Another week in the life of a wine buyer tasting upwards of 30 new wines a week.
I will mention a few that have “grabbed” my attention. Paso Robles continues to put great wines and two from Sextant Winery particularly, 2006 Nightwatch which is a blend of Zinfandel and Petite Sirah. The winemaker left the bottle for me to sample our customers and they all said “I’ll buy it”! Another wine that is great is the new Layer Cake Primativo. This wine is from Italy and it tastes much like a big, rich Paso Zinfandel. The sample was passed around to good reviews.. Look for these wines in the coming weeks.

Victor Herstein
Wine Buyer

Starting off by asking you, the serious wine consumer, this: “ Am I nuts or what!”.
I just opened 3 wooden cases of French white wine (we will not divulge the producers name because this is a tasty French Chardonnay-Colombard blend and we recommend it highly). The bottles laying down inside all had……screw caps! What’s wrong with this picture? You be the judge.
On a different note, our Pahlmeyer Wine Dinner was a qualified success. The 4 wines paired were all remarkable and Chef Bryan outdid himself. Only drawback was that Pahlmeyer wines are so allocated that we soon ran out of wines to sell after the dinner!
Many wines were sampled this past week. We generally sample around 40 wines a week. They are considered for use in either one of our Wine Clubs or for sale in our retail section/tasting bar. Wines from Spain, Italy, Oregon, Australia, Germany, Chile and California were tasted. In a perfect world we could purchase every good wine that comes our way, but alas, I must “cherry-pick” the ones that we can’t live without. Some of those will show up in the coming weeks. We will keep you posted!

Victor Herstein
Wine Buyer, All Corked Up

Robert Mondavi, 1913 -2008

Wine lovers mourn the passing of Robert Mondavi this week at age 94.  He is partly responsible for helping California wines attain their high stature in the world of wine.

He helped make Chardonnay America’s most popular white wine. He gave UC Davis $35 million to establish the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science and a performing arts center.

I am now going to mention the last Mondavi Reserve Cabernet that the family produced, the lovely 2004. A very impressive Cabernet in every way.

Before Mr. Mondavi’s passing, I had planned to open discussion about the opinion letter written  by writer Alice Feiring and published in the Los Angeles Times. This is a quote: “Today’s California wines are overblown, over-alcoholed, over-oaked, overpriced and over-manipulated”. This article took up a third of a page, more than some political commentary. And in the Food section of last weeks Times, three books about wine are reviewed, among them her book: The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World From Parkerization. Everyone has an opinion and we would love to hear yours!

I would describe my own palate as varied. I constantly try new wines. More and more I am becoming a big Paso Robles fan. The Zinfandels from Paso are wonderful, big, jammy reds with gorgeous aromas. Brochelle Vinyards and Tobin James “ James Gang Reserve” are a few of my current faves. I have a soft spot for well made German wines among them Dr. Loosen Rieslings both Spatlese and Auslese. German wines are usually bottled at 7-8 percent alcohol and are just lovely to sip on a hot day. We have now a number of lovely Spanish wines among them Altos de Luzon, a Tempranillo-Cabernet blend. It is a luscious New World style red, dry and fruit forward, no dirty tasting wine here. I have started to re-discover wines from Portugal. I bought a simple Vinho Verde from Alianca. This dry white tastes a bit like a nice Pinot Grigio, crisp acidity made to be drunk with Seafood! Priced under $10. I have been tasting and purchasing several dry Rose’s from France, Australia, California and a little gem from Portugal, Casa Mendes, it retails for under $5 and it’s clean and dry! We now have back in stock 2 of our favorite reds: Poppy Pinot Noir and Ehrhardt Petite Sirah. Recently tasted and purchased, 2 unoaked Chardonnays: Sierra Vista from El Dorado County and Gum Bear from Australia. A nice alternative to the mass of oaky whites out there. Unoaked Chardonnay is (in my opinion) fantastic with Sushi and Sashimi. They have some similarities to fine cold Sake, especially in the nose.

Till next time,

Victor the Wine Guy at All Corked Up