Wine Blogging Wednesday - Boy am I late

Wow am I late. Perhaps I was too enamoured with my posting of the Twitteleh video, but I have been dropping the ball on blogging. Last Wednesday was the sixty first edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, founded and hosted by Lenn at LENNDEVOURS.

As the year progresses it is slowly becoming more and more obvious to me that my hobby of wine blogging is going to be hurting. The time commitment that blogging is will easily get in the way of work. I hate it when work gets in the way of life. So, I will definite keep blogging and tasting and writing. I just might not have the luxury of posting something on my blog as often as I would like.


That being said, lets dive into the topic: Drink Local. Lenn loves this topic, mostly because it allows him to write about the wines he covers anyway, and forces those of us in the New York area to taste and write about New York wines.


Not that I can blame the guy. Some of these wines are damn tasty!


The rub with this topic is that Lenn also wanted us to go out and visit the winery that we write about. Something I would have loved to have done, but there was just no way I was getting out to Long Island, the Hudson Valley, or the Finger Lakes. It just did not happen.


So, I did the next best thing, tasted (tasted... who am I kidding... guzzled!) a wine from a winery I had visited and tasted a wine from a winemaker I know who makes his wine in Long Island.



The first was one of the tastiest Sauvignon Blancs I have had the pleasure of imbibing from the East Coast. Channing Daughters Sauvignon Blanc 2008 is fantastic. The taste was so fresh and so crisp, that even though the cooler weather is here, I felt like I could have been enjoying this wine on a hot beach. It was that refreshing. Lime, grapefruit, and jalapeno (a taste I have been identifying in more and more Sauvingon Blancs) with a little roundness that might have been pear. It was supposed to go well with the sushi I wanted to have, but instead went very well with Vietnamese.


The other wine I drank (definitely finished the bottle and went and purchased another at Crush) was Schneider Vineyards "le breton" Cabernet Franc 2007. I can hear all of my old coworkers who are reading this (its OK, you can leave a comment!) making sounds of amusement. Not because of the wine, but because they still work with the winemaker, Bruce Schneider. Back in May, when I participated in Lenn's TasteCamp East, I had some amazing Cabernet Francs that blew away the Merlot I had tasted. Lenn even wrote about Bruce's wine last year.


So, for this blog post I asked Bruce if he had a bottle to spare. He humored be and let me have a sample. I should have asked for another bottle. This wine was very good, with tasty earthy cherry up front moving into a rich finish. You should go find it if you can, or you should become friendly with the winemaker...

Twitteleh - to keep your Jewish mom from asking: Why haven't you called?

I got an e-mail from my mother today, asking why I hadn't called her. She also sent me this YouTube video:




I love my mom.

Corkd Relaunch Party

This past Monday I was invited to attend a tasting at Cork'd headquarters in Tribeca. Gray V was there with a slew of wines from some of the wineries that signed up to be apart of the Cork'd community. The tasting was completely informal, just a bunch of people around random tables (including a ping pong table) with tumblers tasting wine.

For those that have never heard of it, Cork'd is a social network that invites people to review wines. Sorry, invites is not the right word. Asks, begs, implores... waves it in your face, hands you the pen and shows you where on the dotted line.

It is SO easy to use. I was not a user before Monday and it took me all of 30 seconds to sign up. It linked to my Facebook profile and that was that. Then it linked to my Twitter account. So everything I tasted immediately was posted on both Facebook and Twitter. If I wanted it to, that is.

And then there was the actual review aspect of the site. Simple, quick, and easy. Search the wine, if it does not pop up, you simply add it. If the winery is plugged into Cork'd, then they can go claim it and fix your spelling errors.

So, I tasted. And tasted, and tasted. You want to find out what I thought of what I tasted? Check out my Cork'd page and see...

Backsberg Chenin Blanc 2008, Paarl, South Africa

Backsberg Kosher Pinotage 2007, Paarl, South Africa

Mont Tauch Fitou Carignan-Grenache-Syrah 2006, Languedoc-Roussillon, France

Nick Goldschmidt Boulder Bank Pinot Noir 2007, Marlborough, New Zealand

Chelsea Goldschmidt Merlot 2007, Dry Creek Valley, California

Buoncristiani "Artistico" Syrah 2006, Napa Valley, California

B Wise Vineyards Trios Proprietary Red 2006, Sonoma Valley, California

Terlato Family Pinot Noir 2007, Russian River Valley, California

Rutherford Hill Merlot 2005, Napa Valley, California

Pedroncelli Pinot Noir 2007, Russian River Valley, California

Nick Goldschmidt Boulder Bank Pinot Noir 2007, Marlborough, New Zealand

Scary Situations

I couldn't tell you that this doesn't happen...

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.