate and rich at the same time, and the blend has created just the right amount of lightness and complexity.
The Verlyn is a stronger, heavier wine, with 45% Mourvedre and 25% Grenache. It has solid, structured tannins and would cellar well. I tasted cedar, toasted oak, rich black cherry and pomegranate flavors. This wine would stand up well to any grilled meat or BBQ, and has plenty of spunk and character.
The longest finish wine is the 2015 Green Man cabernet - a great wine to drink on Summer Solstice. I got eucalyptus, wood, and leather on the finish, with a ripe garden nose and early palate and blackberries with sun dried tomatoes on the mid palate. Chewy tannins give this wine the structure one expects from a fine Cabernet.
If you are up this way, a visit to Chateau Davell will be worth your while for sure!
One of our coolest discoveries when visiting our new surroundings (we just bought a home in historic Placerville, CA) is the Findleton Estate and Vineyard in Camino, California. Findleton is a charming little winery with tons of Jimmy Buffett memorabilia, and a featured "Parrothead Red" blend that is to die for! This winery is also cool because it carries my friend Krissy's amazing jellies, she makes a Jalapeno jelly from a down home Southern recipe that is tasty and full of zing.
In fact, ALL the reds I tasted during my last visit (tasting notes to be the subject of future blog posts) were pretty awesome - and this next release is sure to be no exception.
On January 25th, the winery is unveiling its 2012 Petite Syrah from 12:00 - 5:00 PM at the tasting room in Camino. This sure-to-be-dynamite wine is being paired with Tuscan Spinach, Bean and Sausage soup, and bread - which is making me hungry while writing about it.
I am sad as I can't attend - I will be hosting a garage sale that day - but wanted to share this with my readers as it is sure to be a wonderful event.
As a member of the "Twisted Few" (Twisted Oak's Wine Club), I get their wonderful Calaveras County wines shipped to my door several times a year, and it is always a great day when I come home to a box of good red wine. My shipment this week included the luscious 2009 "Cockamamie" Syrah, which I deemed worthly of a blog post, my time, and fluent words of praise.
So what's with naming a great wine "Cockamamie"? On the back of my bottle, in a blatant poke to our Aussie friends, the winemaker says, " We figure that if a nameless place in another part of the world (let's just say their bathtubs swirl the other way round) can have the cockamamie idea to call their Syrah "Shiraz", we can have the cockamamie idea to call our Syrah "Cockamamie". Right?"
Twisted Oak is 100% "TUDE" - and they have the big, bold reds to go with it! I love this winery and wine club for both the quality of their wines and the fun they attach to every bottle. A visit to one of Twisted Oak's two tasting rooms in Calaveras County is really a treat - if you visit the main site in the forest, you get to walk through the "Rubber Chicken Forest" (does anyone remember Gary Larson's Farside Rubber Chicken cartoon?). I must admit I have only visited the main tasting room in downtown Murphy's,CA, but a visit to this great landmark has made my bucket list. The folks at Twisted give every new member of their wine club a rubber chicken as a gift to remember them by. Mine is proudly displayed next to my wine rack.
Hubby and I took unbreakable glasses of our "Cockamamie" to our hot tub last night, and enjoyed it under the stars while letting the stress of the week slip by. A perfect compliment to the bubbly water, the "Cockamamie" Syrah was light yet rich and "plummy" - with flavors of elderberry, blackberry, red cherry, and a touch of cedar. Hubby thought it might even have been too light for a Syrah, but I thought it was like a delicate yet bold, yet non filling dessert. Just right.
Also from the wine maker's site, "This Syrah is Big, Bold and Deep Purple in color. You’ll detect pronounced aromas of ripe olive and blackberry, along with perhaps a little Smoke on the Water. You’ll taste Lazy flavors of plums, blueberry and leather. This is a wine that might make you feel like a Highway Star, but it might be better to stay at home and enjoy it with your Woman From Tokyo."
Hmm mm....I missed the olive, which is a good thing because I hate olives!
Food Pairings: This is a good Foccacia wine if I have ever seen one, and I was salivating imaging the big rosemary taste of Foccacia last night (sadly, none in sight). Add some garlic hummus and it would be total heaven. I can see this going with the little weiners in BBQ sauce that my Ex and I used to serve at Halloween parties, affectionately dubbed "Microweenies" too.
Activity Pairings: One awesome hot tubbing wine, I could also enjoy it while playing horseshoes, watching reruns of Family Guy, or sitting through one more showing of Mars Attacks (ack ack ack ack.....).
Music Pairings: An irreverant wine calls for irreverant music. I vote for AC/DC - light, fun, "out-there", and bold but not too complex. How about "Big Balls"? The winemaker has other Classic Rock suggestions in their review too.... If you're more into jazz, I suggest Sun Ra.
Where to Buy: Twisted Oak's website is the only place I know for now to get this wine. The good news is that it is reasonable.
If you have read earlier blog posts of mine, you have probably read about my quest to find the perfect bottle of Chardonnay for my very sweet "83 years young" neighbor. She enjoys a glass of Chardonnay in her beautiful garden every night before bedtime, and is always bringing us something delectable from her kitchen.
During a Memorial Day trip to Arnold and Murphys, California - I visited the tasting room of Stevenot Winery, where I managed to find a wonderful nightshirt that reads, "Wine Takes the Bitch out of Me". I also found this incredible Chardonnay that Beverly tells me was my best "score" for her of the entire summer.
My tasting notes (yes, it has been a while since Memorial Day), read that this wine was very smooth with just a hint of oak, lemon, and butter. It was light without feeling like a Sauvignon Blanc, but not too heavy - just nicely balanced.
Several weeks ago, when Beverly's daughter visited from Oregon, she opened the bottle I brought her for all to share. I was amazed to find that it tasted even better than I remembered it. Beverly served it chilled, with fresh berries in every flowered glass. This was a particularly nice touch, and it blended very well with the fresh brie and crackers she offered on her garden table.
I would definitely recommend this wine as one of the best Chardonnays I have ever tasted.
Food Pairings: A light shrimp scampi would be fabulous with this wine, as would rock cornish game hans glazed with apricot jam and roasted in a 350 oven for 40 minutes. I really enjoyed it with brie, crackers, and almonds. A parsley crusted Tilapia filet also comes to mind, as the fresh parsley flavors would complete the bright fruit in the wine.
Music Pairings: The music of Bay Area local Christian Tamburr would be lovely while sipping this Chardonnay - I really enjoy his light touch and lively, progressive jazz sounds. Vivaldi's Four Seasons - Spring selection would be wonderful with this wine as well.
Other Pairings: This was the ideal end-of-summer garden party wine, sipping something so fruity and well-balanced is particularly enjoyable while looking at the harvest moon and gardens.
Where to Buy: You can find this wine at the winery or winery website . Finding it elsewhere is a bit trickier, as it appears the winery ownership is changing hands. I suggest keeping your eyes peeled at Bevmo or local wine shops.
If you are like me, you enjoy trying new wines. This means pacing back and forth amongst the rows and rows of wines at Bevmo or the grocery store, trying to make sure you have something novel and interesting that doesn't taste like lark vomit. But alas, no matter how much you try, lark's vomit does indeed happen from time to time. This is not disasterous unless you are taking it to a dinner party, or worse, a home for dinner with the boss.
How do you prevent these tastebud terrors? Use your iPhone and grab the Wine Ratings app from iTunes.
Designed for use within restaurants, this app shows you a picture of the label and a rating very quickly. It has the largest database of any wine app on the market, I have yet to find a wine that it doesn't contain.
It also shows the average price, which allows you to see if you are getting a good deal or getting taken for a ride!
I love the pairings guide, and the Quick Picks are very useful if you want to plan what you pick up before hitting the store. Here is what you see when you click on an individual wine:
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this app! At $3.99, it was a bargain as it has undoubtedly saved me from many bad purchases.
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