WTN: New Jersey red, pink St. Laurent, Fat Boy, etc.

[Jenise]

Things I tasted on a camping trip:

2015 Bellview Winery Chambourcin Outer Coastal Plain, New Jersey
Admittedly haven't had that many chambourcins, but this bottle shared with me by a winery fan was easily the best I've had. Spicy red fruit and a wood scent that reminds me of my grandfather's cabinet shop with additional notes of thyme, tomato leaf and orange rind, it was complex and complete. Left nothing on the table the way many other hybrid wines often do. Per the winery's site, only $18--tasted like twice that, at least.

2015 Tobin James Petite Sirah Silver Reserve Paso Robles
A jammy, chewy over-achiever; a mouthful. Fans of monster fruit and ripeness will love it. I, of course, didn't.

2015 Verget Chablis Terres de Pierres Chardonnay
Drinking nicely; the flinty notes paired quite well with tortellini in a truffle bechamel. I should follow PURSLANE'S admonishment to leave the rest of what I have alone, though.

2016 Weingut Ewald Gruber St. Laurent Klassik Röschitz Weinviertel
High acid and quite tart: sour cherry, rhubarb and watermelon. Needs food. I do like acid but won't seek this out again.

2016 La Frenz Chardonnay Okanagan Valley
Delightful. Good balance of new world fruit with rich BC minerality. Well worth $25C paid.

2016 Poderi Luigi Einaudi Dolcetto Dogliani
Too raw on first night, recorked and drunk on second (no other option). Good enough with pasta, but not compelling

2014 Matthews Claret Columbia Valley Red Bordeaux Blend
Very young and raw. Good potential, but not ready for current drinking.

2015 Tobin James Zinfandel Fat Boy Paso Robles
Name pretty much describes it--gobby, jammy and over the top--even for Tobin James.

Things I tasted on a camping trip...tortellini in a truffle bechamel..

I see the camping was not too rustic!

NJ red would have sounded more on-theme to my prejudiced view of camping...

[Jenise]

Ha! No, we don't suffer. And we're not tent campers per se--go to one place, pitch a tent, stay a week--but road trippers who move on almost daily. So we 'camp' in a 22 ft Mercedes Sprinter van conversion. Without burning an excessive amount of non-renewable resources (we average 22 mpg), it allows us to wake up next to rocks and streams (and our cat) in beautiful places in any weather.

On this trip we got to camp in, not just near but IN, the largest/richest source of intact dinosaur fossils in the world where paleontological excavations are ongoing. You can't hotel that.

I mostly cook outside on a small Coleman grill with a side burner, but I do have a tiny galley inside and my general style of cooking isn't at all thwarted by circumstance. In fact, the challenge makes it all the more fun.

But yeah that chambourcin was very, very good, it really was. Most hybrid reds I've had were weird or light or characterless, and only justifiable on a if-you-have-no-other-choice basis at best, but not this. Blind, would pass for vinifera.