It’s the Big House for me

Ok, stop what you are doing right now and check out the website for Big House Wine (http://www.bighousewine.com/).

No, its ok, I’ll wait.







Done playing yet? No? Ok, take some more time.






Now was that not the most interesting and fun winery website you have ever been on? When I taste wines I geek out. I think about how the wine tastes, what I would eat with this wine, and really anything else that I can ponder. Then I usually come back to the computer and do my best to research the wine and look up as much information as I can find. This is usually impeded by the fact that I finished the bottle and possibly opened up another one, but in general I think I get a pretty good understanding of what information I can find and make a note of it so I can go back and find the information while slightly more sober.

Usually I am disappointed by the information available online. You would think that in today’s information hungry society, every single winery and organization has a website that they at least keep the contact information up to date on. I constantly find this to not be the case as I look up information on wines I find interesting.

Big House Wines not only has a website with great content, but its flat out fun to navigate around. I loved the concept and design and it played so well with the wine’s branding that I honestly wonder what came first, the website or the wines? One of the area’s I really loved was Rehab. If you have not yet checked it out (BAD!) you should definitely do so.

Big House used to be owned and operated by Randahl Graham, the fabulously creative winemaker at Bonny Doon, which incidentally also has an amazing website that I hope to review in a future post.

For today, I picked up a bottle of The Prodicgal Son 2005, a Petit Sirah from Peso Robles. I tasted this wine as part of yesterday’s Wine Blogging Wednesday, but I thought that I needed to share the website with everyone.

This is really what wine is supposed to be about. It has its uber geeky side (I am BLOGGING about it for heaven sakes!), which some enjoy and some think it ridiculous. But it also has its fun side, which everyone should remember. It is just wine!

A land of pure imagination - Wine Blogging Wednesday on Music

What is the connection between our senses? How often do you notice yourself hating a particular taste or flavor when you are in a bad mood? Or a good mood? Or a jazzy mood? Or a rock mood?

Katie from Gonzo Gastronomy wanted us to explore just that. Katie's challenge is to experience for ourselves how different genre's of music make us feel about a wine. If perhaps a song is on that is particularly grating against your nerves, do you then think less of the wine you are tasting?

I had a hard time figuring out how this would work. How much thought should I put into this? Do I need to taste wines that I was familiar with or pick music I particularly liked or did not like? Should I shut the hell up and just turn on some tunes and pop some corks? Well, yes I should...

So I chose two wines that have been sitting in my storage that I wanted to try, the Big House Prodigal Son Petite Sirah 2005 and a bottle of McManis Family Vineyards Petite Sirah 2007. I chose them because I had no idea what was in the bottle. Well, at least only a slim idea (I have some experience with Petite Sirah).

For my musical inspiration, I chose to go with several stations from Pandora. That way I could add an element of random to the experiment, something no good scientist should do. Another reason why I am not a scientist.

The list of music that came out was:

1. Shostakovic Prelude (25) for Piano Op. 31 - eventually someone will explain to me what all of those numbers and works mean. Still trying to figure out what prelude means
2. Allman Brothers Ain't Wastin' Time No More
3. Tracy Chapman Change
4. David Cook A Daily Antham
   

And I was also joined by my lovely tasting helper.

And so it began...

On initial tasting (without music) I enjoyed the Big House was more enjoyable. I then started going back and forth between the two wines as the music played and I came to a conclusion.

Every time I tasted the McManis after the Big House I enjoyed both equally. Every time I tasted the Big House after the McManis I liked the Big House better. Looking at my notes, I could not find a real correlation between the music and the wine. Both were very tannic and juicy (as I expected). The McManis had more caramel and medium dark fruits, where the Big House had more sweet black cherry and chocolate.

A pleasant experiment and a good notion. Perhaps I am just not as in tune to the music as Katie is.