Wine Tasting - March 28

Name: Canyon Road Chardonnay

Vintage: 2011

Region: Modesto, California

Price: $6.95

Tasting Notes: Medium-bodied wine with notes of crisp apple and ripe citrus fruit with a hint of cinnamon spice.  Delicious complement to grilled chicken, lighter pasta dishes or mild cheeses.

My Review: Of the wines at the Vintage Cellar this week, this was my favorite.  The smell was fruity with apple aromas.  It was nice, light and crisp.  However, it didn’t’ have a whole lot of flavor, but would be very good as a summer wine. 

Name: Sainte Victoire Cotes de Provence

Vintage: 2011
Region: Provence, France

Price: $8.95

Tasting Notes: Varieties: Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault.  Bright salmon pink; typical of the fresh but warm Provence style.  Refined and complex on the nose, with summer fruit and floral notes. Dry and crisp with a delicate flavor and full texture.

My Review: This wine had a very interesting light salmon pink color that I had never seen before.  The smell was very sweet and floral.  It tasted crisp, floral, and had a nice flavor but I couldn’t distinguish and specific flavors.  It was one of the better rosé’s that I have had.

Name: Montebuena  

Vintage: 2010
Region: Rioja, Spain

Price: $8.95

Tasting Notes: 100% Tempranillo.  Ripe cherry and blackcurrant on the nose and in the mouth.  Pliant and seamless in texture, with good heft and back-end energy.  Finishes smooth and sweet, with fine-grained tannins providing shape and grip.  Still on the young side but this wine drinks very well with an hour or so of decanting; it’s an excellent value for Rioja.

My Review: The wine had a nice rich red color and smelled very much like cherries, which had me excited.  But as I have come to find out, after trying several Tempranillo’s, I do not enjoy them very much.  The taste definitely had some spice to it and it felt heavy.  It also had a very dry end component that I did not care for very much.

Name: Tres Ojos Garnacha  

Vintage: 2011
Region: Calatayud, Spain

Price: $6.95

Tasting Notes: This wine has a brick red color with bouquet of red raspberries, spice and white pepper.  The palate is incredibly concentrated and rich.  The modern styles of Garnacha in Spain are continuously being perceived worldwide as wines of extraordinarily good quality.  This wine is fruity, juicy and shows a great depth, ripe tannins, length but yet with wonderful elegance and lightness.  

My Review: I think I would have really liked this wine if it did not have the pepper aspect to it.  The smell was very peppery with a slight hint of fruit.  The taste was very heavy on the spice and pepper.  I could definitely tell how it changed over the palate though: it started off fruity on the beginning and it transitioned into the spicy and peppery flavor in the mid to end palate.

Name: Emeri de Bortoli Sparking Shiraz

Vintage: NV
Region: Southeastern Australia

Price: $9.95

Tasting Notes: A relatively light, fresh style of sparking Shiraz, with berries and hints of chocolate picking up and just a touch of sweet vanilla on the finish.

My Review: I was intrigued by this wine because I had never had a sparkling red before.  The aromas very sweet and had berry fruit aspects.  The temperature and amount of fizziness was very nice on the mouth – I really liked it before I could actually taste it, but then when I got the full flavor, I didn’t like it too much – but I really wanted to!