Getting Friendly with Pinot

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Sonadora

*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from Krutz Family Cellars to participate in a Twitter Taste Live.

What I really love about Twitter Tastings is discovering wineries that I was not familiar with. Over the last year I was lucky to participate in several tasting involving Krutz Family Cellars.  I am in love.  They have skyrocketed to the top of my list of wineries to visit this spring on our annual Northern CA trip.  I can’t wait to taste more of their line up.  On this particular evening, we tasted the 2007 Krutz Family Cellars Pinot Noir.  The Pinot Noir has a real cork closure, clocks in at 14.39% (oddly specific!) alcohol by volume, and retails for $45.

On the nose I found earth, forest floor, mushroom, pepper, spice, and black cherry. In the mouth I got black cherry, strawberry, herbs, spice, and chocolate notes.  I would describe the palate as almost creamy, with plush fruit, round flavors, and a very long finish. The strawberry definitely stood out in the wine. Yum!

 

 

 

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Filed under: California, Pinot Noir, Red, Wine | 1 Comment »

Grapes Galore!

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Sonadora

*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from the PR folks for Wines of Austria.

I’ve been adding grapes to my Double Century Club application recently.  This was a totally new grape for us. While I’m quite familiar with and very much enjoy Gruner Veltliner, I’d not previously gotten around to trying Roter Veltliner. I think this makes grape number 139 for us. It’s getting harder and harder to come across new grapes without individually hunting them down from internet sources!  The wine for the night was the 2009 Leth Roter Veltliner. It has a screw cap, clocks in at 12.5% alcohol by volume, and retails for $17ish.

Four takeaways from this wine:

1.)  I was surprised at how close, but different this grape was from Gruner Veltliner.

2.) To me the Roter Veltliner actually had a little more going on than regular Gruner, and I dug that.

3.) From a quick search of the internet, I only see a couple different producers for this grape that are imported to the US.

4.) This is definitely worth a try, and would be a crisp, clean wine to enjoy on a warm day.

On the nose I found white pepper, lemon, apple, dried herbs, honey, and exotic fruit. In the mouth I got stones, lemon, pear, apple, quince, and a lick of orange citrus on the finish. Overall I found that it had very crisp, clean fruit flavors and a nice tartness. I definitely enjoyed adding this to my list of grapes I’ve tried and would be excited to try it again.

 

 

 

Filed under: Austria, White, Wine | 2 Comments »

Get Your Spurs On

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Sonadora

*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample.

Still digging into those deep dark reds for the winter months here in VA. Though I awoke yesterday to find that my daffodils had started blooming. That just isn’t right.  We’ve barely even had enough cold days to make a fire in the woodburning stove this year! Instead I’ll just pretend it’s cold and snuggle up tonight with the 2008 Murietta’s Well The Spur Anniversary Blend.  The Spur is a blend of 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Petite Verdot, 10% Petite Sirah, 9% Cabernet Franc, and 4% Malbec. It clocks in at $14.5% alcohol by volume, has a screw cap closure, and the current 2009 vintage retails for $25.

Four takeaways from this wine:

1.) Chocolate covered cherries and blackberries in a glass shaken with herbs and pepper.

2.) I enjoyed this wine more on its own than with our beef stroganoff.

3.) This would have been great with the bbq ribs we had last week.

4.)  Watch the alcohol content on this one, it was well integrated and could easily creep up on you.

On the nose I got blackberry, pepper, black cherry, herbs, oak, and chocolate.  In the mouth I found blueberry, blackberry, pepper, oak, spice, and baking chocolate.  The wine had tannins to spare which is what makes me think it would have worked nicely with the bbq ribs we had last week since they had plenty of nice crispy fat on them.

 

 

Filed under: California, Red, Wine | 1 Comment »