Wine is the answer!

Now what was the question?

There is a House Wine wine tradition in Western Europe that has just not translated into the US.  If you go into a café, bodega, or trattoria the menu will have a handful of red wines for under €12.  The vineyard that produced those wines is probably less than 25 miles away and there are no plans for export outside their local area.  And these wines are delicious.  The winemaker is not looking to make wines they can sell for €100 or win prizes at international competitions.  They are looking to make the best wines they can from their terroir and have the local restaurants and shops buy all that they can make.  They work hard on making good wine since their customers are their neighbors.  Wines under $15 that are made in the US are almost exclusively mass-produced wines like Cupcake, Barefoot, or Dark Horse and international offerings like Yellow Tail are similar.

My cellar falls into four tiers of wines:

• Tier 4 – House wines under $15
• Tier 3 – Nice wines for under $35, the largest segment of my cellar, maybe aging them for a couple of years
• Tier 2 – Selected very good wines for under $75 that are aging for at least a few years
• Tier 1 – Wines in the $75-130 range that are exceptional (IMHO). I have less than a dozen of them laying down.

Over the years we have found 20 wines that are under $15 that are our everyday house wines, also called Table Wines.  We cook with them, and we enjoy them with simple meals and leftovers.  Ten of them are red wines and those will be the topic of this blog.  Five of them are imported wines, four are from California, and one is from Oregon. 

These red table wines are meant to be drunk young but I often buy them by the case so if a few bottles are on the shelf for more than a year, there is no problem.  I decant all my red wines, especially the table wines.  Because they are young, they have lots of tannin and often an edge to them.  Decanting them and letting they sit in the decanter for 15-30 minutes softens those tannins and lets the wine really open up and makes the wines closer to what we pay $20-25 for.  I will be doing a blog on decanting soon. 

Marietta Old Vine Red (OVR) – This was our very first house wine and a bottle has always been in our cellar for over 40 years.  Not the same bottle 😊.  It is now just scraping under the $15 threshold when I find it on sale, but it will still be one of our house wines when inflation takes it over $15.  We hate the new label with the big OVR on it, but we still love the wine inside.  Marietta is in Sonoma Valley and the grapes for this wine come largely from Geyersville.  Marietta makes nine wines and the three are in the OVR series which are their entry level wines.  We have only had the OVR Red.  I am not sure if the Lot # changes from year to year but currently they are selling Lot 73.  It is predominantly Zinfandel (generally about 80%) with some Syrah, Petit Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon added to get the flavor they are looking for.  It is a very good food wine that goes with all red meats.  This wine made the recent Food and Wine Magazine list for Best Affordable Red Wine, $15 and Under, https://www.foodandwine.com/wine/red-wine/best-15-dollar-and-under-red-wines.  It is widely available, and we typically get it from Calvert Woodley in DC where they have the lowest price. 

Chateau Segries – This is the second longest tenured wine in our cellar, over 30 years, and it is also bumping up against the $15 threshold.  We are big fans of Rhone wines, and this is an everyday simple Cote du Rhone wine that we love.  It is 50% Grenache, 30% Syrah, 10% Cinsault, and 10% Carignan with just a little oak influence.  It is a dry wine that is rich and round with black fruit and spice aromas and flavors.  In addition to enjoying it with meals, we also cook with it.  If we are doing a recipe that calls for a cup or more of Cote du Rhone, we don’t want to open a lovely Gigondas or Chateauneuf-du-Pape for that.  And we want the entire bottle of very good Rhone to enjoy with the meal.  In the recipe for the Beef Daub that I posted in an earlier blog, I used 2 bottles of Rhone wine to marinate the beef, cook it in the marinating liquid, and then reduce it for the sauce.  I don’t want to use two bottles of a $50 wine for cooking, but I want to dish to be in sync with the lovely wine I am serving for dinner.   The Segries gives me that same Rhone blend but at a price I can cook with.  Chateau Segries also has a more expensive label called Lirac Cuvee Reserve, but I strongly prefer the taste of the Chateau Segries.  It is pretty widely available. 

Castle Rock Willamette Valley Pinot Noir – Our other favorite red wine is Pinot Noir and this wine from Castle Rock is our basic Pinot Noir table wine for burgers, meat loaf, pork chops and the like.  It also works very nicely as the cooking wine, or the wine that goes into the sauce, when serving a nice French Burgundy with the meal.   Castle Rock makes 7 California Pinot Noirs, one from the Columbia Valley in Washington, and this one from the Willamette Valley in Oregon.  I have not tried their other Pinots.  I suspect they are made in the New World style of Pinot Noir with lots of Jammy fruit and oak, but I could be wrong.  This one is made more in the Old World style of Pinot Noir where the goal is to let the grape show its complexity, not to try to enhance its flavor with things like new oak.  We are Old World Pinot drinkers, and this gives us an inexpensive table wine, around $13, that fits our tastes.  Pick the Castle Rock Pinot Noir that you like most but don’t expect that their wines from different areas will all taste the same.   Castle Rock wines are widely available but not always the Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.  Between Calvert Woodley, Total Wine, and Wine.com I can generally find it.

Coppola Claret – We do not have a Cabernet Sauvignon house wine.  We have flirted with several, most recently Dark Horse, but never found one that we really liked in the house wine price range.   They just had too much edge to them.  Instead, we have gone with two blends that have a significant Cab component.  The Coppola Claret is one of Frances Ford Coppola’s most popular wines and one of his most inexpensive.  It is a blend of 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Petit Syrah, 6% Syrah, 5% Petit Verdot, and 2% Segailin.  It has 14 months in French oak which gives it some aromas of roasted nuts and vanilla with tastes of clove and caramel.  On the Coppola site it is listed for $21 and Wine.com charges $18 for it but many retailers are more aggressive, and you can find it for $13-14 at Total Wine, Sam’s Club, Costco and others, so it meets the cost requirement for one of my House Wines. 

Ménage a Trois Red Blend –This other Cab alternative combines Zinfandel, Cab, and Merlot in a taste that we really enjoy along with the $12 price tag.  For a dollar or two more you can get their Decadance, Silk, Sultry Red, or Midnight blends and we have enjoyed all of them, probably the Decadence the most.  They also have two Cabs that are excellent value if you prefer the single varietal taste.  Menage a Trois wines are widely available and are in the same category of mass-produced low-cost wines as Cupcake, Barefoot, etc. that I criticized above.  This is one where I think the taste they deliver is a step above those other bulk producers but you should make your own decisions based on your tastes.  The good news is that Menage a Trois wines are readily available.    

Oxte The Silence Red Blend – This wine is a total steal from Trader Joe’s which privately labels this Spanish wine from Axial Vinos and is the sole source for it in the US.  It is just $5.99!  It has a great blend of 40% Tempranillo (the primary red wine grape in Spain), 25% Garnacha, 25% Syrah, and 10% Cab.   In a blind taste test you would put this in at least the $25 price range.  Trader Joe’s has some excellent wines, not “2 Buck Chuck”, at very good prices.  Some like this one they exclusively private label.  Below is a link to a good web site for wine bargains, Reverse Wine Snob, and their list of recommended wines from Trader Joe’s which is how we first found it.  They have a similar list for COSTCO wines.   For yesterday’s Super Bowl we had a large pan of nachos for dinner and this wine was a great accompaniment.  https://www.reversewinesnob.com/search/label/trader-joes/

Lazy Bones Cabernet Franc – This is another wine from Trader Joe’s and even more of a great buy in my opinion at $6.99.  The naked woman on the label has nothing to do with that judgment.  I am not sure if Trader Joe’s has the exclusive on this wine from the California Central Coast but they almost always have it in stock at a great price.  For those not familiar with Cab Franc, a little before the Revolutionary War a winemaker in France grafted the Cabernet Franc and the Sauvignon Blanc grapes together and created the Cabernet Sauvignon grape, now the grape grown in virtually every wine making region of the world and making some of the most popular wines.  In the Bordeaux region of France the three grapes primarily used to make their top wines are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc.   Cab Franc is gaining in popularity as a single varietal providing a variation on the Cabernet Sauvignon taste.  Some Virginia wineries are making it along with some California wineries.  Bottom line – We really enjoy sipping this wine and having it with many different food dishes.  When we think that about the price for it, we are smiling broadly while we drink it.     

Protocolo – This is another long-time resident of our cellar and one that has not had the same price increases that the OVR and Segries have.  Spanish wines are increasingly great bargains for very good quality at attractive prices, even up to Gran Reserva Riojas.  This wine is still $6.99 at Total Wine and Calvert Woodley and $9.99 at Wine.com.  It is made by the Eguren family in Spain with vineyards in Manchuela, Rioja, and Toro.    It is 100% Tempranillo.  It is our first choice as a cooking wine if we are not pairing the dish with a specific wine to serve with the meal and is definitely the cooking wine of choice if we are serving a nice Rioja or Ribera del Duero.   Not strong enough for a Sangria in my opinion, at least for the Sangria recipe that has been handed down in our family for one generation. 

Santa Christina – the last two of our Table Wines are for Italian meals.  Santa Christina is a $10-12 Rosso wine.  The Santa Christina winery is owned by Antinori, the finest winemaker in Tuscany in my opinion.  Interestingly, they do not list Santa Christina as one of their wines on the Antinori website.  The Santa Christina vineyard is on a hilltop near the town of Cortona, not far from Siena.  It has been making wine since 1946.  It is a blend of Sangiovese (the primary grape of Tuscany) with some Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.   The exact percentages differ from year to year based on the harvest.  This wine has pared beautifully with any Italian dish that we have had.  At a third of the price of a nice Chianti Classico Reserva, it is very enjoyable with spaghetti and meatballs, sausage and peppers, or lasagna.  At the price it is also an excellent choice for any wine called for in an Italian recipe.  It is widely available including Calvert Woodley in DC, Total Wine, and Wine.com. 

Monte Antico – A second Italian Rosso, generally a dollar or so more expensive than the Santa Christina.  The 2016 got 90 points from James Suckling.  The name translates into “ancient mountain” and is grown in Tuscany on slopes 1,300 feet above sea-level.  The wine is a blend of about 85% Sangiovese, 10% Merlot, and 5 % Cabernet Sauvignon.   We were introduced to it years ago at a wine tasting.  Late in that tasting there was a half bottle left that had been open for over an hour.  Several of us politely finished that bottle and it jumped out at us how much it had opened up and expanded its flavor profile compared to when we had tasted it from the just opened bottle.  This wine definitely benefits from being decanted for at least 30 minutes.  Rosso wines like this and the Santa Christina can also be called Super Tuscans since that name just means other wines have been added to the Sangiovese in a blend.  It is not any kind of quality designation. 

We have had some other House Table Wines that we just cannot find any more.  Two of them are white wines that I will cover in an upcoming blog.  On the red side we are still in mourning for the Trader Joe’s Nero d’Avola that was $6.  They just cannot get it any longer and I have searched for someone else bringing the wine from that specific Sicilian vineyard into the US, but to no avail.  We have found some good Nero d’Avola wines, including one for $8 at Trader Joe’s but we keep feeling like we are paying more for a wine we like less and that has taken the excitement away from that grape. 

Our 10 white House Table Wines (no, not that White House) will be coming soon. 

For very good reasons Italy is known predominantly for its red wines.  In my cellar Italian reds outnumber the Italian white wines by around 20 to 1.  But there are some very good Italian white wines: Gavi, Vernaccia, and Falanghina are some good examples and maybe a blog on Italian White Wines should be on my To Do list.  If I do that blog however, Pino Grigio would make that list only if I include one from the Alto Adige because I consider the rest of Italian Pino Grigio to be just Plonk.  You are welcome to disagree with my lowly opinion of Pinot Grigio. I am only saying that almost all Pinot Grigio is not to my taste.

But there is one Italian white wine that is very much to my taste and it is from my favorite vineyard in Italy, Tenuta Guado al Tasso, the Antinori owned winery in The Bolgheri valley of Tuscany.  It is their Vermentino, and that is the only white wine that they make.  Vermentino is a widely grown grape with lots of it from Sardinia and up the Italian coast into Southern France.  I have tried it a few times before the tasting I had with Guado al Tasso and Vermentino was solidly on my list of “Not Very Exciting”. 

That changed instantly when I had the Guado al Tasso Vermentino a few months ago.  When I recently shared with some family members who are not big white wine drinkers, they said it was the first white that was worth paying attention to.  The wine is straw yellow in color with greenish highlights. Excellent aromatic intensity with pronounced green fruit aromas of pear and grape with just a gentle touch of grapefruit and secondary aromas of cheese and wild flowers.  On the palate it’s dry and savory with the body and complexity that are generally only found with white wines at two to three times the $25 price tag of this wine.  It has medium acidity and alcohol with good persistence of flavors and a long pleasant citrusy finish. 

It is very good with seafood, including very flavorful dishes like Paella or Cioppino, which makes sense for vineyards right on the coast, as well as with white meats like Chicken and Pork.  We had it recently with our favorite chicken recipe, Ina Garten’s Roast Chicken with Bread and Arugula Salad shown in the picture to the left, and it was a perfect match.  While it is probably not likely to be on the shelf at your local liquor store, both Wine.com and Total Wine carry all the Guado al Tasso wines. 

It is no accident that the Vermentino from Guado al Tasso is very different from the Vermentino made in the vineyards of Sardinia and most of the others up and down the coast.  Guado al Tasso does not make any wines that are typical or expected from a Tuscany winery.  Because of the terroir in the Bolgheri Valley, they do not grow any Sangiovese grapes.  Their black grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot.  The “Bolgheri Blend” that they make compares very favorably with the blends of those same grapes from a highly regarded region of France. Their Bolgheri Superiore gets 98 points from Wine Spectator and is worth every penny of the $130 price tag it carries and it is one of the featured wines at Antinori’s lovely restaurant in Florence, Cantinetta Antinori.  Their Bruciato Red in the $ 23-30 price range stands up to any Cru Bourgeois from Bordeaux.  While Guado al Tasso is in Tuscany, their wines are totally unlike any other Tuscan winery and well worth getting to know.

DOC Bolgheri was only approved in 1995 and since then its wines have gained international recognition. The Bolgheri Amphitheater is surrounded by rolling hillsides that faces the Tyrrhenian Sea which sits between Tuscany and Corsica. This has created a unique microclimate with constant breezes that mitigate both the summer heat and the harsh winter weather and ensures a clear sky that gives excellent exposure to the sunlight. It is one of the most picturesque vineyards in Italy.

Beth and I joined a virtual wine tasting with Guado al Tasso put on by Wine.com in the summer of 2020 and then had the pleasure of following up with a visit to the winery in November of last year.  We enjoyed several of their wines in their lovely Tasting Room and then moved into the adjoining restaurant for a delicious dinner.

The challenge with visiting Guado al Tasso is that it is a 2 hour drive from Florence or 3 hours from Rome and there is really nothing other than Guado al Tasso worth visiting in the Bolgheri Valley. That is a long trip just to visit a winery.  Since you will be tasting some great wines, you don’t want to be driving.  My suggestion would be to hire a car and driver for the day to get you to Guado al Tasso by mid morning.  Their Tasting Room opens at 10:00 AM every day but Tuesday.  You could do a tasting, possibly a vineyard tour, and then have lunch at the restaurant there.  You can then have the driver take you to San Gimignano and get there about 2:00 when the crowds really start to thin out so you can walk that lovely town for a few hours, sample the lovely Vernaccia, have dinner there, and then get driven back to Florence to your hotel.  If this idea appeals to you, I suggest you make a reservation for lunch at the restaurant at Guado al Tasso.  I highly recommend either their daily special or their Steak Florentine which you can watch them grill on the fire at the back of the restaurant. 

In 2020 my focus was on Rhone Valley wines. In 2021 that focus shifted to Pinot Noir and especially (virtually) exploring the Willamette Valley in Oregon which I think is second only to Burgundy in the production of excellent Pinot Noir.

The Elton Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley Vineyards is a great example. While only in the bottle for two years after 16 months in French oak, 29% new oak, it has a deep intensity and very full body. WVV suggests that the peak drinkability will be 2026 but I suspect this wine could continue to age very well for a few years beyond that and I will lay a couple of bottles down to see.

I did a quick taste when I opened the bottle and then I decanted it and let it sit for 45 minutes. What a difference!! It had fully opened up and the initial aromas of cranberry and a little raspberry were expanded to include blackberry as the lead aroma. The secondary aromas were some cedar and anise. The initial taste had only a medium intensity with a rich ruby color but giving it a chance to fully open brought the intensity level up to deep with a rich nose. The acidity is medium. The decanting definitely softened the tannins and let the complexity develop in my mouth. That is what makes me think this could easily age for 10 years or longer. The body was medium plus and nicely rounded with a lovely long aftertaste.

The price from the WWV web site is $60 with discounts available for club members. I have not found any local sources for WWV wines in the DC area yet so buying from the vineyard may be the best way to get this excellent wine.

This is a single vineyard wine from 60 acres on the east/southeast slopes of the Eola Hills.

Note: This review is not totally unbiased. I own a few shares of preferred stock in WVV and get a 25% discount as a minority owner. Shares of the preferred stock are still available and if you would like a link to the web site to find out more about this, use my email from the Contact Me page to send you your email address and I will send that link to you.

Chateauneuf-du-Pape is the the standard bearer for the Cote du Rhone and Hermitage is its counterpart in the Cote Roti at the north end of the Rhone valley. But just like Michael Jordan took a lot of the limelight away from Scotty Pippen, Gigondas in the Cote du Rhone and Crozes-Hermitage in the Cote Roti don’t get the same press while they produce excellent wines, and at a much lower cost. I promise to do a blog on Gigondas but today the focus is on the 2016 Crozes-Hermitage from Guigal.

Let’s start with Robert Parker calling the Guigal brothers the best winemakers in France. James Suckling gave this wine 91 points and there at not many wines under $30 that get that kind of ranking.

This is a big, full bodied red wine with a deep ruby color and pronounced intensity. It is 100% Syrah and the primary aroma is red fruit, particularly red cherries and the secondary aromas are leather and smoky wood from the 24 months that it is kept in large oak barrels after being fermented in stainless steel tanks. The 2016 had complex tannins that relaxed some when I decanted it. Like many Syrah/Shiraz wines, it has a fairly long finish that I really enjoy.

It will age for at least 10 years and improve significantly from that aging. I bought mine from Wine.com two years ago so it had just been in the bottle 2 years then. I have not done a vertical tasting to prove how the additional two years in my cellar improved the flavor but I put this Guigal wine very high on my list of wines that are a great bargain at under $30.

It has excellent availability with Total Wine and Wine.com carrying the 2017 and 2018 vintages and some online stores still have some of the 2016.

The vineyards are low yield on the hillsides around Crozes-Hermitage and controlling the yield concentrates the flavor. If you like bid red wines, I think you will be very happy paying less than $30 for this wine.