TTL: Nautilus Estate Wines

by Rob Bralow, Wine Post Editor

Way too long ago I participated in a Taste Live event that featured the wines from Nautilus Estate. This winery hails from New Zealand and the line-up was very typical of what you would expect from the country. We tasted the winery's Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, and Pinot Noir. Notes can be found below:

2008 Nautilus Pinot Gris - Floral and light, with some light lemon zest. On the palate the minerality shoots out of the glass and dances on my tongue. A little bit of creamy butter floats in and then a really interesting salty sea air finish.

2009 Nautilus Sauvignon Blanc - Classic New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. The grassy aroma is all over this wine, with some spicy jalapeno and lemon citrus. The taste is the same, with a little more grapefruit citrus and even some lively kiwi! I thought this wine was so good that I brought it in to be carried at my wine shop.

2008 Nautilus Pinot Noir - Another classic wine from New Zealand. The red raspberry flavors are a little overwhelmed by toasty oak, but there is also a wonderful crushed rose petal smell. The taste is rich, with soft flavors that blend nicely together.

Disclaimer: I received these wines as press samples.

Quick Taste: Domaine de la Perriere Sancerre

By Rob Bralow, Wine Post Editor

I am way behind on reporting on my tastings, so for the next few weeks expect a ton of short, "Quick Taste" segments until I get caught up. I have plenty of longer posts to write, but for now here are some of the samples I've tasted.

I was sent a bottle of the 2008 Domaine de la Perriere Sancerre by the importer and was reasonably impressed. This brand is one of the Guy Saget portfolio of wines, one of the larger producers from the Loire Valley. Since this is from Sancerre, the grape in the bottle is Sauvignon Blanc. The smell was extremely mineral with a healthy background of flowers and rich herbaceous aromas. The wine had a racy acidity, with lots of lemon citrus, and steely minerals. The average price is about $22. I think this is a good quality wine, although perhaps slightly pricey.

Through the redwoods

Continuing to taste my samples grab bag, I received a bottle of Redwood Creek Sauvignon Blanc 2007 a little while ago. Redwood Creek is owned by Frei Brothers, a winery that I tasted a few wines from a while ago and really enjoyed.

When I went to the website for Redwood Creek, I got a little confused. It is a very pretty website, but the menus are a little weird. Where do I got to find more information about the winery? What if I wanted to contact the press person there and get more information? It was not obvious to me where I should click if I wanted to find more information about the wines.

I didn’t get it. I am sure there is some logic behind it, a story to tell. Obviously this wine is very connected with hiking in wine country. Maybe I should ask Russ the Winehiker…

Anyway, the Sauvignon Blanc I received was from California. That’s the best I can tell you because that is what was on the label. In the glass the wine was full of perfume, a little citrus, and a massive amount of olives (not unpleasant! I like olives). Then the taste kept the same theme, with a super creamy beginning, a briny middle with a tart grapefruit at the end. Not a great example of Sauvignon Blanc, but if you want something to go with fish or oysters, this will do.

Embarrassing how long it’s taken

Finally I tasted through the Clos LaChance, and I am kicking myself of letting these wines sit in my sample grab-bag for so long. It has taken me nearly three months to taste through these wines. It seemed that there were always other events, other stories, and other wines in my way of these beauties.

Clos LaChance had a Twitter Taste Live event back in June, but I received the wines after inquiring about wineries growing vines using sustainable practices. I got somewhat the best of both worlds. More and more wineries are turning to sustainable agricultural practices, a great way to plan for the future. There are of course companies that say they are doing involved in sustainable practices, just to be part of the group and use it as a marketing tool. To see some of the different ways that Clos LaChance is sustainable, see their PDF here.


And more importantly, their wines are good. I tasted the Clos LaChance Hummingbird Series “White-Tufted Sunbeam” Sauvignon Blanc 2008 and the Clos LaChance Hummingbird Series “Glittering-Throated Emerald” Unoaked Chardonnay 2008. The names on the labels made my acid reflux act up slightly, but getting past that, the wines were very good. The Sauvignon Blanc was fruity, with an upfront hit of cream as well as apricot and grapefruit. The unoaked Chardonnay was zippy, with lots of green apple.

I also really enjoy it when a winery goes beyond text on their website. When I started researching this wine I went to the winery’s website and found videos from the winemaker and the vineyard manager and the owner of the winery. They are not riveting by any means, but each is a short personal view of what is going on at the winery.





Not sure how herbicide helps their sustainability… but I’m just a blogger.

Others who have written recently about Clos LaChance:

• http://www.brixchicks.com/2009/07/nectar-and-hummingbirds-review-of-clos.html


• http://1winedude.com/index.php/2009/06/06/weekly-twitter-wine-mini-reviews-round-up-for-2009-06-06/


• http://goodgrape.com/index.php/articles/comments/a_pre-zap_zinfandel_face-off/

Value Sauvignon Blanc

In May, I wrote about the Wines of Chile Online Blogger Tasting. Los Vascos was one of the wineries that participated in this tasting, allowing dozens of bloggers to taste the Los Vascos Reserve 2006. Now I have acquired a bottle from the importer of the Los Vascos Sauvignon Blanc 2008 from the Central Valley of Chile.



Here is what I said about the winery in May:

“In the power hitter spot is the Los Vascos Reserve 2006, presented by winemaker Marcelo Gallardo. I had the good fortune of visiting this winery last time I was in Chile and took a tour of the winery and vineyards. The land there is absolutely stunning. There is a small hill that we climbed up, which allowed the group of us to look at the entire valley at sunset. I also was able to meet Marcelo, and I am not sure the man ever stopped laughing while we were there. It was a great visit. Los Vascos is definitely one of the largest wineries in Chile and makes a VAST amount of wine, although they only make six wines. What most impresses me about the winery is that they consistently produce wine at a great value. It is also worth noting that Los Vascos is owned by Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite).” (Wines of Chile Online Blogger Tasting, May 20, 2009)

A change that has happened between then and now is a recreation of their website. While Los Vascos used to have its own website, it has since been moved to become part of the Domaine Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) website. But I think that might only be interesting to me.

Another thing that is interesting to me is that this wine has been declassified. In Chile there is no classification system that has anything to do with the actual making of the wine. The terms reserva, gran reserva, winemaker’s reserve, super reserve, oh-man-this-is-so-reserve do not mean anything. Instead it is all about where the wine is from. This Sauvignon Blanc used to be classified as from the Casablanca Valley. The 2008 is labeled “Central Valley,” which means that this wine could come from anywhere in the winemaking regions of Chile. The grapes in this wine do come from Casablanca, with additional grapes sourced from the Leyda Valley, a valley south of Casablanca and within another coastal region named San Antonio. While these recognized wine growing regions are close to each other, coastal, and known cool climate grape producers, the moment that there were more than 15% of grapes from a region other than Casablanca in the wine meant that the label could not say anything but Central Valley.

In-country the laws are a little looser, but since most of the wine in Chile is exported, the stricter laws are followed.

What makes this wine so good is that it has all of the qualities you would want in a Sauvignon Blanc for a bargain price. I found grapefruit, lemon zest, and pineapple in this wine and I wanted a full plate of oysters and another of asparagus to eat. All for the price of $12.

Find this wine here.


Disclaimer: I once worked for Wines of Chile

Others that have written about this wine: http://www.anotherwineblog.com/archives/5276

Others that have written about previous vintages: http://2daysperbottle.blogspot.com/2008/08/los-vascos-sauvignon-blanc-2006.html

A quick dip into a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc

Now that I have left Wines of Chile, I have noticed that I do not seek out Chilean wines very often. It has nothing to do with the quality of the wines, it's just that after tasting them at trade shows, tasting them during comprehensive reviews of the wines, tasting them at retail store events, tasting them on trips, and tasting them in the office... I want to branch out a little.

However, when I do go out and buy a Chilean wine, I know exactly which ones I want to buy.

Recently I had a bottle of Vina Garces Silva "Amayna" Sauvignon Blanc 2008. The winery actually only makes one line of wines, all of which are called Amayna, so if you ask for Garces Silva a retail clerk might not know what you are talking about. Vina Garces Silva is located in the San Antonio region of Chile, up against the coastal mountain range. In fact, you can see the Pacific Ocean quite clearly from the winery balcony.

The winery is very modern, with an attractive architectural design. Because it is built into the foothills of the coastal range, the transfer of juices during the winemaking production is all done by gravity. The grapes are brought to the top level of the winery via an access road, then crushed almost directly into stainless steel tanks. From there the fermented juice is send down the tubes to be put either into oak barrels or directly into the bottling line, depending on the type of wine being made.

The winery only makes five different wines: Sauvignon Blanc, Barrel Fermented Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Syrah. These are among my favorite wines coming out of Chile and I fully recommend picking up any of them. There is no question to me that this is a winery dedicated to quality.

That being said, I certainly prefer some of their wines over others. For instance, I find it a shame to mess with such delicious Sauvignon Blanc by putting some of it in oak. And the Syrah is slightly young, as it was just planted about four or five years ago. And that Pinot Noir is delicious.

The recent edition of Sauvignon Blanc is good, but I thought the 2007 was better. The 2008 Sauvignon Blanc is a little more herbal, with notes of lemon grass and slightly on the asparagus side. The taste is so light and smooth with a breezy lemon citrus flavor. Leah had bought some hand rolled ravioli, filled with ricotta and asparagus and it was a good pairing.

Also, Wines of Chile has a new website, which is MUCH more useful than its old one. I say this as a blogger, a consumer, and as someone who spent a lot of time navagating the old website. Check it out at: http://www.winesofchile.org/

Disclosure:

I worked with Wines of Chile from 2006 until 2009.

UPDATED: I just retasted this wine from the same bottle four days later and it is still crisp and bright. The herbal notes have gone and all that is lelft is bright and refreshing lemon citrus. Love it!

A time of Hope

The world has gone feverish for Hope. It’s the word that is lying in the back of everyone’s mouth as they talk about how bad things are right now. Businesses are closing left and right, especially here in New York where you can see empty storefronts and “Going out of Business” signs, where not 6 months ago there were fall line-ups and smug salespeople. Hope is what the world clings to, a way to convince yourself that tomorrow will be better. Barack Obama ran his campaign on a message that hope will see us through and that we will weather this stormy economy and life will once again be good, or at least as good as it was.

I found a winery selling hope, or at least finding a way to use it to help others. Hope Wine is a concept created by Jacob Kloberdanz in 2006 after he witnessed the sales power that teaming a wine business with a non-profit organization can have. Kloberdanz worked as a wine sales manager and would work with non-profit organizations on a monthly basis, not only to get that warm feeling when you help those in need but to also sell more product. After seeing these results, Kloberdanz decided to create a brand that donated to charity and helped raise awareness all year round.

Kloberdanz and a group of entrepreneurs out of Southern California, each with sales, marketing and managerial experience in the wine industry launched Hope Wines brand in early 2007. Their company partnered with Sonoma Wine Company to help create this private label. Today the company has five different wine varieties, with plans to expand into more varieties to support a growing selection of causes.

The wines, made by David Elliot (a 25-year veteran in the wine industry) are:

Sauvignon Blanc – Supporting the Environment
Chardonnay – Supporting Breast Cancer Awareness
Merlot – Supporting AIDS Awareness
Cabernet Sauvignon – Supporting Autism Research
Zinfandel – Supporting the Families of Fallen Troops

I decided to purchase some of these wines and try them out. It is great to see a company whose main mission is to help those in need, but are the wines also worth drinking in their own merit?

The Hope Chardonnay was quite good. I really liked the freshness and excitement in the wine. I was quite surprised to find that the wine had see very little oak and showed great apple and pear notes. It was very pleasant with the grilled shrimp I had with it.

The Hope Merlot on the other hand was not nearly as good. A perfectly drinkable wine, but nothing exciting.

I haven’t tried the Sauvignon Blanc yet, but when I do I’ll put up a note about it.

Wine Blogger Wednesday #52 – Value Reds from Chile

(Edit) Evidently I have done a faux pas and I would like to correct it (and maybe apologize. it won't happen again, PWEASE don't ban me from WBW). Tim at CheapWineRatings.com hosted this week's Wine Blogging Wednesday and he chose Value Wines from Chile.

Woo hoo! Chile! I get to write about Chile. I actually know something about Chile’s wines, great country, great wines, very delicious!! Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Viognier, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere, Blended Red Wines, Late Harvest, Sparkling, Rosé, Elqui, Limari, Choapa, Aconcagua, Maipo, Casablanca, San Antonio, Cachapaol, Colchagua, Curico, Maule, Itata, Bio Bio, Malleco…

Wait… crap, conflict of interest. I work for Wines of Chile, I am on the PR team for the US program. Therefore it is completely suspect if I offer praise and probably not healthy for my job if I offer criticism. Therefore, I’ll offer facts!

Chile has great wine. Nope, not an opinion, or at least not my opinion. Chile was recognized this year by Wine Spectator as the Wine of the Year. Wine Enthusiast acknowledged one of Chile’s wineries as New World Winery of the Year. For more information on both go here.

The quick facts:
-Chile is bringing 2% more wine into the US than last year (almost every other country is bringing in less because of the economy. Must mean people are drinking more Chilean!)
-Most of the wine coming from Chile is Cabernet, next is Red Blends
-Chile is growing! Carmenere, Chile’s unique variety, is up 22%; Sauvignon Blanc up 26%; Pinot Noir up 33%; Syrah up a whopping 42%!

What is my job? To tell you the facts and give you a chance to taste the wine. Yes you, you there with the computer! You there reading this right now. There are too many people who know what they are talking about for me to give you any “marketing” speak. For instance, this blog post is part of Wine Blogger Wednesdays, which I hope to join in on more often for my own personal blogging. There is a group of very respected wine bloggers that have decided to write about the same thing and they do it on a Wednesday of each month and call it Wine Blogging Wednesday. This week the topic was “Value Reds from Chile” (for those that have a hard time reading the title of this post).

I contacted some of the bloggers, offering help and information. If I had known sooner I would have sent samples too (and am still going to send samples to some of them), but I only found out last week about this week’s topic (some PR guy I am…). If you are a blogger and you want more info on Chile, let me know and I will see what I can do. I promise to read your blog and add it to my growing list.

If you are curious and want to hear what other people, people who do not work for Wines of Chile, have to say, here is the list of all the people I know that have posted for this week’s WBW (updated as I receive/find them):

-1 Wine Dude

-Anything Wine

-Bloviatrix

-BubbleBrothers

-BubbleBrothers (Second Post)

-Cheap Wine Ratings

-Drink What You Like

-Drinks Are On Me

-Eating Leeds

-Gonzo Gastronomy

-A Good Time With Wine

-Good Wine Under $20

-LENNDEVOURS

-LusciousLushes

-My Wine Education

-The Passionate Foodie

-Ribbie’s Weblog

-sangre y pajas en flor: binomadic? because.

-Spittoon

-StrumErika

-Two Days per Bottle

-Under the Grape Tree

-Vinagoth

-Vinagoth (Second Post)

-Wannabe Wino Wine Blog

-Wine Blogging Wednesday

-Wine for Newbies

-The Wine Case

-Wine Peeps

-Wine Predator

-Winecast

-Winesleuth

Now the PR part: If you have any questions about Chilean wines, I am probably the best person to ask. I have access to information about almost every wine and know the contact information for each importer, export manager, or Chilean wine PR person. I cannot guarantee samples or access to winemakers, but I will try my best with either. My company also works with Wines of Germany and is starting relationships with Wines of Israel.



Salut!

The Art of a Virtual Tasting

Last Friday night at 8 pm I joined a group of other wine geeks to taste wines and compare our notes. We all went through the proper motions: swirl, sniff, sip, swish and swallow (I don’t think anyone spits in this crowd). We were all meticulous in noting the different flavors and aromas that our senses perceived. I might be the only one to admit it, but some of us got a little tipsy. And we did it while we were all hundreds of miles from each other.

We were all participants of a tasting on Twitter Taste Live. On November 19th Lenn Thompson of LENNDEVOURS announced that he was hosting the tasting and that his choice was four wines from Humanitas Winery, a winery owned by Judd Wallenbrock who is also the winemaker. I read Lenn’s blog all the time so I decided to check it out. Judd blogs at Drink Charitably and the concept of his winery is a beautiful one, to make good wine and to give back to charities in local communities where the wines are sold. The profits from the winery go to three primary causes: hunger, affordable housing and illiteracy. They have chosen Feeding America (formerly America’s Second Harvest), Habitat for Humanity, and Reading is Fundamental as their targeting charities, but do not limit the donations to only those. Judd and company are just as likely to donate to local charities that best address these issues in individual communities. One of the best winery missions I have heard to date.

If you’ve never seen or heard of Twitter before, you are not the only one. It might be the latest online craze, but then again it might not. The format of using Twitter Taste Live (TTL) was an interesting one. The notion is that everyone buys the wines and meets at the same time and tweet about them. Yes, that’s the new verb, and no I did not coin it (thank goodness). TTL was created by Craig Drollett, John Hafferty, and Chris Gillis and was originally connected to their retail store Bin Ends. Today TTL has distanced itself from the store and is completely open to the world of the wine industry, especially the consumers. The userbase is currently nearing 500 with participation in 8 countries. Not bad for a site based on tweets.

“The real vision is that this platform is a direct line of communication between consumers and wine makers,” explains Craig. “So far it’s working out very well.”

The tasting itself was very interesting, but turned into a case of the hiccups that won’t go away. I loved being in an online space where there are so many people who love to talk about wine all expressing their opinions of the same wines. The way it works is that as long as your tweet has #ttl included then it will pop up on the live feed. The only problem was that every ten to fifteen minutes or so the live twitter feed (I almost said tweet feed, but that seemed wrong somehow) would cut out. The only thing that really kept everything together was Matt doing a live video feed from his house.

All said and done, it was a good experience. The wines we tasted were:

• Humanitas Sauvignon Blanc 2006, 13.8% ALC, Monterey County, California, USA


• Humanitas Oak Free Chardonnay 2007, 13.8% ALC, Monterey County, California, USA


• Humanitas Gap’s Crown Pinot Noir 2006, 14.6% ALC, Sonoma Coast, California, USA


• Humanitas Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, 14.2% ALC, Paso Robles, California, USA

My clear favorite and that of the two others I tasted with (ok, so it is also nice to taste wine with live people too) was the Chardonnay. It was that classic pear and apple that Chardonnay should produce and had a great balance on the taste. The Cabernet started coming through for me after it sat out a while; I had not expected to need to decant it. When I first tasted the Cab it had huge tannins and was extremely rough. It started to smooth out and find some fruit after about an hour or so. I’ll know better for next time.

You can buy the wines here, and be sure to check out Twitter if you have not done so yet and Twitter Taste Live.

Wines tasted on October 15th, 2008

Pinot Grigio (Gris)

1) Villa Dugo Pinot Grigio 2007, 13% ALC., DOC Friuli Isonzo, Italy

2) Erste & Neue Kellerei Pinot Grigio 2007, 13% ALC., DOC Alto Adige – South Tyrol, Italy

3) Ponzi Vineyards Pinot Gris 2007, 13.3% ALC., Willamette, Oregon, USA

Sauvignon Blanc

4) Sileni Cellar Selections Sauvignon Blanc 2007, 12.5% ALC., Marlborough, New Zealand

5) Clos Roche Blanche Sauvignon Blanc 2007, 12.5 ALC., AOC Tourain, Loire, France

6) De Martino Parcela 5 Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2007, 13.5% ALC., Casablanca, Chile

My Review:

1) I thought this wine was a bit boring. It had a little bit of vanilla and smokiness to it. Makes me think there was a bit of oak. Something I would suggest as a large party wine, not too expensive and bland enough to be inoffensive to everyone.

2)Much more interesting wine, with a bit of a floral note in the nose. The taste was still rather spicy, fruity with a little it of orange citrus.

3)A very different wine than the first two, more of a passion fruit and orange rind nose. The taste was a little sweet and creamy to me, although there was still plenty of acidity.

4)Like a freshly opened can of string beans. Lots of asparagus here, although the taste had a little bit of tropical fruit.

5)Really interesting. Like putting my nose into a bag of werthers originals. This wine was really aromatic with vanilla and butterscotch everywhere. The taste had some nice grapefruit to it, but the werthers were definitely overpowering.

6)Asparagus bomb! So much boiled string beans. I had to run out of the room.

7)We opened another bottle to see if we could find a classic Sauvignon Blanc. We did in the De Martino Organic Sauvignon Blanc 2007, 13.3% ALC, Maipo Valley, Chile. Thank goodness. There was the grapefruit I was looking for. This wine was spicy, zesty and very fresh.