Wine Pick of the Week: November 25, 2015

DAOU 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon

Well, isn’t this pretty? The last in the Paso Robles series is a young Cabernet Sauvignon by DAOU Vineyards (www.daouvineyards.com.) This winery sits atop a Paso hill overlooking vineyards and a lot of other beautiful hills. DAOU was the dream of two brothers who grew up drinking fine wines from Europe. The brothers hit it big in Silicon Valley, sold their company and decided to realize that dream of creating Bordeaux-style wines in California. The vineyard practices sustainable farming, hand picks the grapes and uses the free run process to extract the juice. Free run allows the juice to flow naturally via gravity rather than using a press. DAOU wines are truly handcrafted.

On this bottle, I could smell the fruit upon opening it. The nose gives you blackberries and oak, then vanilla and red berries. It’s a little tannic and would probably benefit from a year or two in the cellar. Allowing it to sit in the glass or a decanter for half an hour calms the tannins a bit. Flavors include blackberries at first, transitioning to plum, oak and some black pepper.

Whether it’s the climate or the terroir, this isn’t a northern California wine. It’s more rustic—like Paso Robles. It’s been fun revisiting this month. For information on Paso’s history and other wineries, click here for a feature article I wrote for the Times Leader.  

Wine Pick of the Week: November 12, 2015

Justin Vineyards & Winery 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon (California)

Continuing with the Paso Robles tour, I tasted this Justin Cab and found it much fruitier than I expected. Justin Vineyards and Winery has been in Paso since 1981 and pattern their wines after the Bordeaux style. Justin was recently named Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s 2015 Winery of the Year.

This Cabernet is a dark ruby color with just a tinge of brown. The nose is full of cherry fruit, then wood and leather.

The first taste is cherry, then spice—black pepperish—which transitions to leather and finishes with coffee and cherry and is slightly dry. As mentioned, the wine is a little lighter-bodied and fruitier than some of the Bordeaux Cabs, which might be attributed to the Paso microclimates.

It’s a wine that you can sip or would be a good partner for a juicy beef burger with bleu cheese. It would also be good with beef tips in a wine sauce or chopped sirloin. I don’t think it’s full-bodied enough to stand up to heavier meats.

Next week, a Paso Robles Malbec. 

Wine Pick of the Week: June 21, 2015

Field Recordings 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Hinterland Vineyards/Paso Robles (CA)

I’m treating myself tonight after a long weekend of cleaning and clearing closets, drawers and boxes, and it’s the summer solstice, too.

Field Recordings is a special project by young winemaker Andrew Jones, who spends most of his days assisting Central Coast vineyards cultivate their best possible vines. Sometimes they offer him fruit, and he creates small production lots from some of the best grapes in the region, in this case 280 cases.

The Cab is very dark ruby with violet tones—darker than it appears in the photo--smells like you’re walking through berry bushes: a little earth, a little wood, overridden by sweet berries like blackberries, raspberries and huckleberries.

The first taste is some black pepper and some heat from that spice and 14.9% alcohol, but it’s silky and turns to plum and berries with a slight woody, dry-ish finish.  At first there was a little acid to it, but letting it sit has calmed that down.  I’m sure it will develop more over the next couple of years in the cellar. 

The blend is 88% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Franc. 

I would pair it now with sweeter rather than spicy charcuterie, brie with cherries, grilled steak with black pepper, or bleu cheese with walnuts and blackberries. 

Review: Adams County Winery (Pennsylvania)

Pennsylvania isn’t the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of wine, and probably isn’t the second or third place either. The truth is the first vinifera were planted there before 1650, and 200 years later Pennsylvania was the third leading wine producer in the United States. Its climates are actually conducive to a wide range of grapes.

While other states’ wine industries recovered and thrived after Prohibition ended, Governor Gifford Pinchot, a Prohibitionist, established the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board intending to “discourage the purchase of alcoholic beverages by making it as inconvenient and expensive as possible.” In 1968 lawmakers finally passed the Limited Winery Act, allowing wineries to sell their own wines instead of selling through the LCB or out of state.

Today there are over 200 licensed Pennsylvania wineries (#7 in the United States) and it is the fifth largest grape producer in the country.

My introduction to Pennsylvania wines begins with Adams County Winery. A friend of mine, Chris Hughes, has a blog called CUontheRoad.net about her family’s travel adventures in an RV. They’ve used a hospitality program called Harvest Hosts to stay overnight at participating wineries and farms, and one of those is Adams County Winery near Gettysburg. Chris invited me to do a wine review in conjunction with her travel review. If you are thinking of visiting the Gettysburg area, do check out her blog.

Located in the fruit belt of south-central Pennsylvania, ACW, aka Gettysburg Winery, was established in 1975 and is one of the state’s oldest wineries. The 15 acres of estate grapes include Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Lemberger, Chambourcin, Vidal, Traminette and native Niagara. There is a website that is under construction, so it has limited information, but the staff is very friendly and accommodating and can email a complete wine list for orders.

I ordered three wines to taste: Tears of Gettysburg (white,) Metrose (rose,) and Turning Point (red.) Each label has a story.

Tears of Gettysburg, a Niagara/Vidal blend, was originally released in 1988 and is their top award-winner. It has the unmistakable Niagara nose. The expected strong Niagara sweetness, though, is tempered by the Vidal and gives it a clean finish. In the mouth, it is full and tastes of flowers, honeysuckle. There is also a slight buttery flavor and hint of oak as it progresses.

I would pair this with a buttery cod dish (or Pacific Northwest black cod,) tuna with sweet pepper salsa or pork tenderloin with sweet corn salsa. It’s kind of a sweet wine for the tartness of citrus, though grilled green apples with grilled chicken breast might be nice, too.

Turning Point was quite good. A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Chambourcin, it's packed with flavors of spicy blackberry that develop into plummy cherry. It has a pretty, dark garnet color but isn’t heavy like a Zinfandel. There is just a hint of chocolate in the nose. The wine’s fruit gathers around the sides of the tongue, and the finish is dry in the center of the palate.  

The Chambourcin grape is a French-American hybrid. Its origins are hazy, but it has been used since 1963 mainly for blending. It grows in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest of the US, and in Canada, Australia, Portugal and France.

I did pair Turning Point with mild Italian sausage and whole grain pasta with tomato sauce. This turned up the spice, the heat and the plum flavors, and the finish wasn’t as dry.

Both of these wines—as well as the Rebel Red and Traveller--are part of ACW’s Historic Gettysburg Collection which commemorate aspects of the battle there, according to Dan Baumgardner, retail manager. He says the label on Tears of Gettysburg depicts a canon located outside of the Soldier’s National Cemetery, near where President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. Turning Point’s label depicts the 72nd Pennsylvania Monument, where Pickett’s Charge took place, and which is said to be the turning point of the Civil War.

Metrose is very fun. This is not a sweet, 1980s-style pink wine. The salmon-y pink color is luscious, and it’s a blend of 80 percent Pinot Noir and 20 percent Chambourcin. While it bathes the mouth in strawberries, it has a touch of cinnamon and a semi-dry finish. Open one bottle for a nice sipper, and pair a second bottle with charcuterie, grilled sausage, summer salads, and strawberries.

The horse on the label is Metro Meteor, a Belmont and Saratoga racer who retired to a career in painting abstracts. Every bottle sold makes a donation to the New Vocations Racehorse Adoption program—another reason to buy two bottles of this wine. 

Thanks so much, Chris, for this opportunity to explore new territory (or terroir.) I'm looking forward to learning about and visiting more Pennsylvania wineries.