Chateau Maris – Big winner in this week’s bargain picks – Mar. 5

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Joe

As we head toward St. Patrick’s Day, Easter Sunday and Passover, the wine sales are hot and heavy this month. Buyers beware, many are not really good deals so keep reading our posts on bargain wines. Here we go with our Vintage Wine Tasting Club picks of the week.

Chateau Maris 2007 La Touge Syrah $10.50 Cost Plus World Market
This French Syrah comes from the biodynamic vineyards of Chateau Maris in Minervois. This is an outstanding everyday red wine at a ridiculous price point. Cost Plus World Market is running this sale until March 27. The suggested retail price on this wine is $27. This Syrah has more old world style as opposed to the spicy style of many California Syrahs. It has deep plum and blueberry flavors. This is an easy-drinking wine and delivers a lot of taste. I like it enough to go back and get at least a half-case. Parker’s Wine Advocate gives it 90 points and I will go with an 89.

Pallisandro Vino De Tavola $14 at the winery.
This is a very enjoyable table wine. This wine is fun, great light fruit flavors and very comfortable drinking. This non-vintage wine is a blend of 50% Sangiovese and 50% Barbera. These two Italian grapes have loads of acidity but the wine maker has done the right job here, letting the fruit stand out above the acidity. This wine is a perfect pairing match with tomato-based pastas and pizzas. I really enjoyed this wine very much. I am sorry I did not buy more than one bottle when I was at the winery. A couple of my fellow Vintage Wine Tasters joined the Pallisandro Wine Club, so I am going to get them to order more of this wine through their membership deal. That gives an added discount of 30%. The winery only makes 150 cases of this wine, so it will not be available for long. 88 Points.
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Beaujolais Cru Blind Wine Tasting – Vintage Wine Club

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Joe

Is has been several months since the Vintage Wine Tasters have held a blind wine tasting. With the Holidays, vacations, and other events, little time was left for a gathering of serious tasting. Last Tuesday we met at our favorite watering hole, Rocca’s Restaurant in Burlingame, to blind taste eleven Beaujolais wines. Having a wine tasting club has many advantages and one important one is to try a type of wine you normally would not try as individuals. We all admitted that Beaujolais had not been on our individual priority list of wine purchases in the past several years. Vintage wine taster Bruce did a yeoman’s job organizing and the selecting the wines for the tasting.

Beaujolais Cru wines are made from the Gamay grape. The grapes are fermented by placing whole grape clusters in tanks. The weight of the grapes crushes the bottom grapes and this process is known as carbonic maceration. When fermentation is complete, the wine is placed in barrels where malolactic fermentation takes place. These Beaujolais wines are not to be confused with Beaujolais Nouveau wines. Nouveau wines are harvested in August and released on the third Thursday of November of the same year.

Beaujolais Cru wines

Here are the results of our blind wine tasting.

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Columbia Crest H3 Merlot tops this week’s bargain wine picks

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Joe

Our Vintage Wine Tasting Club had a big week of tasting wines. We held a blind tasting of Beaujolais wines that I will tell you about in my next post and several of us took a trip together to visit wineries in the Sierra Foothills. Here are four great bargain wine picks from the past week.

Columbia Crest 2009 Horse Haven Hills H3 Merlot $10.99 KL Wines, Some Costco Stores
This is no wimpy Merlot and, while robust, a very pleasant and perfectly-balanced wine. It has a great mouth feel and loads of black fruit character. My only negative on this wine is that vanilla notes jump out at you a bit strong at the start. This is another wonderful example of what the wineries in Washington are doing especially with their red wines. Napa Valley should be a little concerned that Washington can produce these outstanding wines at such reasonable prices. I wish Washington wines were distributed more widely in the S.F. Bay Area. This is a good one that certainly will attract Merlot advocates. 90 Points

Pascual Toso 2010 Malbec- $8.99 at Costco, $9.99 at KL Wines
This is the latest vintage in this outstanding value wine. It is one of KL Wines and Costco’s top selling wines and for good reason. We have been sampling this wine since the 2007 vintage and it never fails to deliver. This wine delivers like a wine worth twice its cost. No flaws, just generally good characteristics throughout. There may be a lot of depth to this wine, but it is a great everyday red wine. For a large gathering where you need several bottles of wine, it is the right choice. Robert Parker gives it an 87 and we will go with the same.

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Pedroncelli Winery – Great value lineup of wines

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Joe

We have touted the Pedroncelli Mother Clone Zinfandel before and it is considered the flagship wine of the Pedroncelli Winery. It is widely distributed and sells in the price range of $12 to $14. Our local wine shop Weimax always has this wine available and it is one of proprietor Gerald’s favorite value Zins.

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Napa Valley Chenin Blanc – Top Pick of the Week

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Joe

Happy Presidents’ Day to all! This week the Vintage Wine Tasters have two wines to recommend from two very old and small California wineries. These are two wines that are far different from the standard and the traditional varietals produced by California winemakers. Both are very exciting and zesty. Why not expand your wine horizons and try something unusual?

2010 Ballentine Vineyards Chenin Blanc $16 at the winery – (Joe’s Pick)
We visited Ballentine a couple of weeks ago to write an article for the Napa Valley Wine Blog. The winery’s roots date back to 1944. Very rarely do you find a California Chenin Blanc these days, much less one from the Napa Valley. Most California Chenin Blancs come from the Clarksburg area near Sacramento. This estate Ballentine Chenin Blanc is dry and very crisp with citrus flavors. The term “zesty” comes through very much in this wine. It truly is a great picnic wine for those beautiful sunny days we have in California. Unfortunately, the wine is not distributed locally, so you will have to make an excuse to travel to the Napa Valley and stock up on some wonderful Chenin Blanc at Ballentine Vineyards. 88 Points. Continue reading →

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Restaurant Wine Buying Tips – VinoServant

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Josh

With the President’s Day Weekend approaching a lot of you will be heading out to eat dinner, and with this in mind, I asked Josh Moser, the Founder of VinoServant, to provide some tips on how to choose a bottle of wine in a restaurant. Josh started VinoServant to show users the Best Values on restaurant wine lists. If you look at some of his wine list reviews (Boulevard, Harris’ Restaurant, House of Prime Rib, Waterfront Restaurant & Café, La Mar, Los Altos Grill, Spruce, Wayfare Tavern, EPIC Roasthouse, The Village Pub), you will see that he shows the price at the restaurant followed by the mark-up over retail (2008 Dashe, Dry Creek Valley, Zinfandel | $46 | 2.3x | This translates into a retail price of $20). He won’t recommend a wine if the mark-up is greater than 2.5x.

The Wine List

Below are six practical pointers on how to navigate a restaurant wine list. For a lot of people this can be a daunting task for the following reasons:

1) You haven’t had a chance to review the wine list online, and / or you don’t recognize any of the wines on the list
2) All you want to do is order a bottle of wine that tastes good while not breaking the bank
3) Instead of trying a new varietal, you stick with what you are familiar with

Tip #1 – Figure out What Wines you Like and Dislike

It doesn’t matter if you are going to a restaurant with a wine list that is 25 pages long (300+ selections) or a neighborhood spot with a wine list that has 30 selections; you need to be able to explain to the waiter, wine director or sommelier which wines you favor. Once you provide some examples of wines that you like and dislike, along with how much money you want to spend, your server will then be able to narrow the list down to those wines that might appeal to you.

Tip #2 – The Wine and Food-Pairing Conundrum

A lot of people want to drink a bottle of wine with their dinner that will complement the dish they are eating. The problem with this approach is that it limits the number of selections on the list that might be suitable. When you order a bottle of wine in a restaurant it may well be most expensive component of your bill.

For example, if you go to a neighborhood Italian restaurant and order a pasta dish it is going to cost $12 to $20, and if you order a bottle of wine it is going to be $30 to $50. If you go to a steakhouse and order a $45 porterhouse, then a bottle of wine is more than likely going to run $65 to $100.

Our advice in these instances is simple: order the bottle that you want to drink instead of the bottle that you feel will complement your meal. If the wine you want to order is an awful match for what you or the other people in your party are ordering, then order a glass of wine that will complement that specific entrée.

Another approach is to figure out the bottle(s) of wine that you want to drink and have that dictate what food items your party orders. We are firm believers that it is “all about the wine and no longer about the food.” Continue reading →

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Two Valentine Sparkling Wines – Top Bargain Wines of the Week – Feb 13

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Joe

Tuesday is Valentine’s Day, so that gives you little time to choose the appropriate wines for your favorite Valentine. We start our picks this week with two choices of Rosé sparkling wines, previously reviewed and recommended by the Vintage Wine Tasters, that are very sure to please in many ways.

Domaine Allimant-LaugnerRosé $18 – $19 This non-vintage sparkling wine, an Alsace Crémant, is a delightfully-flavored bubbly that is sure to impress. It drinks like a $40 bottle of Champagne. You will find this wine at Beltramo’s in Redwood City, the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant in San Francisco and Whole Foods. 91 Points. Read previous review.

Domain Chandon Rosé $11.70 Safeway
A favorite sparkling wine among many of the wine critics and a favorite of ours. This week you can get this wine for as low as $11.70 a bottle if you buy six, mix or match, or for $12.99 if you just purchase one. 88 Points

Two very nice red bargains for this week

Shenandoah Vineyards 2010 Amador Valley Special Reserve Zinfandel – KL Wines $9.99 (Joe’s Pick)
This is one of the better inexpensive Zinfandel wines I have tasted in some time. It comes from Amador County in the Sierra Foothills. This area has some of the oldest and finest Zinfandel vines in California. This wine has a lovely berry and slight jammy flavor, with some mocha character that gives the wine an interesting touch. Although the description on the bottle says it’s a big red wine, I disagree. It is a perfectly-balanced Zin that works well with food. I think pizza when I see this wine. 88 Points Continue reading →

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BevMo 5 Cent Sale begins anew for 2012 – Some Recommendations

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Joe

BevMo 5 Cent SaleSo here we go again, sifting through some 345 wines attempting to find some sure-fire wine bargains in the latest BevMo 5-Cent Sale. The sale is currently in full swing as of the date of this post. By and large, it seems to be the same fare offered with a few additions. As usual there are many obscure labels rated by only Wilfred Wong and no other wine critic. Well, maybe I found a couple of wines that had ratings by W.S. or W.E. or somebody else. If you dig deep enough, there are a handful of excellent values.

In the current sale, these are the wines that we can recommend based on past purchases and tastings. The listed prices are for the average cost of one bottle when you buy two bottles. Continue reading →

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Buena Vista 2008 Carneros Pinot Noir Tops Our Picks of the Week

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Joe

The “Sideways” movie will be 8 years old this year. This is the movie that shot Pinot Noir into the stratosphere of popularity and in price point. Just take a look at the most highly rated Pinot Noir wines in the Wine Spectator or Wine Enthusiast. Many are well above the $40 mark and in my opinion an insane price to pay for a single bottle of wine that vanishes in just a few hours. I very much enjoy a good Pinot Noir wine, and here are two we can highly recommend this week that are terrific values.

Buena Vista 2008 Carneros Pinot Noir Trader Joe’s $10 (Mike’s and Joe’s Pick)
Do you know this Sonoma Valley winery is the oldest continuous operating winery in California? It was started in 1857. The winery has changed hands three times in the last ten years and in 2011 was acquired by the Boisset Family of Burgundy Fame. At a furious pace, the Boisset Family is upgrading the winery and its operations and has plans to return the winery to its former glory days. Continue reading →

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ZAP Festival – Zinfandel favorites in the bargain category

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Joe

The 21st Annual Zinfandel Festival - The Concourse in San Francisco

This was the 21st Annual ZAP Festival held on Saturday, January 28, 2012. This year it was held at The Concourse in San Francisco instead of at Fort Mason. Although I missed the views of the yachts and the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, The Concourse was in our opinion a much more comfortable setting. More than 300 wineries poured Zinfandel wines from various vintages, and many poured barrel samples from the 2010 vintage. As I did a year ago at ZAP, my main focus was searching for values in Zinfandel wines under the $20 price point. Overall, and this includes the more expensive wines I tasted, I found a huge range of Zinfandel styles. Many Zins were too big in fruit and jammy flavors or over oaked, with loads of vanilla overpowering the wines. Here are the wines I enjoyed the most in the under-$20 range. I only included the ones that are found in many wine shops and supermarkets in the San Francisco Bay Area. I also listed the SRP for these wines, but most can be found for much less at many wine stores.
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