Category Archives: USA

Ridge Vineyards Petite Sirah Lytton Estate 2002

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Straight out of the bottle, you know right away that this wine isn’t like most other wines. More than anything else, it’s the color that looks strange: surely wine isn’t quite that dark? There’s a brownish tint that looks more like Kyoto pickle than actual fermented grape juice; it’s not age, but intensity that makes it look that way.On the nose, it’s all sweet dusty bramble. In fact, it’s so odd that part of me is wondering if the bottle is OK: is that TCA? Brettanomyces? Or is that normal? It’s hard to get past the killer sweetness and onto a real wine smell. Jeez, Paul, do you think it would kill you to stop using natural corks? There’s almost a smoked bacon note there, but again and again that weird smell takes over. Is it supposed to smell like that?In the mouth, it gets even stranger: there’s a persistent, tooth-coating fuzziness that’s fairly unpleasant combined with, well, nothing.Dang it, this bottle’s bad. Glad I bought a pair of them… let’s go open the next one…Well, it almost smelled like wine there for a second, and then poof, it smells like tinfoil and metal shavings. WTF? Same horrible taste: vague sweetness and harsh, grating tannins.Next week in Full Pour: Will Ridge respond to my E-mail asking about this wine, and if they do, what will they say? User error? We meant for it to taste like you’re drinking it out of a Capri-Sun pouch? Gosh, we’re sorry, must be a fluke? Gosh, we’re really sorry, but they’re all bad? Or will they say sorry, nice try, but we don’t believe you and won’t refund your $60? Stay tuned…Ridge Vineyards

Price: US $30
Closure: Cork
Date tasted: December 2007

Napa Family Vineyards Napa Valley Finest Selection Reserve Chardonnay 2005

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You know, the label on this wine practically gives me carpal tunnel just typing it in… Anyhow, on to another of Tesco Finest, er Napa Family Vineyards’ blah blah blah wines…Curiously enough, this wine smells like the nursing home my Aunt Emma lived in towards the end of her life. There’s a very old-ladies-in-wheelchairs floweriness here – kind of like a Laura Ashley boutique just opened shop at the bottom of my glass. It’s surprising mostly because this isn’t something I smell a lot of in my life, especially not in wines I buy. Anyhow: it’s basically a mix of nasturtium, lavender, rosemary honey, and some French oak (?) in the background.In the mouth, the wine is big, rich, round, and fat, ending in a very spicy note. It’s unusual for a mass market California chardonnay in that the movie theater butter note doesn’t spring itself on you until the very finish: it’s overall far spicier than buttery, which is, I suppose, a refreshing change from the usual. Even so, it’s not terribly complex, with nothing (that I can tell) coming from wild yeasts, lees stirring, or other techniques that might increase the interest.To sum up, it’s a decent enough wine. It thankfully doesn’t show the banana-pineapple flavors you often find in wines at this price, and the flowery spiciness could be highly attractive to some folks. Most importantly, it delivers enough at its price point and the bottle looks quite nice (once you peel off the SPECIALLY SELECTED BY fresh&easy label).Napa Family Vineyards [but really fresh&easy]

Price: US $9.99
Closure: Diam
Date tasted: December 2007

Kiona Chenin Blanc 2006

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This wine shows a simple nose of something like Libby’s fruit cocktail, which strikes me as fairly clumsy. There’s also a smell there that doesn’t seem right – is it sulfur? dirt? something more sinister? Finally, there’s also a noticeable amount of CO2 in the glass – not enough to be really spritzy, but enough to form bubbles in the bowl.With a bit more time, the bad smell blew off, and the fruit resolved itself into something more like low quality airline soap. Yeah, soapy – and almost like unripe avocado. It’s not particularly appealing but at least it’s original.In the mouth, the CO2 is much more noticeable, and the overall effect is of a heavy, simply fruity wine that dies on the palate. There’s no perceptible acidity to back up the heavy fruit, and for all of the dunderheaded fruit, the overall mouthfeel is thin and unappetizing. It’s just not pretty. I’d suggest you lace it with fresh strawberries and serve it with a Sunday brunch buffet at the nearest Waffle House.Kiona

Price: US $6.99
Closure: Plastic cork
Date tasted: December 2007

—For the record, I do believe that Washington has fantastic potential for great Chenin Blanc – the L’Ecole No. 41 can be incredibly good. This one, however, misses the mark.

Napa Family Vineyards Napa Valley Finest Selection Reserve Merlot 2004

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Pencil shavings, olive, and strawberries dominate the nose of this wine; it’s not too shabby, but it never really seems to evolve much beyond fruitiness with an oak undertone. It’s kind of like Kool-Aid mixed with wood chips.

In the mouth, this wine seems frankly way too sweet for a Napa merlot – and it’s not sucrosité, but residual sugar I think I’m tasting here. Ewww, gross – there’s barely any acidity here at all, and the overall effect is thoroughly unpleasant. However, the tannins are fairly interesting: finely grained and almost Australian in style, they seem flown in from a much better wine. Sadly, though, the bulk of the wine just hangs there limply in the mouth, waiting for you to swallow so that you can move on to something else. In terms of flavor, there’s some indeterminate milk chocolate but that’s about it, and there’s not much in the way of length here either: once the wine’s gone, the flavor’s gone. It’s all very disappointing. I imagine this is precisely the wine Miles was talking about in Sideways – and I probably should have heeded his advice.

Napa Family Vineyards [but really fresh&easy]
Price: US $10.99
Closure: Diam
Date tasted: November 2007

JK Carriere Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2005

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The nose is classic Burgundy by way of Oregon: little red fruits, dark earth, forest floor under California redwoods, smoke, camphor, and soft sweet peat. Young still, the color is a beautiful deep ruby, darker than ‘proper’ Burgundy and yet lighter than most New World pinot. Smelling it alone is enough to get you salivating; it smells inviting, like an old family friend you don’t see but once a year.

In the mouth, it exhibits a rich, inky sweetness of summer fruits, followed by an unexpected sourness, which resolves again into a smooth, rich, deep flavor that trails off into a range of unexpectedly delightful flavors, with just enough alcohol to support it all without becoming intrusive. There’s a bit of firm, supporting tannin there as well, which suggests wonderful things just a few years down the road; it might be a good idea to lay this one down until the next presidency at the very least.

With a bit more air, the wine began to develop ever more interesting flavors, with a touch of barnyard or wet earth at times, and occasionally fresh straw, hay, or even something approaching newly laid asphalt.

JK Carriere
Price: US $42
Closure: Cork
Date tasted: November 2007

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This is easily one of the finest Oregon pinots I’ve had, easily the match of anything from the New World, and in the league of, say, Bass Phillip or Domaine Drouhin. Most importantly, it’s clear that they’ve opted to let the wine speak for itself; unlike many other Oregon pinots, it seems honest, pure, clean. Bravo.

Cameron Hughes Lot 48 Meritage 2005

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Whoa. Clouds of rich, dark chocolate, bulldust, and black olive billow up in the glass, and there’s an almost perfumed character to the wine, with a slight sweetness – it’s not unlike vetiver or sage, albeit with a lovely, restrained edge. The color’s a lovely, dark purple with nearly visible particles towards the rim; it just looks expensive, somehow.

On the palate, the first thing that strikes me is the lovely texture: firm and round, followed shortly by flavor that I can honestly only describe as delicious. There are tastes of cassia, Kalamata olive, and cassis, and it all trails off into a clean finish with hints of tannin, acid, and a lovely sweetness, almost like violet pastilles mixed in with tahini. Best of all, the finish keeps going for a while, not resolving itself; it’s a fine drink.

Cameron Hughes
Price: US $9.99
Closure: Diam
Date tasted: November 2007

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For you Aussies out there, Meritage is American for “Bordeaux blend,” more or less. This also marks the first time I’ve seen an American wine closed with a Diam technical cork, which is awesome. Finally, it may interest you to know that we don’t have cleanskins – but Cameron Hughes is pioneering what y’all would call cleanskins in the US market. If you’re in the USA, you can probably find one or two of them at your local Costco, and they also do mail order (their Lot 39 Shiraz Viognier from the Barossa is probably the most incredibly fun $10 wine I’ve had this year).