A little about Madeline:

Hi, my name is Madeline Puckette and I'm the host and wine expert at Wine Folly.  You can read an interview about me on Here on Wine Folly

You can find out more about me at:

http://winefolly.com

http://www.facebook.com/madelinepuck
and
http://www.twitter.com/madelineelectro

In a Pinch: Grocery Store Garnacha

Yours truly on the patio.  Yes, those are skulls on my scarf.

I just moved to Seattle, WA.  In a fit to get out of the biggest little city I took the certified exam in Seattle, fell in love, packed the car with my partner and the kitty cat and moved!  Now, barely settled, we are tasting some grocery store bargain wines to see how low my palate will go!  

Borsao 2008 red wine. $6-7 USD.  75% Garnacha 25% Tempranillo

Sight: Dark Ruby-Purple with hibiscus pink rim, bright with light just passing through center of liquid, little to no rim variation

Aroma: clean with red cherry, lemon-orange citrus, slight vanilla characteristics, candied plum and a feint smell of tar oil 

Palate: Watermelon jollyrancher, maraschino cherry & tar, candied orange rind, citrus notes 

Wood: slight vanilla notes, perhaps 4 months in american oak or oak chips

Earth: Tar, Dried Clay

Tannins: light, mostly grape tannins, 

Complexity: Minus, this is a simple one-note wine with low complexity but no major "off" notes. 

Summary: Borsao, for $7 is exactly what $7 wine should be: simple, fruity, and not cloying or harsh.  I wish I could get lucky like this with all my under 10 dollar wines.  

Food Pairing:  Tonight I made a eggplant basil dish with long beans over jasmine rice.  The sweetness from the caramelizing of the sugar on the eggplant matched rather well with the citrus flavors in the garnacha.  The green crunchy character of the long beans helped lighten up the oily finish of the wine.  A late harvest torrontes would have been a perfect pairing....

Howell Mountain: menthol and mint

Rudy Zuidema, winemaker at White Cottage winery on Howell Mountain

When someone says "Howell Mountain," everyone gets this serious look on their face: a combination of awe and nostalgia all at once.  Perhaps they are remembering a very fine old bottle of Dunn Vineyards or they are reminiscing on the smell.... that smell of strong menthol permeating from the glass.  

Rudy Zuidema pulled out bottle after bottle and lined them up on the bar.  The name "White Cottage" seemed kind of innocuous, like a name selected for WalMart brand, designed to appeal to 35-50 year old women.  Rudy was beaming at me from in front of the bar and I remembered how much I hated the idea of myself slowly descending into wine-snobbery and elitism.  Oh what the hell, let's try this liquid!

Little did I know, White Cottage winery is not a branded wine, it's the name of a small family winery on non-other-than-my-favorite-napa-ava Howell Mountain!  I am such a dick!  White Cottage has a line of wines all made from mostly Howell Mountain fruit from their vineyards.  The more amazing part about these wines, is that they are only around $30-45, which is astonishing because Howell Mountain commands some of the highest prices per ton of grapes (as high as $6000/ton vs $1300/ton for napa valley, as a generalized comparison, sorry).

Rudy's wines are a gestalt of Howell Mountain, they have all the aromas and flavors that one would note about that particular growing area.  I will keep looking out for them, because I believe Rudy is going to make better stuff as he keeps making wine.

White Cottage also is trying to take a not-too-serious approach to their wine.  They offer a stand-up red blend with sangiovese, zinfandel and syrah and offer it in a 1L jug.  It's great: I want it for dinner and a mid-morning snack.

oh noes!  We spilled the good sh*t!

Justin: a business man and a party wine

We are very lucky to meet the men & women behind the labels.

West Street Wine Bar sits in Reno, Nevada which is about as far as winemakers from California will drive without making it such a major affair.  And since Reno gets the same benefits as Las Vegas but is a much smaller community wine servers like myself reap the benefits.  Of course the business of wine is extremely personal so it exudes all people involved to break bread and drink wine together, turns out, this is exactly why I love it so much.  

Justin wines are typically big and fruit forward, and despite slight vintage differences, consistency with these bold characteristics always come through.  This makes Justin a perfect party pleaser wine, from his introductory priced cabernet to his serious and complex blends: Isosceles and Justification.  When I met Justin himself, I was not expecting to meet a tall, dark, slightly reserved man who clearly knows the business end of wine.  Justin utilizes his brain power to push his brand, hiring smart people to make the product and spending his time marketing.  Smart.  

He has a restaurant on site, a winemaker, a master sommelier and a master chef.  He surrounds his winery with the best of the business and then he goes out to meet people like me to hear from my mouth how I feel about the wines: His new 2007 vintage cab is more fruity than the 2006 but still has everything you would look for in Justin wines.  Buy it.

Unfortunately, I can already see wine snobs poo-pooing the entrepreneurialism at use here.  There is a lot of ideology when you get "deeper into wine" that the winemaker is someone who slaves away making wines, making very little money, but enough to survive on their passion.  That isn't fair, this same kind of hate for "sell outs" is prevalent in the music industry, art business and any business based on objective creativity.  I believe that if you are passionate and talented you should have just enough potential to make money like a mutual fund broker and not be hated for it.  Go Justin.  Go Madeline!

end rant.

Quinta Do Vallado

Quinta do Vallado Douro Wines. 

Quinta Do Vallado made an appearance in Wine Spectator in the February 2010 issue.  Dennis came in almost the same week with a trio of these inky still wines from Douro region in Portugal.  We are now selling their 2007 Douro Red for around 11.00/glass a deal for a wine that received 93pts.  Trying single varietals has lately been my prerogative since the Court of Masters test is coming up, so I've been very curious about Portuguese varietals like Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinta Barroca.  Quinta Do Vallado has a single varietal Touriga Nacional which is the middle wine in the image above.  

Smokey cocoa and black currant dominated the nose on the Touriga with the classic tongue-on-roof-of-mouth grit that I associate with Port wine.  I've been really hoping to find good still wines from Douro because these grapes make amazing Port and most of the time, such cheap blow-your-palette-up red still wines.  Thank sid, Quinto Do Vallado delivers, and I would encourage sommeliers to try the Touriga Nacional, I liked it better than their reserva... but perhaps a little unfairly because so much of that region is renown for their dedication to blending, and the Reserva delivered more point-scoring fruit. 

Dennis is the perfect example of people of love their job!

Guess Your Palate! and Rhone syrah Outta St. Joseph

Ty Martin, from Cepage Selections blind tasted me on this Kermit Lynch wine. 

There's a disconnect between the customer and wine server in that, neither of us know each others' palate.  There are a few tricks I use on a day to day basis to gather information without seeming like a butt hole:

Are you interested in a red or white wine?

For Red: Would you like a light, medium or full-bodied red wine

2nd Level Red: Are you looking for a wine with more fruit or more earthiness?

For White: Are you looking for a dry or sweet wine

2nd Level White: are you looking for a wine with a fruity presence and a bigger style or one with more delicacy and zesty-ness?

This way, we get to the bottom of that person's desires without saying directly "new world, old world, fruit forward" or "oakey" which can offend.  If there's one thing that I would like to see more from other sommeliers is an acceptance that no matter how fruity a particular wine from Vacqueyras or Chinon is, it's still going to be a earth-bomb.  

Ty Martin stopped by while I was having this epiphany and poured a mystery wine into my glass.  Looking at it's color I couldn't help but think one thing... SYRAH!  But instead of jumping to conclusions, doing a proper analysis makes a much stronger argument: 

Mystery Wine:

APPEARANCE: 

Clarity: hazy/murky

Brightness: Dull / Opaque

Intensity: Lots of extracted color, High-intensity

Color: Deep Purple/Violet to light pink meniscus, low rim variation indicating a younger wine

Viscosity: Medium, estimated 13.5% 14% alcohol 

NOSE: 

Condition: Sound and clean

Intensity: Medium plus, lots of big things happening in the aroma

Aroma/Bouquet: Young smells of fruit, not any bottle aged, yeast bouquets

Fruit: Black cherries, black olives, slight raisin 

Earth: Yes, revealing gravel

Wood: Yes, slight spice characteristics including clove, but not overly so, perhaps a blend of used oak

Other Aromas: a herbal nose with oregano, tarragon and slight notes of gardenia flowers

PALATE: 

Sweetness Level & Body: Dry with a Full Body

Fruit: Olives, Cranberries, Cherries, Sour Plums

Wood: a light spice layer makes me think it's with used French Oak

Other: herbal notes of tarragon

Tannins: Medium Plus, dryness on the roof of my mouth, with a gravelly feel

Alcohol: Medium, possibly 13.5% or lower

Acidity: Medium, moderate acidity

Complexity: Interesting palate that evolves from an initial sweetness to sourness and tannin character, medium-plus complexity

Finish: acidity clears finish, raisin characteristics remain, medium length finish

INITIAL CONCLUSION:

Old World wine, from a cool to moderate climate, probably syrah or mostly syrah about 2-5 years of age

FINAL CONCLUSION:

Because of the olive aromas and color, I really think it's a Northern Rhone unfiltered/naturally produced Syrah from the 2007 vintage.  I also would guess it's retail at around $45. 

Wine: 2006 Domaine Faury St. Joseph Red Wine (Northern Rhone Syrah!) Retail for $27 at Kermit Lynch. 

I would pair this wine with a braised portobello mushrooms and roasted potatoes with tarragon and a mint compote. a side of crispy kale would be a nice way to compliment the herbal characteristics.  The mint would bring out the fruitiness in the wine and the portobellos to accentuate the body. 

American Beer and Brussel Sprouts

The vegetal traits of brussel sprouts, asparagus and artichokes are often the most challenge food to pair. 

Inspired by a side dish at Bix in San Francisco, we roasted brussel sprouts with lemon, olive oil and thyme.  The roasting brought out slightly sweeter characteristics in the veggies, and the lemon was a great way to give it a nice tinge of acidity which is easier to pair with. 

New Belgium is now one of the few mass distributed beer brands that is still made/run in the States, the majority of "All American" beers are owned by InBev. 1554 has a smokey nutty quality while still maintaining a light/drinkable body.  Citrus and beer have always worked well together, and even though this beer is very smokey, it made the perfect transition from the smokiness of the beer to the roasted characteristics in the brussel sprouts. 

Portuguese Red Wine with Cheesy Polenta and Cauliflower

We pulled a bottle of vacqueyras for dinner and it smelled like wet cardboard.  

We opened a bottle of Vila Santa, a non-port red wine from Portugal. 2006 Joao Portugal Ramos Vila Santa Vinho Regional Alentejano.  Or in other words: red wine made from Aragones, Touriga Nacional, Trincadeira, Alicante Bouschet and Cabernet Sauvignon.  

For dinner, Justin made truffle oil & european butter polenta with sea salt, I sauteed oyster mushrooms with dried garlic and oregano and a few sun dried tomatos.  The polenta and mushrooms were broiled in the oven with mozzarella.  

On the side I sauteed onions in gram masala and cumin with cauliflower and a little brown sugar and sea salt. 

A rich vegetarian meal to hold up against the bold wine. 

Court of Masters style tasting analysis: Appearance: 

Clarity: Opaque

Brightness: Not Bright

Intensity: Medium Plus to High

Color: Deep Purple

Rim: pink to deep violet

Viscousity: Medium

Nose: 

Clean

Intensity: Medium Plus

Aroma: Youthful

Tobacco, Dark Red Fruits like Raspberry, darker cherry, little blackberry with hints of chocolate dust. 

Wood: Yes

Earth: Dusty Earth, Clay Earth, 

Palette:

Sweetness: Dry

Fruits: Cherry, plum, 

Body:  Medium Light

Earth: Clay / Slight sweet basil characteristics

Wood: Yes, very light wood characteristics

Alcohol: medium

Tannins: moderate grape tannins

Acid: Medium Low

Complexity: relatively low

Finish: medium low

Quality of Finish: Slight herbal notes lighter plum

A Taste from Small Vineyards

 Damiano Meroi (left) and Marc Baldwin, our distribution representative.

Paolo Meroi's son walked into the wine bar today and sat there telling me about his family.  5 generations of wine making in Fruili with varietals like Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, & Merlot.  He expressed that the majority of these wines had been planted on Meroi's panco soils since before phylloxera.  Panco is an alluvial soil, but it's high mineral content and structure makes hard clumps that almost look like schist, it's a tough soil which forces the vines to dig up to 3m deep for resources.

Starting with the Meroi 2008 Sauvignon Blanc I was immediately greeted by the familiar smells of sauv. blanc encased with this intense smokey aroma.  With a blanket of umami on my palette combined with Sauvignon Blanc's tartness this wine made it clear fromt the start that it was not a Sauvignon Blanc to be taken lightly.  Fruili wines overall seem to have this quality that can only be described as Cheese-a-licious.

Overall the production at Meroi is about 20,000-25,000 bottles.  On challenging years, they often do not produce very much at all, letting only the best grapes get to the press.  Years that are tough in Fruili go from harsh rains to extreme highs around 105° Fahrenheit. 


The Chardonnay seemed to hold up better to the intense meatiness that the terroir imbues into the wine...as well as some oak too!


The Néstri, a blend of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon had really intense plummy nose and here is where the meaty earth really made the wine complex and animalistic.  I would recommend this wine to those who want to be blasted with terrior and umami, perhaps a lover of aglianico!

Silvaner - The Underdog White from Germany

Justin and I tried Graf von Schonborn Silvaner with Cauliflower and Garbanzo Beans with a lemongrass honey and coconut infusion.  

With a star bright complexion and pale straw color, the silvaner from Graf von Schonborn showed perfume and powerful fruit aromas of star fruit and a zesty lemon character.  With a slightly lighter palette of fruit than a typical riesling of the same area, this wine defines itself with its minerality and delicate tropical fruit flavors.  The pairing was nice,  however, if I would have actually used a little coconut milk in the sauce I think the creamy texture against the vibrant acidity would have made me a  happy camper.  

Mad Palette - RUINART TASTING!

Madeline Puckette and Ruinart winemaker, Frédéric Panaїotis. 

I walked into Orson Restaurant at 10:30am at the pounding 'bmp bmp bmp' of house music.  Standing around in the foyer area were all the representatives from Ruinart, Hennesey & Moet, and Guildsomm.com.  I was giddy and very early so I opted to dive in and introduce myself whole-heartedly.  When I meet people in the wine business, I try to just be myself, there is nothing worse than putting a false-foot forward.  

The tasting consisted of 4 chardonnays from major chardonnay growing regions, I nailed one but had a tough time creating all-vegetarian for pairings.  When you blind taste, it's not just about getting the wine right, it's all the details that are scored (see my CoM tasting notes for Brancaia below).  The winner has not been determined yet, and the competition was fierce!

Afterward the challengers all relaxed a little with a glass of blanc de blanc as Frédéric Panaїotis discussed the current state of chardonnay in Champagne and also current winemaking practices.  Ruinart (and a couple other champagne houses) save a portion of wine that has undergone 100% malolactic conversion to add to the new cuvée right after the initial fermentation.  Since traditionally it takes about a month to grow a proper malolactic culture, this technique saves precious time and energy as the wine does not need to be warmed back up. 

Panaїotis was clearly passionate about wine as he invited us to reconsider "bitterness" as a valuable flavor on the taste palette.  He indicated that bitterness, which is often indicated as a negative, can add subtleties and create a much better balanced wine.  I did not feel that his Blanc de blanc was at all bitter upon tasting it, but, I have noted bitter characteristics on many highly rated wines. 

For alcohol conscious people he indicated that wine and alcohols made from starch (potato vodka) affects the liver where as grain-alcohol (whiskey) and sugar-cane alcohol (rum) affects the brain.  

With all this information floating around in my brain, I opted to taste 2 more glasses of Ruinart blanc de blanc....go liver!

Chardonnay Challenge by Ruinart!

Okay, it's not Ruinart, but the closest thing I had on hand: 2000 Dom Perignon.  and, on a side note, I tried one of the reserve Brut's at Frank Family Vineyards and it tasted strikingly similar to the 1999 Dom Perignon vintage.   Go Cali!

on www.guildsomm.com I found out about The Ruinart Chardonnay Challenge.  Ultimately, if you win the challenge, you win a trip to Champagne.  I entered by taking an online quiz about chardonnay and got an email 3 days ago that I got accepted to attend!  It's tomorrow in San Francisco!  Aeeiii!

I'm hoping to make some good contacts, invitees include Gillian Ballance who is the head Sommelier at PlumpJack Restaurants, Jess Altieri who heads up a wine-related webvideo site called http://winechanneltv.tv/ and Michael Ireland at Quince Restaurant.  Unfortunately, if they googled my name, like I did to all of them, they'd see that I'm an electro-pop producer, which is a world or two away from being a certified wino.   Bygones.

It feels like Ruinart is trying to reinvigorate the chardonnay varietal for connoisseurs, by celebrating it as a major component in Champagne.  I'm not opposed to this, mainly because I'm part of the school that is convinced that France makes better white wine than red.  So let's do this!  Tasting is tomorrow.  Wish me luck..

Sommelier Review: Brancaia Top Wine of 2009

Madeline Puckette with a bottle of Toscana Tre 2007 Brancaia Wine.

Brancaia got my attention this winter: they popped Top 10 in Wine Spectator with their 93 point rated Toscana Tre.  Low and behold, our distributer walked in about 3 weeks later with a couple of Brancaia's wines including the yellow label(93 pts, WS, $16) and their wine called Il Blu(95 pts, WS $67).  I think Wine Spectator implemented a very savvy plan for their top rated wines this year: they included more wines in the below 40 price point, reflecting our more economically minded consumer.  That said, with prodigious buyers in mind, Brancaia's Il Blu commands a higher price and the palate proves it's worth it.  

Today, I'm going to experiment with the Court of Masters tasting method in order to really investigate the wine.  Brancaia blend is ~80% Sangiovese, ~10% Merlot, ~10% Cabernet Sauvignon.

VISUAL INSPECTION:

Clarity: slight haze

Brightness: Day Bright

Intensity of Color: Medium

Color: Garnet

Rim Variation: Yes, light pinkish to Ruby-Garnet hues

Viscosity: Medium

NOSE/AROMA:

Condition: sound/clean

Intensity: Medium-Low

Fruit Aromas: Dark Sweet Cherry, Cooked Raspberry, Dried Strawberry.  Predominant red fruit aromas.

Other Aromas: Chalkboard, white pepper, anise & oregano

Presence of wood: yes in the form of a slight vanilla smell

PALATE:

Sweetness level: Dry

Body: Medium-Plus

Fruit on Palate: taste matches nose with cherries & raspberries

Earthiness: Chalkiness + Green rhubarb, oregano on mid-finish

Wood: I would say yes, very slight, perhaps large barrels or less new barrels

Alcohol: Medium

Tannins: Medium - Plus to High, very structured fruit tannins, perhaps from whole bunches

Acid: Medium Plus

Complexity: Medium Plus complexity, based on big fruit with strong tannin structure

Finish: Medium-Plus, Acid clears palate relatively quickly

Greek White Shark: Moschofilero

Skouras Moschofilero 2007

A nose like viognier & chenin blanc, light bodied, low alcohol and tingling dryness on the palate.  As with many under-represented varietals on the marketplace, Skouras really champions the easy-to-love characteristics of moschofilero, which made me scratch my head "why haven't I heard of moschofilero more?!"  We sampled this wine with a very salty-sweet Quorn "chickenless" dish, dill & chive fried potato coins and lemon zest soycutash (check your TJ's frozen aisle).  I really enjoyed the bright floral acidic character of this wine against the salt-friendly dish, it cleared my palate of saline and held up against the strong sweet flavors.  

I purchased the wine at the Hollywood location of K&L Wines where I also purchased a Brunello di Montalcino (I'm hoping to capture those figgy/nutty aromas with a slightly older 2001 vintage), and a Cremant rose from the Loire.  So more write-ups will ensue!

Court of Masters Experience

It's Official!  I have completed the Introductory Course for Sommelier put on by Court of Masters. For those of you who may be interested in extended wine education, the CoM does a great job of illustrating wine service as well as teaching fundamental ways of blind tasting wines.  That said, the course was very fast paced and would be difficult for someone not familiar with the major wine varietals and regions in the world.  Tim Gaiser, MS, who conducted the class, and Steven Poe, MS, had incredible enthusiasm and knowledge for wine, making sitting in a chair in a hotel convention hall for 7 hours fun!

During the class, there were many blind tastings.  First day was loaded with French wines, for which I had a lot of trouble identifying.  Aei! Gotta drink more Chablis and Crozes-Hermitage!  I wish I could blame a nasty cold for my off-palate, or perhaps it's because I always find myself sneaking passed the "FRANCE" wine aisle and spending too much time in the "ITALY" or "GERMANY" aisles.  hurrah for riesling!

The second day blind-tasting was a breeze, particularly when I spotted the Zind Humbrecht Pinot D'Alsace after the room of 100 people sat stumped.  rockstar.  Then, on the last 2 wines of the day, it was as though I tasted the lips of an old lover... when good ol' California Zinfandel touched my lips. Ahh Seghesio...my good friend.  The last wine was a hot red brick in my mouth with so much tannin and leather, my guess was Barbaresco... it was Barolo.

Wow.  I left the class with a list of wines (scant notations all over my notepad document) and next day found myself at K&L Wines in Los Angeles with a bottle of Peloponnese (Greece) Moschofilero.  I'm going to take the Certified Exam in April in Seattle... see yah there!

Working in a Wine Bar

Armed with a pair of dish gloves, each wine glass gets hand washed with fragrance free detergent, polished with a lint-free cloth and examined.

I work at West Street Wine Bar.  My prior career was as a graphic designer, I would have never started working as a wine server had it not been for Rick Martinez, the proprietor of WSWB.  Since February 2009, I've had the fortune of tasting over 600 wines and learned a great deal about the world of wine.  But as any seasoned wine professional will tell you: "The more you know, the more you know you don't know."   I've just enrolled into the Court of Masters Sommelier course, to continue to advance my knowledge and interest.

My traditional style career in the office was slowly rounding down my enthusiasm and sucking my social energy.  I would spend all day fantasizing about what to eat and drink for dinner, not acknowledging my passion (or respect) for the food/service industry.