While noting that Arcadian is now the single best represented domestic producer in my cellar nowadays based on my love for their pinots, I realized that I had yet to try any of the syrahs I'd picked up a few months ago. A mixed bag of reviews exists on Cellar Tracker for all the wines I have: most are scores in the 88 to 92 range with descriptions whose negativity could well be the same characteristics I'd be positive about, so to choose I just reached blindly into the shelf and let fate decide that we would try the Arcadian 2004 Westerly Vineyard. We each had a glass last night and the wine was drinking beautifully right out of the bottle. It was a little tight but that emphasized its pontential similarity to a Northern Rhone vs. most Cal syrahs in a good way, with good dark cherry fruit, a hint of mint and an esoteric cinnamon note on the finish. Excellent and interesting, but mostly without any of the standard syrah markers. I'm sampling a second glass right now, and it's changed quite a bit. The fruit is more raspberry with a bit of fresh bay leaf and dustier-seeming tannins, definitely more syrah-like but with less of the acid than it seemed to have last night. I'm really not sure where it's going from here, but for what I paid
($20)? Delightful.
I'm sampling malbecs now for our February neighborhood tasting. I laughed when I tasted the first one I opened last night, the 2008 Substance Malbec from Washington state, thinking that malbec is for me as grenache is for Dale Williams. I don't get this grape, never have and never will. I feel punished about having to put on a tasting for it and this wine is the poster child for why. Grapey and obvious, fleshy red fruit, lactic notes and strangely more salty than sweet even though it's safely fruit-forward. Went back to it several times over the night and never found a reason to finish the glass.
Better, much better, was the 2008 Gascon Reserve from Argentina. Lots of black huckleberry fruit with more structure, more depth, more all-around sophistication and complexity. Still not what I personally love but very, very drinkable and one I'll definitely buy for the tasting.
And a final note about a bottle of wine Bob and I bought at the poorly stocked Safeway in Bullhead City, Arizona, last week to go with our late night, hotel-room all-salad dinner on the road. (Buy washed mix in clamshell, buy dressing, get two forks from the deli counter....) It was the 2009 Bonterra Cabernet Sauvignon, chosen from a small bunch of the usual branded suspects for it's mix of cooler Mendocino and Lake County grapes and 13.5% alcohol. I don't think we enjoyed a single bottle of wine last week more than this one: didn't take notes but what I remember is that it was dryer than most California cabs and very savory in a Medoc-like way, with pleasing forest and cedar qualitities even if not built with more in mind than the purpose we were enjoying it for. Perfect for salad and a travelling Bordeaux lover like me with very few other good options. If I had to live on a tighter budget than I do, I'd buy a lot of this.
