A treat for St. Nick.

No milk for Father Christmas this year.  Tonight when I go to bed, I will be leaving out a bottle of Anchor Brewing Company's Christmas Ale and a plate of freshly baked mince pies for the jolly old elf.  The 2012 edition of Anchor's Christmas Ale, with it's Araucaria heterophylla adorned label, was really quite hard to find this year, but I still don't mind sparing one bottle for my favourite, red-suited visitor.
Now, I just have to figure out how to keep V2 away from the mince pies.

Still here...

...and still drinking bubbly.  Let's get this party started!
I'm ready for Christmas.  I just have a few more things to wrap and my mince pies to bake.  But basically I don't have to do anything else except enjoy myself, starting right now with a glass of something pink and bubbly (it's the only civilised thing to do whilst tossing a green salad). And whereas some folks scorn the use of flute, or tulip, shaped glasses for any sparkling wine, I happen to love this particular flûte à Champagne with it's flared rim.  No doubt there are naysayers who would like to point out to me that I am missing out on  lots of wonderful aromas, but the glass is so delicate and fine it really does feel like I am drinking the stars! Besides, it's not like it's going to be in the glass for very long now, is it? Nope.

Red sky at night...

...red sky in the morning, Mayans warning?
On this the winter solstice, I was pleased to see that dawn in Vinoland was a rather spectacular affair.  A camera lens does not do it justice.  The ensuing rainy morning did not deter me from heading north, out of Napa, to go and do some sparkling wine shopping.  Joined by quite a few of my co-workers (and with a quick tasting thrown in), quite a bit of the bubbly stuff exited chosen winery - a 50% discount will bring people out en masse.
Afterwards, whilst running some errands I learned that I had scored the highest in my Wines of the World final - a whopping 98%, whoo hoo!  That, along with a mixed case of Mumm Napa Valley's finest bubbly, made Vinogirl one very chuffed vine-nerd. It was a good day.
Now, if the Mayan's are to be believed, I really should drink all 12 bottles before midnight.  Or maybe I'll save some for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day...

The end of Wines of the World is nigh.

Tonight my Wines of the World class came to it's conclusion (on the eve of the end of the world), as ordained by Dr. Krebs in his class syllabus.  The Mayans (nice folks, once) may have other ideas for tomorrow, but tonight I had a final to take.  The written portion of the exam, I knew, was going to be fairly routine, but the blind tasting component was the cause of a little consternation for me.  Six, brown-bagged, anonymous wines loomed large on a desk in the corner of the classroom...argh!
Unlike the results of the written exam, my classmates and I were given the identity of the mystery wines when we had finished taking the final. Unfortunately, I only managed to identify 4 out of the 6 wines.  The Riesling, Gewürtztraminer, Pinot noir and Sherry were really quite easy to identify.  A light, citrusy wine I identified as an Albariño was in fact a Facelli Winery, 2011, Washington State, Fumé blanc - oops!  And a nondescript, thin to medium bodied, vinous red wine which I identified as a Merlot turned out to be a Red Bicyclette, 2005, Syrah - damn French! On the whole I think I did alright, as I overheard some of my classmates bemoaning the fact that they only scored 2 or 3 out of the six - and they're budding, young winemakers.
Wines of the World, what a terrific class.  It's been a great semester, I learned a lot and I had a lot of fun to boot.  But then again, I have had fun in every class I have taken that was given by Dr. Krebs...he even managed to make Vineyard Soils entertaining!
Thanks Dr. Krebs.

I woof Christmas!

Father Christmas, that's Santa to my colonial cousins, is not the only person who sports a red kit!
Merry Christmas from Vinodog 1.

Gaudete, 2012.

It's Gaudete Sunday.  A quick glass of Vinomaker's finest Cabernet Sauvignon rosé is in order I think.  It's a great colour, it matches my Christmas tree decorations.
Gaudete in Domino Semper.
Sing it Maddy!

In vino veritas est: Wines of California.

Tonight, week 16, was the final, full tasting night of my Wines of the World class.  Next week my classmates and I will take our final exam, a component of which will be a blind tasting of six wines from who knows where in the world...yikes!  There was a whopping total of 39 wines tonight, the majority of which were donated from the wineries where my fellow students are gainfully employed.
Although California is my current home, and I am employed at a winery that was well represented tonight, I think I can be pretty impartial, as I did not grow up drinking California wines.  There are a lot of naysayers out in the world who decry anything oenologically-Californian, I myself have an aversion to high alcohol, over blown Pinot noirs and Cabernet Sauvignons.  But the truth is that California, and in particular Northern California, is an almost perfect place in which to grow wine grapes.  Some growing seasons maybe cooler and therefore not as ideal as others, but the grapes always ripen.  California's vintages are always good. However, some vintages are spectacular.
Each varietal wine that was poured tonight - Merlot, Tempranillo, Viognier, Tannat, Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Muscat Canelli and Albariño, to name but a few - were all near perfect renditions of their olde worlde benchmark classics.  After all, isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery?  Sure, one could still, if one had an axe to grind, lament the very existence of the jammy, oaky, alcoholic, massively extracted wines that people associate with California, but that would be a gross generalisation. But the fact remains, the Californian climate allows winemakers to express the inherent characters found in almost every grape variety on the planet. Something which can't be said for other parts of the world, or even other parts of the USA.
The wine in the photograph was the first wine of the evening.  The Domaine Carneros, 2010 blanc de noirs, very recently disgorged and sporting a crown cap and an Avery label, was charming.  The acid and sugar were not as yet well integrated, but this wine had loads of potential: one could just see that this gangly adolescent was going to grow up to be one mature, bubbly individual.
So in conclusion, in my humble opinion, Dr. Krebs saved the best for last.
Next...Nothing, the semester is almost at an end.

Winery Christmas Lights 11.

Well, it's not exactly a winery.  And it's not exactly the greatest of photographs.  But it's good enough to showcase this festive Rudolph, with his red-bulbed nose, who reappears every Christmas above the Silverado Trail to humour me on my drive home from TWWIAGE.  Situated atop a hillside vineyard in the Stags Leap District, this is the 8th year in a row that I have enjoyed this particular electronic display of cervine-cheerfulness.  I have no idea who is responsible for this random act of Christmas merriment, but I am really glad that their sense of whimsy repeatedly delivers a Yuletide treat for this particular Napa Valley commuter.

In praise of Pinot Meunier.

I really don't need an excuse to drink bubbly (although conveniently, Christmas began early for me).  It's just wine, and should be enjoyed whenever one wants it - it just has bubbles.  I love it.  Anytime. Well, to be quite honest, I do not love blanc de blancs.  I am just not a fan of 100% Chardonnay bubbly.  But I could quite quickly become a fan of 100% Pinot Meunier bubbly.
A red grape variety and a member of the Pinot family, Pinot Meunier (PM) is considered the least important of Champagne's three main grape varieties, although it is more widely planted than either Pinot Noir or Chardonnay. PM and Pinot Noir make up about 72% of all Champagne's vineyards, both grapes contributing two thirds of the blend in non-vintage Champagnes.  Particularly well suited to Champagne's cool climate, PM does particularly well in the north-facing, sloping vineyards of the Marne Valley.  In Napa, PM is exclusively grown in the Carneros AVA where it is relatively cool compared to the rest of the valley.
Sometimes called simply Meunier (which is French for miller, a name that comes from the flour-dredged appearance of the underside of the leaves, a result of copious amounts of fine, white hairs), there are very few known clones of this cultivar.  Indeed, a mere 6 clones can be found at the Foundation Plant Services at UC Davis.  A vine of moderate to high vigour, PM has several advantages over it's appellation-mates;  the ability to bud and ripen more reliably than Pinot Noir, less prone to frost damage, less prone to coulure, less susceptible to powdery mildew than Pinot Noir and not as susceptible to Eutypa lata as Chardonnay. And acid levels in PM are usually more elevated than in Pinot Noir which lends a youthful fruitiness to wines made with this particular grape, balancing the weight of Pinot Noir and the finesse of Chardonnay.
The Mumm PM, a winery exclusive, was lovely, all floral-yumminess and fruity-yeastiness.  What a great glass of bubbly!  I must drive up to the winery and purchase more before Christmas. Apparently, there is one downside to bubblies made from PM: they are said to age quicker and are not as long lived as some other Pinot noir and Chardonnay based wines. So?  Sounds like a good excuse to drink them quicker.  Hic!

Party early for Christmas.

Last night Vinomaker and I joined my TWWIAGE co-workers to celebrate Christmas...Rat Pack-style.  To my mind it was a little early in the month for such festive goings-on, but suitable venues get booked up quickly in the valley and so December 7th it was. However, after a couple of glasses of bubbly, and several soaring renditions of Frank Sinatra classics, I had forgotten what the date was.  A good time was had by all.  So an early, Happy Christmas to everyone.

The Pacific Northwest.

My Wines of the World class tonight ventured up north into the two states that lie above California - Oregon and Washington. Week 15, with 24 wines, aimed to showcase the vinous-wares of the Pacific Northwest (PNW) which is a relatively young, but snappily growing wine region.
To be quite honest, I rarely ever drink wines from this part of the world. The PNW is a region of the United States that is conventionally perceived as having no real, modern day, cultural identity.   When I think of the PNW I think of the rugged Pacific Ocean coastline, not vineyard vistas.  Maybe the entire wine industry up there, in the top-left corner of the contiguous United States, needs to hire a better public relations firm. The entire state of Washington has about 45,000 acres under vine, that's about the same amount of acreage as Napa County. Oregon has less than half that amount at around 21,000 acres. On paper, the PNW looks like ideal wine country: Washington and Oregon are at about the same latitudes as Bordeaux and Burgundy and benefit from longer daylight hours and generally cooler temperatures than here in California.  

So what about the wines?  Perhaps my palate has become a little jaded at this point in the semester, as I was once again underwhelmed by the evening's offerings.  Thankfully, they do not bottle any American Vitis wines in the PNW, so at least I was in familiar territory with Vitis vinifera.  The best white of the night for me was a King Estate Winery, 2011, Pinot gris.  The best red wine was a 2009 Pinot noir (and that's saying something that I picked a Pinot noir), hailing from the cellars of Domaine Drouhin. Does it take a well established Burgundy producer to make a decent Pinot noir in the PNW?  I don't know.  Domaine Drouhin also happened to be the most expensive wine of the evening with a Burgundian-esque price tag of $55.99.  Both wines were from Oregon. Washington fell a little short in the wine department for me, although I did choose to photograph two Washington Cabernet Sauvignons.  I just liked the raptor-adorned labels.

Next...

Mull it over.

There's no time like the present.  It's December 1st and it's time to start planning a happy, wine-filled Christmas season.  I usually make my own mulled wine - a little closer to Christmas in all honesty.  But this store bought, gold ribbon-cinched bag of mulling spices, given to me by Thud, is just so cute and Christmassy that I fetched it out of the pantry today simply for the gratuitous grin I knew it would induce.  I'm smiling.

Happy St. Andrew's Day.

I thought ahead (unusual for me) and photographed this Bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) this past August, as I knew I wouldn't find one blooming in California in November.  More commonly known as Spear thistle in auld Caledonia, this spiky weed is the national symbol of the lugubrious land located at the northernmost reaches of Great Britain.  It's wild and quite beautiful up there.
If you are so inclined, pour yourself a wee dram of scotch and toast Andrew, Patron Saint of Scotland.  I myself will be toasting him with something made from the grape, not grain.
And so concludes my year of blogs dedicated to the Patron Saints of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.  Amen!

Foxy lady.

Cue Jimi Hendrix!  It's week 14 of my Wines of the World class. This evening there were 30 wines to try from 12 states in the good, old US of A. The usual American grape-suspects where in tonight's vinous line-up; Concord (Vitis labrusca), Norton (Vitis aestivalis) and Scuppernong (Vitis rotundifolia).  Thrown into the fray were some more readily recognisable Vitis vinifera cultivars; Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Merlot.  Also represented were some French-American hybrid direct producers, bred for their hardiness and disease resistance; Chardonel, Vidal blanc and Chambourcin.
Grapevine cultivation has a rather long, and often disastrous, history in North America.  Exploring Vikings, upon landing on the American mainland, circa 1000 AD, named it Vinland for the grapevines they discovered growing there in abundance.  Some seven centuries later, England was convinced that the New World could become one, giant vineyard:  In 1657, King James I decreed that  all settlers must raise grapes.  However, the native grapes of America made poor tasting wine, so what was a thirsty colonial to do?  Then along came oenophile Thomas Jefferson.  Hoping that wine would become the everyday drink of Americans - in part to counter the ever growing consumption of that evil, reprobate spirit, whiskey - Jefferson planted, and replanted, European winegrape varieties at his plantation inVirginia, Monticello. Unfortunately for Tom, each vineyard replant died within a few years from a mysterious, but as it turned out native, disease.  Cue phylloxera!
So on to this evening's offerings.  The wines of the USA were astounding, but not in a particularly good way.  The foxy character, associated with Vitis labrusca, was evident in a few wines tonight.  It has variously been described as smelling like fox urine, or as having a cosmetic-perfumey quality. Dr. Krebs informed the class that the foxy component was most likely the smell of a female fox in heat - lovely!  Best white wine? Best red? It's tough.  From Pennsylvania, the Blue Mountain Winery, 2011 Riesling was drinkable, but not very varietal like. From Missouri, the Augusta Winery, 2011, Norton had great color extraction and nice acid, but that's about all I can say about it.
The silliest wines of the night were two pineapple wines from Hawaii. The most odoriferous wines were two Muscadines out of Florida - no one in the class could come up with a single descriptor for either of these Sunshine State wines.
I did get to taste two wines from Utah. I was interested in these two wines because of my familial connection to this particular state.  Castle Creek Winery is located near Moab, on the Colorado River, a part of the world more famous for it's National Parks than it's wine. Their white wine offering with the proprietal name of Uintah blanc, made from a blend of Muscat grapes and thus displaying a slight linalool character, was at least drinkable. Their red, a thin, vegetal mess of a Merlot, was not!
What a night.  Most students were stunned, or at least their palates were. The wines of the USA almost had me wishing for the wines of Eastern Europe!
Next...

What's inside Vinogirl's fridge?

Inspired by an article that appeared in People magazine, some 6 months ago now (what can I say?  I'm slow), about celebrity kitchens, I decided to take a quick snapshot of the contents of my own refrigerator. My humble fridge is not quite as highfalutin as Martha Stewart's refrigerator for example, but then again I'm not in the habit of throwing dinner parties for 200, or so, fancy-pants people.
All the essentials are there; chocolate, fresh fruit, beer, sparkling wine, egg nog (Vinomaker's), damson jam, yogurt (not essential) and more chocolate.  I did not stage this photograph.  Well, I did move extra bottles of beer to the shelf below and I put a half used tin of dog food in the bottom shelf of the door - lest you think I'm sort of weird by keeping unrecognisable, recycled animal bits suspended in gelatinous gloop next to my chocolate.
Purists, don't be alarmed.  The bottle of Mumm, 2006 Devaux Ranch sparkling wine, only went from the wine refrigerator to the non-wine-dog-food refrigerator last night.  And it's not going to be kept that chilled indefinitely, I wouldn't treat bubbly that way.  In fact, it will be consumed in fairly short order. Tonight to be exact, hic!
So what's in your fridge?

Meet the twins.

The Montes Twins, that is.
I am revisiting South America, Chile to be exact, but only because another Ralph Steadman label caught my eye in my local supermarket. C'mon, what is there not to love about a wine label with a nappy-clad cherub on it?  Better still, how about a label with twin nappy-clad cherubim on it?  Love it - even if the pudgy putti do somewhat resemble inebriated 2 year olds!
The Montes Twins 2011, Red Wine is a 50/50 blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec.  This wine is a deep, opaque, purple-red-inky monster: colour extraction like this is no doubt the contribution of the Malbec.  The bouquet displayed a tad too much new, toasty-cooperage for my liking, but the ensuing vanilla component, paired with the aroma of sun-warmed blackberries, was very pleasing.  The vanilla and berry combination translated well through to the palate where they were complemented by a felicitous acidity. Things were gustatorily-groovy until the rather strident tannins stopped my taste buds firmly in their, well, stride. In wine, tartness and astringency exaggerate one another and apparently my threshold for this particular amount of astringency had reached it's limit.  But all in all, for $10.99, this wine was a fairly decent tipple.

Thanksgiving Day: 2012.

I am thankful for a lot of things in my life; family, friends, good health, good wine and, of course, the Vinodogs.  But this year, I want to say a special thank you to Mother Nature (if she's listening) for bestowing upon the Napa Valley a fantastic growing season in 2012...2010 and 2011 were a little rough, ma'am.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Muscat mosaic.

Rain today, sigh.
The poppy seeds that I planted last Sunday will have had a a good watering today.  In fact, rainy weather is forecast to continue all the way until Tuesday, double sigh.
I must admit, Vinoland and it's environs look rather pretty right now, as there is already a green-haze of r-selection plants covering vineyards, roadsides and every other available surface.  I will, however, have to say a reluctant goodbye to the fetching leafy-patchwork of warm, autumnal hues that until recently were the verdant sugar-factories of Vinoland's Orange Muscat vines, oh well.  The now soggy leaves will breakdown and will eventually be available, to the very same vines, as organic matter.  And the cycle continues...

South of the border.

Wines of the World, week 13,  just happened to coincide with the occurrence of the third Thursday in November - which happens to be Beaujolais Nouveau release day.  Never one to miss a wine tasting opportunity, Dr. Krebs marked the occasion by adding two bottles of Georges Duboeuf to tonight's roster of wines. As one would expect from 10-12 week old, carbonically-macerated Gamay grapes, the wine was all fruity-bubblegum-ness.  I thought it perfectly pleasant, but the rest of the class did not share my view of this frivolous wine of limited breeding.
The real business of the night was the tasting of the wines of South America.  And as with the wines of the Antipodes last week I was on the whole underwhelmed.  For example, there were three Pinot noirs in the mix; one each from Uruguay, Chile and Argentina - all, in my humble opinion, barely recognisable as Pinot Noir.  If I had to pick a favourite white and a favourite red of the night...In the white flight I would have to choose a Chilean wine, an Amaral, 2008 Sauvignon Blanc (DO Leyda Valley).  For the red, I'm going with an Argentinian selection, a Ksana, 2006, Bonarda (IG Mendoza).  They were both drinkable, but I was left longing for something Spanish or Italian.
There were 27 wines in all, the most expensive wine that was poured, at $99.99, was a TeHo, 2010, Malbec/Petit Verdot/Cabernet Franc (IG Mendoza).  This last wine seemed to be the favourite of most of my classmates.  Replete with lots of vanilla-oakiness on the nose, it came across as the most Napa-like.
The wine in the photograph?  A Montes, 2006, Cherub Rosé of Syrah (DO Colchagua Valley).  The wine was alright, but it was the label that I really liked.  It is by one of my my favourite illustrators, Ralph Steadman, who, like Vinogirl, is a product of Merseyside.
As it's Thanksgiving next week there is no class, but stay tuned for the November 29th installment.
Next...

Poppy Day: 2012.

This is a packet of Papaver rhoeas seeds I bought when I was home in England last spring.  I am going to plant them today in hopes that they bloom next summer: a reminder to me of the many, many sacrifices that countless heroic men and women have made so that I may live in peace.
Remember, freedom isn't free.