Posts belonging to Category Cafayate



World Series, Halloween and Fall Tastings

SF-pandasWEBMajor League baseball can provide drama on the field like no other professional sports league. None of them. Not one. This year’s events have been nothing short of fabuloso. If you are a Doyers fan you have to be dumbstruck with the dumb luck the Giants are able to manufacture to advance their season into the September, October, uh… November Classic.

El Dean de Los Doyers

El Dean de Los Doyers

How can you not love the PANDAs down the third base line? They are watching the game through the mouths of giant Panda heads. This is fandom in the new millenium. The final round starts this week. You may be sick if it all by now… but we are not… and we will be tuning in.

Long as we are here [ed. hey, everybody here here?] let’s infuse some baseball with wines we have tried. Our guest taster tonight is Vin Scully. Read his revviews out loud while you hold your nose to capture the complete Vinny experience.

gambiaWEB2010 Andrea Faccio Azenda Agricola Villa Giada Gamba di Pernice $19: Piemonte wine that is not Nebbiolo, Barbera, Dolcetto or those other blending grapes used in communities we long to visit north of Barolo. This is Leg Partridge a robust and ancient grape rescued from extinction by the young dude who overhauled the family winery 20 years ago. Ruby red with spice. What does Vinny think?

“Andrea Faccio at the plate. The young Piemontese is a newcomer to fans having toiled for the Gaja farm team in Asti for years. Foul ball up the first ball line out of reach. Asti, of course, is where quite a few notable vingeron found their games. High fly to right field. Puig sets up and makes the catch. Faccio makes a nice spicy red that tastes nothing like Nebbiolo. This grape, we are told, is as goofy as the Dodger right fielder. Wow. Yasiel is refusing to throw the ball back to the infield. We hope to see him again in the Spring.” 13.5%

torrontes07WEB2007 Finca de Domingo Torrontes $11: At seven years this bottle was really pushing it. The color was too golden. Thick and near-oxidative. The announcer who will never retire shared the following.

“Latin American wines can always be counted on to do a creditable job. The white Argentines like Torrontes are somewhat of a special breed. They give their best effort when still youthful. Every now and then you get one from the high elevation Cafayate region – in the dirt but Posey is able to corral it – that manages to stay on the roster beyond its due date. Finca Domingo must have gotten lost in the cellar only to emerge when there was nobody left to pitch the 15th inning. Can’t go with the delicate workhorse Kershaw or the injured Reeyou. You say Roo? Either would be willing – low and away ball four he walked him – but the GM says no. We hope to see Colletti next Spring.” 11%

sousa-champWEB Champagne de Sousa Brut Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Reserve $60: 50% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir, and 10% Pinot Meunier. Light yellow almost clear color. Wonderful hand harvested champagne following natural wine dicta inadvertently, one supposes since they been around too long. Sharp fruity flavors. Loved it! What did Vinny think?

“Coming to the mound is Eric de Sousa and he is not happy with.. with… he’s signaling to Puig to join him on the mound. This is unusual. Of course, this would not be first time a right fielder was asked to throw in releife. dia-de-los-gigantesWEBWhen the Dodgers were the Knickbockers back in the 30s when I was in my late 20s they had a player named Poog who used to amuse the crowd with his long throws to home. Even when the runner was standing on second. Second base here in Chavez Ravine sparkles around sunset. I am in my sunset years. Puig has the ball. De Sousa will probably get another feature piece in Vigneron magazine. I hope to be reading next Spring.” 11.5%

We thank the great Dodger announcer with the memory of an ankylosaurus, the voice of a blue jay falling out of a tree, and the most incredibly blond hair. Long live Vinny! See you next Spring.

Go Jints!

Great Vinny impressions by another broadcaster. Stay with this to hear the Japanese and Venezuelan Vinnies!

Notes On a Scorecard: New vs Old World = USC vs UCLA?

uscuclaWEBMarch Madness is everywhere. tBoW is on holiday and waiting to tee off once it stops storming. The Bruins and Trojans are looking for coaches. Turmoil is everywhere. We have tasted several very interesting wines but before we report on those there are a few other matters worth referencing. (more…)

What makes a wine(maker) great?

KC fan.jpgWinemakers are somewhat like doctors. There is a lot of talent in the pool but the great ones are uncommon and especially hard to find because there aren’t any bad winemakers. Think about it. Who ever says “I have a horrible doctor” or “she is an awful winemaker”. There ain’t no sech animal. [ed. here is a doctor right now who knows the difference – and where he belongs – in front of Kenneth-Crawford “winery” in Buellton]
Family docs (like big house winemakers) are never stars. We need them and value them but all we are looking for is reliability over time, no diagnostic mistakes, and the ability to make a good referral when one is needed. The grind-it-out primary care guy keeps the whole thing going but the specialists are the stars. In wine their equivalent is the boutique winemaker. If you ever needed a surgeon or a specialist, then you will recognize how everybody you know wants to send you to their knee guy or shoulder cutter who is always “the best” in his field. How do you really know? How can every specialist – or every boutique winemaker – be the best? (more…)

The BEST of Argentina: Top 9 Wines

Hopefully, you have read the posts on bodega touring in Lujan and Maipu and Valle de Uco, dining and wining in Mendoza, and Argentine wines found and purchased in LA. Here is the list of the best wines tasted by the tBoW team in Mendoza. We have tasted other Argentine wines found in SoCal but they are not covered in this post.

Where possible, I am providing the importer, distributor and retailer in LA or anywhere. Lets’ get to it. (more…)

Argentina wines in LA (not!! yet…)

You know how it is. You spend a couple weeks in Argentina including a week just in Mendoza staring at the Andes [ed. the view from Vistalba] and tasting wines and you find stuff you really like. You have to decide “do I haul some back or have some shipped?” If you want to ship a case from Argentina via DHL it will set you back $240/case. So add $20/bottle to your U20 winners. Or you can join The Vines of Medoza wine club Acequia. The Vines has much of what you like on their impressive list and they ship for a lot less ( I mean a LOT LESS) than DHL.
[ed. alert: The Wall Street Journal published an article March 29 2008 on The Vines vineyard business.] (more…)