Last night wine: 2016, part 2.

Goodbye Blighty.  It's time for my holiday to come to an end.  My last night wine this visit was a lovely Tempranillo that Thud had purchased in Marks & Spencer (once again).  The 2012 Bellota Tempranillo was a lovely wine; fruity, balanced, smooth and very, very moreish.  A delightful wine with which to toast the end of a wonderful visit.
Later, England!
California here I come.

Liverpool Gin.

I'm not a gin drinker, but all my family do like the odd gin and tonic.  I don't really like spirits at all, actually.  So I had to ask Thud what he thought of this gin: he said it's alright.  I just like the bottle.  It has a Liverbird on it, so why wouldn't I like it?  Liverpool Gin is indeed made in Liverpool.
I'm a sucker for good packaging and I don't care if that makes me seem shallow.  The makers of Liverpool Gin have ginned up the label with a bit of gold to appeal to people like me, except I'm never going to buy it, ever. It's still a very appealing bottle.

The Un-Bonfire Night.

The Bonfire Night that wasn't, that was Bonfire Night, 2016.  Ho hum.  I think I mentioned in my previous post that the weather was forecast to turn gangster: it didn't disappoint.  Although it was dry, it was just far too windy to have a bonfire.  Not that there is the danger of a bonfire getting out of control in England (unlike perhaps it would in tinderbox-dry California), but it was just too unpleasant to be outside.  I did see lots of other fireworks, off in the distance, but they did not totally satisfy my inner pyromaniac. Thud had made some delicious treacle toffee earlier in the day, so I did get to partake of something traditional this Bommy Night.
In lieu of a list of pyrotechnic-wonderment, I thought I'd mention a quick round up of some wines that I have had in the past week.  Paired with a nice Bolognese that Thud made, the 2014 Messapi, Aglianico (DOC Acerenza), purchased in Marks & Spencer, was quite nice (though a tad bit oaky).  And at a couple of lunches out with my Vinomum at The Red Fox pub in Thornton Hough, I took advantage of the establishment's 'By the Glass' wine list and had a glass each of; a 2015 Terre Di Passione Pinot Grigio (Veneto IGT); 2015 Crusan Colombard/Sauvignon Blanc (Cotes de Gascogne); and a 2015 Lanya Sauvignon Blanc (Chile).  All passable quaffing whites, with perhaps the Sauvignon Blanc edging out the other two by a nose. Literally, a very aromatic wine.

I do like to be beside the seaside.

The weather has been unusually nice whilst I have been home.  Except for a drizzly few hours last Friday it has been dry, sunny and, surprisingly, warmer than average for the time of year.  This morning Thud and I drove over to New Brighton for a coffee.  It was a beautiful autumn morning.
The wind that comes across the Irish Sea into Liverpool Bay, and then up the River Mersey, is often stronger than anything I have ever experienced in the USA.  But with little in the way of wind this morning, just a bracing breeze, I was able to walk a little ways along the promenade and take this photograph.  Oh!  I really do like to be beside the seaside.
Of course, the weather is forecast to turn gangster on Friday, sigh.  But the good weather has meant that I have been able to spend sometime outside with Thud.  Whilst he has been busy building a sandstone wall and a fire pit, I have assisted with raking leaves, feeding chickens and, most importantly, building a bonfire.  Whoo hoo!

Monopole.

A small, but significant, successful business development of Thud's meant that a glass, or two, of bubbly was the order of the evening.  The Heidsieck, 2007 Monopole Gold Top was a delightful choice with which to celebrate.  All toasty-rich, appley goodness, the Gold Top was a suitable tipple for the occasion.  And that of my 1200th post.
I have been busy since I got home: the Vino-nieces and Vino-nephew have been on half term from school and I have been kept on the go.  I have only had one other wine in the past week. It wasn't very good, which was disappointing as I hoped it would be great.  Made from the Marzemino grape, the wine definitely had plummy characteristics, but it also had a very bad case of volatile acidity. Hate when that happens.

Get back...

...to where I once belonged, Part 9.
Yes, I'm on my way to Blighty once again.
Vinomaker and I toasted my upcoming holiday, at dinner last night, with a bottle of Bodkin, Cuvée Agincourt, Blanc de Sauvignon Blanc. Bodkin is a sparkling Sauvignon blanc; it's not the greatest of wines, it's not bad just vinous and not very complex.  It may have been a little better if it hadn't seemed slightly old and a little oxidised (perhaps it was just a bad bottle). However, I thought it a fitting wine for this particular trip, for when I wake up on my first morning at home, the 25th of October, it will be St.Crispin's Day.  And the 601st anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt.
Get back JoJo!

Bring the Brini.

Hee, hee!  I had forgotten all about this bottle of Lambrini that I had brought back from England with me last April.  Marketed almost exclusively to women, Lambrini is a cheap, sweet, low alcohol, sparkling perry that is produced in Liverpool.  A lot of good things have come out of Liverpool over the years.  However, Lambrini isn't one of them.
I had meant to do a blind tasting of the Lambrini with Vinomaker this summer whilst Thud was visiting, but I forgot.  I thought it would have been an entertaining tasting for me and Thud to share the Lambrini with someone who had never tasted it before.  Then I completely forgot all about the Lambrini again - until just yesterday when I spotted it in my wine-stash (whilst looking for a particular vintage of something altogether more serious).  Time for some Lambrini-larks.
Well, it wasn't much of a test for Vinomaker, as he immediately deduced that the tipple in his glass was not made from grapes.  He's good. Still, I wasn't altogether disappointed in my quest for cheap entertainment at Vinomaker's expense: his face upon first tasting the perry had to be seen to be believed.  He very quickly poured himself a glass of a 2015, Miner Family Viognier.

The grass is greener.

Deere, John:
The 1.75 inches of rain that fell on me last weekend (I always take it personally), when paired with five days of ample sunshine with temperatures in the mid to high 70°s, have produced a distinct green haze of sprouting grasses and weed-seedlings all over Vinoland. Like magic, opportunistic r-selection plants have taken full advantage of the combination of rain and sun and have begun the process of turning California's rolling, golden hills and the vineyard floors of the Napa Valley into velvety-verdant vistas.  Then, a little time later, and after subsequent rain events, everywhere will have to be mowed.  Cycles.
Love, Vinogirl.

Pressing business.

Vinomaker and I pressed off a lot of wine this afternoon.  A lot!  (Two batches of St. Helena Cabernet sauvignon and Vinoland's Syrah.)  As usual, Vinomaker had slightly underestimated how juicy the Syrah grapes were and so there was a bit of a scramble to find another container to transport the wine from the crush pad up to Vinoland's modest barrel chai.  It was a busy day.
But not before I had taken a quick jaunt up to Oakville to join my co-workers at TWWIAGE in celebrating the end of Harvest 2016.  The vineyard crew at TWWIAGE had harvested the last grapes back on October 8th.  (TWWIAGE's last tank of Cabernet Sauvignon was pressed off on October 17th and was commemorated with a sparkling wine toast.) Those vineyard lads definitely know how to throw a harvest party: it is by far my favourite celebration of the season. Actually, it will be my only harvest party this year, as I won't be able to make it to the other two that I have been invited to.  I have other pressing engagements.

Just juice.

Harvest 2016 is finished, yay!  Vinoland's Cabernet sauvignon grapes, the ones I lovingly tended all summer long, are now just juice (well, skins and seeds too).  The must is now awaiting inoculation with Vinomaker's yeast of choice. My job is done.
Special thanks go out to the St. Helena Sots (both sets), the Barrow Lane Boozer, the Atlas Peak Alky and the Coombsville Carouser, all of whom got just as drenched as me whilst harvesting the grapes.  Cheers, my dears!

Cabernet revealed.

I spent most of today leaf pulling in the Cabernet sauvignon vines in preparation for harvest tomorrow.  I got a good look at the fruit as I stripped the leaves away and I'm estimating the crop is a little lighter than last year.  And the vines seem to be shutting down rather early.
The leaf pulling was a very dusty activity, I was filthy by the time I had finished.  The Napa Valley is expecting its first storm-series of the season tomorrow, perfectly timed to coincide with the Cabernet harvest.  It will be a rather soggy harvest event, but at least I, and the grapes, will be clean at the end of it.  Oh well, sigh.

Press the grape-flesh.

Vinomaker and I pressed off the Vichyssyrah today; it was a very small batch of wine, so it took no time at all.  In fact, cleaning up after the whole pressing process always takes much longer than the actual squishing of the pomace. But Vinomaker is a dab hand when it comes to using a pressure washer and he usually gets it done rather quickly. There are countless cleaning and sanitizing steps involved in every aspect of winemaking and there really are no shortcuts when it comes to cleanliness.  As Bob Pepi, founder of Pepi Winery, once said, "Eighty percent of great winemaking is cleanliness."  I'm of the opinion that the other 20% is spent just thinking about cleaning stuff.

Syrah, sorted.

Vinoland's Syrah is picked, yay!  Harvest was quick and painless and the fruit looks beautiful.  The harvest party (Harvest Chili with jalapeno cornbread, then brownies and Neopolitan ice cream for dessert) was a lot of fun and included a great selection of wines.  All of which were consumed down to the very last drop.
One particular wine, that our merry little harvest group imbibed, was a Syrah made by a co-worker of mine (at TWWIAGE) from grapes from the 2014 harvest in Vinoland.  I was gifted a bottle of  the Syrah last Christmas.  My co-worker and her boyfriend had bottled this wine when it was less than a year old.  The main consideration for the early bottling was that they didn't have enough room at their house to live, for an extended period of time, with a barrel of maturing wine.  And the brief barrel-aging was clearly apparent.
Like a wine that has spent very little time in oak, this young Syrah had proportionally very little going on in the bouquet, or in the taste, department.  Unlike the novel, bubblegum-fun-factor appeal of an adolescent Gamay, i.e., a Beaujolais nouveau, the only interesting thing about this wine was the rather attractive wax seal that embellished the bottle.  (The E and V are the couple's initials, but I suppose they could also stand for enologist and vintner.)
The Syrah wasn't a bad wine, it was just nondescript.  Of course, the entire bottle was consumed.

Syrah strip.

I spent most of today pulling leaves in the Syrah vines in preparation for harvesting tomorrow.  Stripping the leaves from the fruit zone makes the picking of the clusters much quicker, and easier.  The yield looks average, but the quality of the crop looks great.  I ate some grapes as I worked and they tasted lovely, so I am predicting that 2016 is going to be a nice vintage.
Vinodog 2 accompanied me whilst I worked my way along the rows.  Well, actually, she was busy harassing four deer in our neighbour's property who were staring her down.  Then, tired with all that patrol-activity, she passed out on a comfy bed of leaves I had just removed from a vine.  It's a dog's life.

Happy 9th birthday V2!

My little Vinodog 2 is 9 years old today.  How did that happen?  Time flies.  V2 has had a rather rough year, so she thoroughly deserves to have a fuss made of her on her 9th birthday.
People who know me know that I like dogs, but they really have no idea how much.  I could not love V2 any more if I tried.  I simply adore her, she's great.  Just looking at her makes me happy. She's my funny, adorable little mongrel.
I have to work today, but I'll make sure I take her for a good walk when I get home.  Then I'll celebrate her big day with a glass of something bubbly.
Happy birthday V2!

When I smell violets, others smell singed hair.

I have posted before on Vinsanity about wine descriptors and how each wine drinker has different ways of describing what they are tasting, usually dependent on their individual life experiences.  I have written of how Vinomaker is often reminded of Necco Wafers whilst drinking certain wines.  And, for me, how certain wines evoke the very olfactory-memorable smell of Parma Violets.  (First happened to me with a bottle of Château Margaux, purchased by Thud for my 18th birthday.)  Well, just recently, I began to follow an Instagram-er (who shall remain nameless) who has the craziest wine descriptors I have ever read.  (I wish I'd known about this wine reviewer last year when I was required to find some outlandish wine descriptors for the marketing class I was taking at NVC.)
Here is a selection of the reviews (and the wines described within);
"...bell pepper, warm wet concrete and garden hose.  Apple butter and dirt road this is red-checkered-tablecloths and old-fashioned wine glasses."  (2011 Illuminati Ilico Riserva, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, DOC.)
"Barnyard bluster, full of funk, spit, manure and warm hay, framing an intense lilikoi and apricot, giving a fantastic ying/yang tropical/stone situation--with a decidedly buttery edge.  Minerality and oak play alongside pomegranate-skin tannin, banana and pineapple..."  (2014 Sea Monster Chardonnay, Los Alamos Vineyard, Santa Barbara County.)
"Tomato compote, kefir and green melon explodes into eucalyptus bark, dusty road while an icy vermouth and raspberry leaf tea warmth prop up the chalky brilliance."  (2014 Liquid Farm Chardonnay, Santa Rita Hills, Santa Barbara County.)
"Hair singeing rotten vegetables, Barbie sweat and dog-killed grass over a firm foundation of vegan hotdogs and turpentine-fueled electrical fire."  (2011 Red Lava Vineyards, Syrah, Lake County AVA.)
"Thin and bright, steely barnyard loveliness. Urine on galvanized steel and fat woodsy wet needles salted with nutmeg."  (2013 Villa Borghetti, Valpolicella Ripasso Superiore, DOC.)
I hope these wine reviews are meant to be tongue-in-cheek because Vinomaker and I have been having a laugh making fun of them: they are simply preposterous.  But then, who am I to pooh-pooh someone else's life experiences?  Titter, titter.

I dream of Zin.

A new offering from Mi Sueño, the 2013 Zinfandel (Sonoma Mountain AVA) is a big, impactful wine.  I've probably said it before, but I like it when winemakers flex their oenological-muscles.
I love a good Zinfandel because I think this particular wine varietal always pairs well with a myriad of meat-based meals, e.g., barbecued ribs etc.  Long considered the native grape of California, Zinfandel accounts for about 10% of all wine-grapes grown in The Golden State. Folks in California have been imbibing in wine made from this grape variety, now known to be indigenous to Croatia, since the mid 1800s - it's been around a long time.  However, this is not your grandmother's Zinfandel. No, this Mi Sueño Zinfandel is a rather stylistically-meaty interpretation of this varietal: it would definitely knock an old dear's socks off.
Deeply hued, this wine displays oodles of spicy-vanilla-caramelized plums on the nose, followed by more pluminess, a hint of dried cranberries, with a vanilla-smokiness on the lingering finish. And nice balance, considering the 14.8% ABV.  If I have one criticism, it is that this wine is slightly over-oaked, (but that is a Rolando Herrera trademark, after all).  The Zinfandel is, unfortunately, only available through Mi Sueño's wine club.  Paired well with my homemade beef burger.

A yeast feast.

Vinoland's first red fermentation of 2016 is under way.  The Vichyssyrah fruit showed up on Friday, was inoculated on Saturday and this evening the must is already merrily foaming along.  However, I don't expect too much foam with this fermentation due to the characteristics of the particular yeast that Vinomaker selected for this Syrah.
Coming in at 24°Brix the Vichy grapes were crushed and destemmed before being introduced to their partner-in-fermentation, Lalvin ICV-D254 (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Lallemand's ICV-D254, a Rhône specialist, is a low foaming yeast selected to ferment in low nitrogen musts and contributes aromas of ripe fruit, cedar, spice and licorice. Sounds lovely, I can't wait to taste it - in two years time.

Go Vatican!

I borrowed the title of this post from a teaser in the subject line of Karen MacNeil's (author of the Wine Bible) weekly e-zine, Winespeed (September 16th issue).  I subscribed to Winespeed a few months ago, but of late it has become something of a mini-obsession with me - I just love it and look forward to it arriving in my inbox each Friday.
Winespeed is packed with fascinating wine facts and tidbits of vinous information.  It's a fun, snappy read; included therein is a weekly wine recommendation, a 'Wine Question of the Week' and the 'Verbatim' feature - a quote from some or other wine-personage.  And other good stuff.  So what was so interesting to me about the 'Go Vatican!' item in Winespeed?  Everything, it's the type of wine-factoid that I just geek-out on.
"16.  Number of gallons of wine consumed per person annually in the Vatican City State--the highest per capita consumption of any country in the world.  Only 836 people live in the Vatican, but the country's voluminous wine usage is partly the result of the Catholic celebration in which bread and wine are consecrated during the Mass.  By comparison, U.S. per capita wine consumption is about 3 gallons."
Anyone interested can subscribe to Winespeed here.
Oh, and happy first day of autumn!

The Black Cat's meow.

This afternoon, Vinomaker and I spent a pleasant couple of hours at Black Cat Vineyard's harvest/wine club pick-up party.  Proprietor, and winemaker, Tracey Reichow was also releasing her 2014 Howell Mountain Zinfandel and 2014 Coombsville Syrah.  I had a quick taste of both new releases, but due to the rather toasty temperature, (it got to 89°F down the road in Vinoland), I stuck with a rosé that was being poured. And lots of water.  Lots of water.  I tasted enough of the Zinfandel, however, to determine that it did pair well with the barbequed ribs, Italian sausage and beef brisket with crispy grits that were being served, yum.
Good fun and good wine.