Stuck on strange wines

Some might say the wines reviewed below are wonderfully diverse covering the world of wine tasting. Let’s get real. These wines are from unusual places, even off the beaten path. tBoW hopes that is one of the reasons you visit this blahg.
2006 Bruna Le Russeghine Pigato $25: As strange as wine gets. This Ligurian white wine from Pigato is Vermentino AND it is aRobert Chadderdon Selection. Can’t get pedigree much better than that. Nevertheless, the wine is downright challenging and tBoW does not use that much-abused term in the [fill-in-the-industry] sense. I had to return for several tastes just to be certain I was not fond of it. Like Terrel Owens. He needs a couple of seasons to convince the faithful he is unlikeable. Not even the sickest Cowboy fan wishes TO had stayed. Such is it with this wine. Bright and acidic almost spritzy. Furniture stripper flavors covers the saltiness and the impression of feline discharge. This fellow wrote about the 2005 version of the wine on his own wine blog. He liked it alot more than the tBoW team. He did a very nice job of describing the Ligurian coast which IS quite lovely and majestic. We usually like Ligurian wines but this is an exception and an unusual miss for Chadderdon. 13%
2003 Clautiere Estate Grand Rouge $26 (club price): Clautiere had the good fortune of buying up a 57 acre ranch with vineyard from an old-time Paso-Templeton Italian farmer. While the place is known for wigs and art they also make nice wines at fair prices. This is their flagship effort, a field blend of 49% Syrah, 22% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Grenache, 10% Counoise, 3% Mourvedre, and 2% Viognier. That is a lot of Cab even with a non-traditional blend. All estate grown. Sophisticated, soft. The blend works very nicely especially nudging aside the vegetal qualities often found in Paso Cabs. The Syrah is rich and dark berried. Gives the wine its best flavors. Aging well. Still Paso, still tasty. 14.8%
2004 Vinisterra Syrah Mourvedre $40: Bought this wine in theBaja’s Guadalupe Valley before the narco battles killed that trip. Cannot wait for that to end as we really like visiting there and staying at La Villa del Valle. This is the first Languedoc/Rhone style blend we saw. It is pricey but tBoW needs to know so we popped for the very low production bottle. Ripe fruit, bright fruit. Without the tell-tale saltiness. We like it. Goes very nicely with the food. I guess the point is that certain wines from the region are showing better and better. Now if the government – any government!! – can guarantee tourism safety…13.8%
2007 Estancia Pinot Noir Monterey County Pinnacles Ranches $12: This is classic supermarket wine. Probably a couple hundred thousand cases made. The wine is so incidental and without any style that it is impossible to find a decent sized label image online! The label image is everywhere just never more than 6 kb. That says something about the wine. We can discuss label politics at another time. The wine is immediately recognizable as Pinot Noir…which is good and not so good. This is bland wine without any character. The winemaker might described it as any community school superintendent might characterize her student body, above average. PAirs with anything including ice cream. 13.5%
If you like Pinot Noir and you are going to be in Portland Oregon May 1st and 2nd you will want to check out the Portland Indie Wine Festival. The event features 40 Oregon winemakers selected by panel (Pinot Noir of course) who produce less than 2500 cases annually. Everybody dreams of finding that unknown under-the-radar winery. At least the dreams of tBoW and Dotore’ are haunted by the elusive discoveries. We found Paul Lato didn’t we (stuck in the corner in the back room next to the storage closet of the now defunct Wine Cask Futures Tasting)? If you cannot make it not to worry tBoW will be covering the 5th annual event. Stay frosty.