Menu for Hope

A friend of mine (who goes by the moniker themostrighteous) alerted us to this wonderful charitable campaign:

Every year, Food Bloggers from all over the world join together for a fundraising campaign. We call it 'Menu for Hope'. Last year, we raised over $90K for the UN World Food Program.

This year Menu for Hope 5 again raises funds for the WFP's school lunch program in Lesotho, Africa. This is the second year we are supporting this program, which assist the WFP's efforts to supply the program by buying directly from local farmers who practice conservation farming methods. With this program, we help feed the kids (which keep them in school) and support their parents and community farming. This sustainable approach to aid is something we believe in and strongly support.

Please join me in supporting this organization! Oh, and did I mention - every donation enters you for a raffle for some really wonderful prizes!

Jumilla and Ginger Key Lime Saffron Shrimp

Wine: 2006 Bodegas Olivares Jumilla Panarroz
Meal: Ginger Key Lime Saffron Shrimp

Tasting notes on the wine:

Color: 5/5
Black plum, color bleeds to edge, good saturation and clarity.

Nose: 11/15
Black cherry, oak, licorice, cough syrup, sweet thyme. Sweet, fruity. There's a little burnt rubber that's a little off-putting. Nice, but not extraordinary.

Flavor: 6/10
Spicy and fruity, and oaky. A little one-dimensional. Mostly dark fruits on the palate, with something weird that I just can't put my finger on, but I don't care for it. It's okay. Nothing spectacular.

Finish: 7/10
Decent little finish, goes down smooth and calls the tannins out. Again, nothing special about it, just a lingering of the flavors across the palate.

Aging: 3/5
It may be too early. It's a young wine still, only a 2006. It might improve with time. There's enough structure for it to hold for a while.

Overall: 3/5
Unimpressive. It's decent, and for $9/bottle, I can't really complain. Not exactly my cup of tea (or glass of wine). It's also not exactly the best pairing - the food was pretty much just what I had lying around the house, and so it became food. I had already opened the bottle before checking my food selection, so I kind of got stuck. The food's good though.

Total: 84 pts

Want to make this meal?

Ginger Key Lime Saffron Shrimp

5 jumbo shrimp
2 Tbsp ginger key lime sauce (see below)
3 medium carrots, peeled & chopped
2 ribs celery, diced
1/4 cup frozen peas
pinch saffron

Heat up medium skillet or wok and put in sauce, carrots, and celery. Saute until carrots are tender-crisp. Add in shrimp and saffron. Cover and cook for 3 minutes until shrimp begin to turn red. Stir in peas, cover and cook an additional 3 minutes until the shrimp has turned red and cooked through. Serve in a bowl and enjoy!

Ginger Key Lime Sauce
1 bottle Les Lavandes Ginger Key Lime Vinegar
1 shallot, finely diced
1 stick butter

In a small saucepan, combine vinegar and shallot, and reduce the vinegar over medium heat until it it approximately 2 Tbsp in volume. Remove from heat and slowly stir in butter until it is all melted. Can be refrigerated and reheated at will.

Enjoy!

Notes About Tasting Notes

At long last, I'm finally getting my post up about my tasting methods and stuff. First, let me start off by saying THANK YOU to all the guest bloggers last week, and thank you, readers, for bearing with me and being so patient awaiting this post! Also, I want to give just a bit of background on how this whole week came about.

About two weeks ago on the wine.woot! forums, we got into a discussion about the tasting notes that polarbear22 had posted about the then-current offering. In an effort to clarify his scoring, we realized, hey, you know, this scoring thing is so subjective, maybe it'd be good to know how we actually do it. Corrado posted up his play-by-play notes, and I started going on about how I score the color of a wine. And then it hit me - let's get some of the wine bloggers together and do this!

And so was born the guest week of notes about tasting notes. I'm frankly honored by the response I received to this, and amazed at how quickly we pulled it together and how well it came together. Despite my unfortunate delay!

But enough chatter, onto my notes!

Color: Possible 5 points
My understanding is that color should generally be scored on clarity (shouldn't be a cloudy wine), how appropriate the color itself is to the varietal (a PS should not be pale, a zin should not be black, a white should not be rose), the depth of the color (can you see a light through it), and the top layer (does the color bleed to the edge or is there a clear meniscus on it, and if so, how badly). For example, I would expect a sangiovese/cabernet/merlot blend to be ruby toned, garnet at the deepest. I'd be a little worried if it was darker or lighter than that. I'll start taking points off for color deviations, and for how far from the edge of the glass the color fades out or goes clear. If it's a red and it becomes clear more than 1/8" from the edge of the glass, I take a full point off, for example. Whites are harder since it's typically more difficult to see where it stops being "color" and starts being clear. It's HARD for any wine to score lower than a 4. Very hard.

This is the first thing I look at when sampling a wine. I'll hold the glass up at an angle toward a good bright light, and see if I can see the bulb through it, and asses the color from there. Here ends any sort of scientific rating, and begins everything that's subjective. The glass gets a swirl and my nose dives into it.

Nose: Possible 15 points
It usually takes me three or four good sniffs before I start actually judging what I'm smelling. The first couple of whiffs help clear out any other scents and make sure my sinuses are fully filled with the scent of the wine. The more I can pull out of the scent, the higher I rate it. If it's totally off-putting, it gets a lower score. If it's one of those sit-and-sniff-all-day noses, it gets a higher score. But at this point, I don't put a number on it yet. I'll keep track of all the scents I pull out, and my impression of it (did I like it, was it strong, did it burn my nose from the alcohol).

Next up, the glass is tipped, and a taste is taken.

Flavor: Possible 10 points
I'll take a sip and give a quick swish and swallow without paying too much attention to it, just to coat the inside of my mouth with the wine and abolish all other flavors. Then I'll take a good little swig and do the lovely aerating thing by sucking in some air. This sometimes results in coughing and spattering as the wine goes down the wrong pipe... but I've gotten pretty good at it. I'll do the same thing here, swirling it around in my mouth, keeping track of all the flavors I pull out of it, along with the impression of it for whether I liked it, and how hot or smooth it tasted. But once again, no point value is given yet.

And then the official swallow.

Finish: Possible 10 points
How smoothly the wine goes down plays a big part of the finish to me, as I keep track of it from swallow to the point where I can't taste it anymore. The length of the finish doesn't really play too much into the score I give, unless it is unusually short or nonexistent. Again, I keep note of the flavors that come out post-swallow, how pleasant it is, and how sharp or smooth it feels going down. ClayFu of ClayFood once commented about how a wine made his throat "uncomfortable", and this saying stuck with me for describing the smoothness of a wine's finish. If it makes my throat uncomfortable, it gets a lower score for being harsh. If it goes down so easily that I almost forget I'm drinking wine (dangerous!), it'll get a higher score. This is also where I make note of the tannins and how strong they are. This will play into the next scoring portion as well. And yet again, I don't actually assign a point value yet.

And here's where the REALLY subjective part comes.

Aging: Possible 5 points
How long do I think this will hold up? I'm no expert at this. My understanding is that the stronger the tannins and fruit, the longer it's likely to hold up, and maybe even require more time. I've certainly had a few "too young" wines, and a few "past its prime", so at least I have some basis. Whites generally score lower in this than reds do. The residual sugar may help, but I think the tannins play quite a big role. Sometimes I'll come back and update the aging potential score a few days after the initial tasting because I'll have the wine in the fridge for a few days before trying it again. The longer it holds up in the fridge generally indicates a longer cellarability potential.

Overall: Possible 5 points
These are the points that can sway just based purely on how much I enjoy the wine. While there is SOME objectivity to the nose and flavor of the wine, this one is purely me. A wine can be varietally "correct", but I hate it anyway. That's just my own palate preferences.

So at this point, I have actual point values assigned to the color, aging, and overall categories. This is where the research comes in. For the other three that I just kept notes on, I'll go look up what the "typical" characteristics are that you'll see for the varietal of wine, and compare that to what I got. I'll also try to get the winemaker's tasting notes, and see if it holds true. I will never make a change to my notes at this point - what I got was what I got. The more "accurate" the characteristics of this wine are, the higher the score will go. There's still some subjective enjoyability that plays into it, but for the most part I try to score based on what the wine SHOULD be.

Now that I've got all the points, I'll add them up, then add the "base 50" on to it, and voila! Final score.

I think the height of my blogging experience so far has been when I tasted the 2007 Wellington Sauvignon Blanc, and Peter Wellington let me know that I hit it pretty spot on, and was definitely in sync with what other reviewers were saying. It's always nice getting that reinforcement, especially from the winemaker himself!

Dark & Delicious - February 2009

Dark & Delicious February 20, 2009: The Rock Wall Wine Company, Alameda, California
Participating Wineries:

• Alger Vineyards
• August Briggs Winery
• Berryessa Gap
• Ballentine Vineyards
• Bogle Vineyards & Winery
• Clayhouse
• Concannon Vineyard
• David Fulton Winery
• EOS Estate & Winery
• F. Teldeschi Winery
• Field Stone Winery
• Foppiano Vineyards
• Harney Lane Winery
• Heringer
• Huntington Wine Cellars
• JC Cellars
• Judd's Hill
• Lava Cap Winery
• Marr Cellars
• Michael~David Winery
• Mounts Family Winery
• Moss Creek
• Parducci Winery
• Rock Wall Wine Company
• Robert Biale Vineyards
• Rosenblum Cellars
• Rutherford Grove Winery & Vineyards
• Silkwood Wines
• Stanton Vineyards
• Trentadue Winery, Miro Cellars
• Twisted Oak (and his rubber chickens)
• Ursa Vineyards
• Vina Robles
• Wilson Farms

I bought my ticket. Go get yours!

Post Forthcoming

Hey folks! Thanks so much for wandering along in this adventure with the guest bloggers! I hope you enjoyed the week as much as I did.

I was going to round out the week with a post of my own about the way I rate wines and the meanings behind my numbers to give you a better understanding it. However, I slipped and fell on a little bit of ice Thursday morning and landed on my hip. My back has been out pretty much ever since, and of course that's the day my chiropractor is closed. So first thing in the morning I am heading over there when the office opens. Hurts just a little more than a bit to sit around and type, so I'm going to have to beg your forgiveness and patience, and hopefully sometime this weekend I will be able to get the post put up.

And that's about all the time my back is allowing. Later, folks!

Gabe's View on Tasting

Special thanks to Gabe from Gabe's View for his views on reviews!

Cat has asked me to check in today and speak to how I go about reviewing wines, so here I am. There will be a link to this post from my blog, Gabe's View. First of all I should mention that I don’t currently use a numbered rating system. It’s not that I’m philosophically opposed to them, they have a place, it’s just not the direction I’ve chosen to go. My approach starts with being a writer first. From there, I take a great deal of time considering each individual wine and doing the best job I can every time out in describing what the wines taste like to me and how my palate reacts to them. Along those lines I’m equally concerned that the words I use to describe them are carefully considered and well put together.

In terms of evaluating the wine and deciding to recommend it or not I take several things into consideration. Quality seems like an obvious one so I’ll just mention it. While it’s certainly possible to simply evaluate a wine on it’s own with no other considerations I take several other things into account. Perhaps one of the less obvious elements I look at is intent. A $10 wine made in prodigious quantities can’t in my mind be considered the same way as a $50 wine of which a few hundred or a few thousand cases were made, let alone highly allocated wines made in tiny quantities. In each case the winery or winemaker had different goals and plans for each wine. My goal in looking at intent is to decide if they met what my impression of that wines goal or intent was. An example of this is the Gnarly Head Cabernet Sauvignon I reviewed the other day. 100,000 cases of it were made and it’s commonly available for $10. For that price it does a good job. Clearly though, it’s not meant to fill the same parameters a single vineyard Cabernet from Oakville would.

In terms of how I actually go about things, my usual approach is to taste the wine by itself first. Then I continue by pairing it with whatever I’m eating that day. Most of the people reading my reviews are going to drink the wines with a meal. Taking that into account I evaluate them with a meal and often comment on how they went with that particular food. Many times after having the wine with a meal I take it back with me to my computer, or over to the couch if I’m parking myself there for awhile. This allows the wine to continue breathing and gives me the chance to evaluate it further. As an extension of this I’ll sometimes re-taste a wine after it’s been open for a full 24 hours. If it has held or improved I make a point of commenting on that as it speaks at least to a degree to that wines shelf life.

A few times a year I run a series I call “12 Days of…” where I focus on 1 varietal for 12 days. In those instances I often taste 2 or 3 wines side by side each day over a period of time and then write about several each day. This approach allows me to take a quick peek at one varietal over a semi-extended period. The wines chosen for these situations are a combination of various things. I try to mix and match well known examples, somewhat obscure or small production offerings and wines I’ve never had. On top of that I usually mix in some I’m quite familiar with so I can check in with how they’re doing in their current vintages. The ones I know well can also act as a measuring stick of sorts for the unfamiliar ones.

In selecting wines to write about I tend towards those that speak to me. I’m only going to be able to write about a small percentage of the wines out there so I prefer to spend my time and energy with the ones I’m passionate about. As long as a wine moves me or impresses me for some reason or another I’ll write about it. Sometimes that’s simply because it’s an amazing bottle, in other cases it’s due the particular release being it’s a good value that’s widely available. Or perhaps the wine strikes me a filling a particular niche well. People sometimes ask if I write negative reviews. I will but it’s rare. A wine needs to stand out as truly terrible for me to be moved to write about it. Words don’t come as quickly or easily for marginal wines. With good and great offerings, the words tend to come easily. Many of those reviews seem to write themselves.

As for what I drink? Well I’m willing to taste just about anything. My penchant leans towards the smaller productions and more obscure. But I tend to taste and write about just as many large production wines as I do smaller offerings. There aren’t any varietals I don’t like, but of course I have my preferences. My tendency is towards things made in what strikes me as their natural style. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay made with Burgundian intent. Merlot made with structure and age ability in mind. Deep, dark and brooding Petite Sirah etc. The list goes on.

I’d like to thank Cat for offering me the opportunity to share my thoughts about tasting on her blog. If anyone has any questions feel free to e-mail me through the contact form on my site, which I of course hope you check out.

Gutshot Wine Rating

Special thanks to Loweeel of The PSychos' Path for this insight into the PSycho's PSyche!

Hi, I'm Loweeel, PSommelier over at The PSychos' Path (are you sensing a pattern yet?), the one and only blog devoted to Petite Sirah. My good friend "Octocat" asked me to share how I "rate" wine with you. Tonight's sample is the 2001 Petite Sirah (Napa Valley) from Blockheadia Ringnosii. I picked out this particular bottle because the rear label claims that it is a "rustic, provincial wine[] with characteristics of peppercorn, earth and game with the influence of oak flavors kept to a minimum." I got this bottle for fairly cheap ($17.25) on winebid.

There's not a lot about it on CellarTracker -- the rating is 89.7 on three ratings, only one of which has notes (89); the other two are 89 and 90, by the same user, without notes. The ratings range from October 2004 through December 2005, so they're not particularly helpful with this wine.

As Gary Vaynerchuk keeps emphasizing, rating is very subjective. I'll be the first to admit that the results of my ratings are neither particularly consistent nor rigorous, and have a lot to do with my impression of the wine at any given time, how true it is to a platonic ideal of the variety or wine region, what food I'm having it with, my mood, and even the stemware. But what I do try to do when rating wine is describe in objective terms, or as close as I can get, what I'm smelling and tasting at any given time. Often, I'll keep a time series, and note how the wine changes -- e.g., write down the sensory data at pop'n'pour, and after every X minutes in the decanter. I also try to keep track of the stemware I use and how long I decant the wine.

Upon opening, there was some nice sediment attached to the cork, so I busted out the strainer/funnel, which trapped more sediment Other sediment remained in the bottle This being PS, I didn't want a blank data series, so I decanted the wine for about 2 hours 15 mins in the WineCountryConnect decanter before pouring my first glass into Riedel Vinum Syrah stemware I paired the wine with Buffalo London Broil
(marinated in cheap red wine for 90 mins, then packed in kosher salt for ~45 mins before grilled medium rare) sliced and drizzed with my famous Solera-style steak sauce, accompanied by sauteed spinach cooked in balsamic vinegar and red wine with cumin and pepper.

Upon pouring, dark ruby translucent rim, brilliant clarity without a hint of cloudiness (as might be expected from all the sediment that precipitated out of solution), but a very dense, deep, dark red color.

On the nose, not screaming aromatics, but quite pleasant. Blackberries, anise, pencil (graphite and wood), just a hint of tar. No real oaky or vanilla/cinnamon aromas.

On the attack, blackberries, black pepper, plums, softening in favor of the pepper and graphite towards the midpalate. Gets a bit liqueur-like right before the finish, which adds black raspberry and black cherry to the mix. Tannins are perfect right now, sweet and slightly chewy, noticeable but not dominating, and as usual with PS, the acidity is excellent as well, cleansing the palate for the next bite of food. The finish is about 20 seconds.

The wine really shines with some meat in the mouth, the fruit and leanness complimenting the gamy grass-fed buffalo.

My gut is that this wine is just short of 4/5 stars. Here's why -- The fruit, tannins, and acidity are all in balance. It's true to varietal in color, flavor profile, acidity, and tannins. The oak is extremely subtle, and pairs well with the food. It does nothing wrong (so loses no points), has an intruiging nose, and some layers and depths of flavors and scents that I can't quite pick apart yet, but which will reveal themselves more fully as the wine continues to open up.

And I'm right -- the 2nd glass is much more open. Blackberry pie filling on the nose, with a few bits of what smells like game meat in there as well, on top of the graphite from before. The more intense flavors carry over to the palate as well, fleshing out what was in the first glass a lean but enjoyable wine. It's still elegant and balanced, just more muscled -- it went up a weight class or two, but is still in wrestling shape. 3rd glass is more of the same -- a bit of cream from the Maltolactic fermentation, but still nice sharp acidity and a nice blackberries-and-cream finish. If I had to put a number on it, I'd give it a 91 -- it does everything well, has nice evolution as it opens, and shows wonderful complexity without being too big to have with food. And of course, I'd be lying if I said that the price were not a factor.

If you see this on winebid, or elsewhere, snatch it up if it's cheap. It's a nice bottle of wine.

How I Taste and Rate Wine

Special thanks to Sonadora of WannabeWino for today's blurb about tasting wine!

Cat recently asked me if I would be willing to contribute to a series she is doing on how wine bloggers taste and rate wines. I’ll put the post up here and cross-post it at my wine blog.

Let’s get rid of the easy one first: I don’t rate wines on my blog. The only place (I think, at this time) you’ll find “scores” from me is on WineQ where they ask you to to input a star rating from 1 to 5 stars. I honestly never found scores for wine particularly helpful. Theoretically, I understand the purpose in the marketplace and yada yada yada, but nonetheless, it truly does not help me in the least to see a giant “91″ plastered on a shelf-talker for a wine. Because I don’t necessarily know anything about the palate of the person who rated it, I have no idea if they have similar tastes to mine or not. I prefer to seek out people who seem to like the wines I do, and take their recommendations. For example, Dr. Debs over on Good Wine Under $20 and I seem to like a lot of the same wines. I trust her opinion and would easily buy a bottle (and I have bought bottles) that she’s written complimentary things about. I also like to find retailers whose tastes seem to run like mine and I will often take their suggestions for bottles I might like. I think I annoy Jill of Domaine547 because I tend to refuse to actually use her website and instead make her send me emails with recommendations.

Finding someone whose palate I jive with is more important to me than a score a wine received, and in writing my blog, I’m hoping people get from my descriptions and recommendations of various wines a sense of my palate and whether or not they like similar wines to the ones I do. I think that perhaps, over time, as consumers have wider access to the internet through various devices like iPhones and Blackberries, that maybe people will look for information on a wine they are considering as they are considering it, rather than relying entirely on a point system. Unless of course you like the wines your retailer recommends, then great, you’ve got an excellent way to find new wines to try that might be to your liking.

As far as tasting wine…well, I’d venture to guess that a good 75% or more of my tasting is done either at my kitchen table or on my couch. We have wine with dinner nearly every night, and my ritual is to pour the glasses, take the pictures, and take an initial sniff and sip before I have any food. I’ll taste a bit more as I eat, to see if I’ve made a good match with our dinner. My note taking occurs later, after I’ve finished dinner and moved over to my computer on my couch.



Me in my natural habitat.

And yes, I mean my couch, we each have our own :) I sit with my glass that has now been open for a good hour and start taking notes on the nose. This can last for a good hour or more depending on how complex the nose is. That’s where my comments about Matt being through his 2nd glass before I’ve even touched my first come from! Next I taste the wine. I do that gross sounding slurping thing to aerate the wine even further in my mouth. But I also sip the wine and drink it like a normal person drinking a glass of wine. Not everyone aerates wine , and I want to be sure it still tastes good, has a good mouthfeel, and finishes nicely if you are just sitting around sipping at the glass.

The rest of my tasting is done at wineries, restaurants, and organized tastings. The restaurant tastings tend to follow the method I use at home, usually minus the pictures and computer. At wineries, I have my trusty note pad, I ask lots of questions, and generally get annoyed when the staff tries to tell me what I should be tasting in the wine. Sorry folks, but really, that ticks me off. I spit everything in tasting rooms. Whoops, there’s another pet peeve…please keep spit buckets handy, I hate having to look around to find one, or worse yet, discovering there isn’t one at all and I have to ask for a 2nd wine glass to spit into! Gross! At large tastings, I become a juggler, with my notepad, tasting glass, water bottle, and spit cup. My trusty notebook suffers the most at these tastings as it becomes tie-dyed with various spills of wine. I taste quickly and move on to the next table. Generally, I only like to go to these during trade hours, otherwise they are far too crowded and people wear perfume. (Seriously, what is up with that?? How can you taste wine when you smell like a cheap….ok, we’ll censor that expression since this is a family friendly blog )

So there you have it. How I taste and rate (or rather don’t rate) wines! Thanks to Cat for posing the question to me! Seems especially relevant at this time as we seem to be embroiled in another dicussion in the wine blog world about the place and function of blogs, ethics, and many other navel-gazing topics.