October Wine Round-Up
Now that the weather has cooled down in Texas, I’ve been lucky enough to get a number of wine shipments coming my way. Those shipments led us to another #TipsyTuesday with a group of work colleagues. Sometimes you have to kiss many frogs before you find your prince, but this time we had a great line-up of wines from around the world. We tried 15 wines, one was corked and one didn’t make the cut, but the rest were solid wines.
White
In the spirit of full disclosure, these wines were supposed to be part of Natural Chardonnay Day #ChardDay and I ended up having to go out of town for work. I gave notice to the folks coordinating and they were nice enough to tell me to save them for a rainy day. Favorites are below (as mentioned, one of the Chardonnay’s was corked, so I won’t talk about that wine).
- 2012 Wente Morning Fog Chardonnay – full of tropical notes, vanilla, orange blossom and floral notes. This was a great representation of a chardonnay.
- 2012 Wente Riva Ranch Chardonnay – I also got tropical, but there were some notes of spice to this wine along with honey and vanilla. A totally different chardonnay but also very nice.
The other favorite whites included:
- 2013 Domaine Begude Sauvignon Blanc – lots of minerality, citrus, lemongrass and grapefruit. This was a great everyday wine.
- 2013 Carmel Road Unoaked Chardonnay – notes of citrus and pear. This was a very crisp Chardonnay.
- 2013 Carmel Road Unoaked Riesling – notes of orange blossom, honey, floral and apricot. It was really interesting and I kept coming back to it.
Red
- 2009 Cune Reserva 2009 Rioja – definitely one of my favorites of the tasting. Big notes of rich berry, spice and great terroir.
- 2007 Montecilla Gran Reserva Rioja – earthy with notes of smoke, pepper, cedar, raspberry, spice and leather. I thought this opened up nicely over the time of the tasting.
- 1998 Vina Albina Rioja – this wine was full of dried cherry, spice and vanilla. It was an interesting expression of aged rioja and I enjoyed it.
I always have to call out Cornerstone Cellars wines whenever I am lucky enough to receive them as there is a line out my door whenever they appear and with good reason. We tried the 2012 Cornerstone Cellars Syrah, which was full of leather, coffee and notes of blackberry. You could almost taste the intersection of the fruit of the earth with the skill of the winemaker who brought it all together like a conductor’s crescendo. The second wine was the 2011 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, which continues to ‘hands down’ be one of my favorite Napa Valley Cabernets (just do a Google search of Cornerstone and Dallas Wine Chick and you can follow my love affair with these wines).
October Wine Round-Up
Rose
- 2013 Anna de Joyeuse, Camas, Pinot Noir Rose – Lots of red cherries, raspeberries and a freshness and minerality that I really enjoyed.
Dessert Wine
- Cockburn’s Special Reserve Port – this was a treat for the group. It was balanced with red fruits, cherry and had a nice finish at the end.
