Holiday Wines

2006 Archery Summit Pinot Noir (don't remember which vineyard).
Brought from Oregon by our friends Randy and Laura. He stated that A.S. uses a LOT of new oak, and it takes this long for the wines to be approachable. This was a lovely, balanced, even lithe Pinot Noir, thought, with some "Burgundian" character.

2011 Lusu Eagle Point Ranch Grenache, Mendocino County. Made by a young wine maker with a pedigreed name (Texeira!, although not related to our Rhone hero!) who makes his wines in the tiny space in Berkeley which originally housed Steve Edmunds (and Broc Cellars). Definitely a "natural wine"! This wine opened on the nose with some amazing bright strawberry, earth, and distincitve white pepper notes. On the palate, red fruit and a tocuh of delicate funkyness, with more white pepper and a nice mouth feel. There was a hint of spritzyness going on, but that along with the higher acidity of 2011 made the wine sing with the cassoulet for dinner that night! Lusu is right up the alley with Broc Cellars and Donkey and Goat...I really like his wines quite a bit.

2001 Chateau Guimard Sauternes. My first Sauterenes! I was coming back from a bicycle ride and my friends called me asking where to buy Sauternes! Definitely not in Solano County. So Back Room Wines had this lovely, if pricey, wine in stock. I loved it. Definitely a combination of sweetness, bright acidity, and phenolic character. Showing my lack of experience with aged desert wines, it reminded me a bit of the lovely 1986 Schloss Schonborn riesling on tap at Vini in Davis!

2009 Gerard Betrand La Clape, Languedoc-Roussillon. I picked this up the other week because the "good" local supermarket had it for a steal. I really like Bertrand wines. They may be mass produced, and available almost everywhere it seems, but for the price they seem to have really nice Mediterranean character, and I found this bottle savory, a touch funky (maybe edgy) and deliciously dark fruited. Tasted very, very "French". I could easily post this in the wine bargains thread!

Nice to see the Betrand La Clape note. I have read a fair amount about some of his offerings, but have been unable to find around AB

That's a surprise, Bob. Bertrand seems to have pretty good distribution down here.

On the Archery Summit Pinot Noir, I once posted that one I tried seemed to have high quality fruit that was unfortunately buried under excessive oak. A fellow that had previously worked at A.S. contacted me saying that the winery has dialed back on the oak treatment in more recent vintages and sent me a complimentary bottle to try. Due to the price of their Pinots, I haven't been buying them regularly but would like to try more from recent production to see if they are more balanced than in the past.