Live Tweeting the Wine Festival

We’ll live tweeting the Wine Festival over the next two days. We’ll begin with the industry tasting that starts at 1 pm today. We’ll try to continue to tweet from the Grand Tasting this evening and I’ll do my best to tweet tomorrow in between pouring wine.

You can watch all the live tweets – from Kevin, me, Dilly Cafe and more – without even signing up for Twitter.

View the live tweets.

Come Find Me at the Festival

You can come visit me at the wine festival on Saturday. Make sure you say hello!

For the afternoon session, I’ll be pouring wine at Booth 70 – TGIC Imports.

That evening, I’ll move over to the Epiphany Cellars / Fortress table (Booth 46). You might also find me next door at the Fess Parker table.

• Epiphany Dry Riesling
• Epiphany Grenache Blanc
• Epiphany Gypsy Red
• Epiphany Petite Sirah
• Epiphany Revelation Red
• Fortress Finale
• Fortress Petite Syrah
• Fortress Sauvignon Blanc

• Fess Parker Ashley’s Chardonnay
• Fess Parker Ashley’s Pinot Noir
• Fess Parker Big Easy Syrah
• Fess Parker Pinot Noir Bien Nacido
• Fess Parker Pinot Noir Santa Barbara
• Fess Parker Riesling Santa Barbara
• Fess Parker Syrah Santa Barbara
• Fess Parker Viognier Santa Barbara

#OTBN: 2005 Lazarre Pinot Noir

This past Saturday was Open That Bottle Night. I’d forgotten about it, until I saw a bunch of tweets on Saturday night. OTBN asks that you take that special bottle of wine you’ve been saving for a special occasion, and just open it. No occasion is ever special enough, right? I’m particularly bad at hanging onto wine for a special occasion, so OTBN is a good exercise for me, and I never regret it.

Last year we opened a Staglin Family 20th Anniversary Cabernet Sauvignon. This year, we dived into my Pinot Noir collection. Every year I find some small little Pinot Noir vintner and invest in 3 bottles. I know 3 bottles isn’t a lot, but it is to my pocketbook. Generally these pinots aren’t cheap. Last year, when I met Adam Lazarre and fell head over heels for his Hahn wines, I knew I’d found my pinot investment for the year. Adam, in addition to his winemaking responsibilities at Villa San Juliette, also has his own label that is exclusively pinot noir. I immediately ordered my 3 bottles.

2005 Lazarre Pinot Noir Sierra Madre Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley
~$40 (I can’t quite remember), special ordered from The Party Source

This particular pinot, of which there were only 112 cases made, is from Santa Maria Valley. Santa Maria, considered part of California’s Central Coast, is one of the state’s coolest grape-growing regions and offers one of the longest seasons between bud and harvest. It’s a superstar region for both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

Maybe it’s because I have a “wine crush” on Adam Lazarre. (Leave me alone. I can still have crushes.) But I’ve always found his Pinot Noirs to have a bit of sex appeal, and they do tend to send me reeling into hyperbole. This bottle was no exception.

It’s a bit young and would benefit from some more time in the bottle. That’s fine with me, considering I’ve got two more bottles maturing in my basement.  It also would have benefited from some air. Since I remembered OTBN at the last minute, we pretty much opened and poured at 10 pm on Saturday night. So with our first taste, the wine was still a bit tight. That said, it was still enjoyable, with a lot of earthiness. Our first night with this wine made me think of the Latin dances I learn in ballroom. They are all sexy and just this side of wild, with all of the passion starting at the earth and working it’s way up to the hips.

The next night we finished the bottle and it had taken the time to open up a bit. Why do I think I still need to age the other 2 bottles? Because even on night two, this pinot was a bit wild and untamed. It lost a bit of the earthiness and instead was silky, like the perfect lingerie. To continue the ridiculous analogy I started above, our second night with this wine was more like an Argentine Tango, a dance that started in the bordellos of South America.

Adam’s wines seem to affect me on an emotional level. As many wines as I drink, that really doesn’t happen very often. It’s also why I’d give my left arm to afford the Morton’s wine dinner next week, featuring Villa San Juliette.

Our review:

Holiday Tasting TODAY: Dep’s Fine Wines

Folks, I had no idea. I figured this would be next week, and thanks to the Flu-That-Won’t-Go-Away, I’ve been sort of out of touch lately.

GET YOURSELF TO DEP’S TODAY!
(Dep’s – formerly known as Liquor Direct.)

It’s their annual holiday tasting and the table is always loaded down with some pretty expensive stuff. This is your opportunity to taste the stuff you normally wouldn’t, because it’s a recession and you can’t afford it. I look forward to this tasting all year.

(Usually they email me and say, “Please promote this.” They didn’t this time, so I missed it. My apologies.)

Today’s tasting hours are 2-6 pm. There will be different wines in Fort Thomas and Covington. Tastings are free.

After this weekend, Dep’s will pause their weekend tastings until January, when hopefully they’ll send me an email and let me know they’ve restarted. (Then I can tell you.)

Drink Pink: Mulderbosch Rosé of Cabernet Sauvignon

As part of my own little Drink Pink
initiative, I opened another rosé the other night. It was no Belle Glos, but it was pretty good.

2009 Mulderbosch Rosé, Stellenbosch, South Africa
$10.99, Dep’s Fine Wines (formerly Liquor Direct)

The Mulderbosch Rosé is made from Cabernet Sauvignon. Because it’s made from a hefty grape, so to speak, it’s a fairly hefty rosé, and would handle food nicely. In fact, the back of the bottle recommends crab cakes, chicken satay, spring rolls with ginger, herb rubbed turkey, ratatouille, and fruit-glazed pork chops.

The nose was lovely, filled with roses, strawberries, and cherries.

I found it started out a little like drinking a Sweet Tart candy. Now, I love Sweet Tarts, but I’m surprised when I find them in my wine. There was also a lot of tart cherry and pomegranate. As the wine warmed up a little, I noticed a slightly herbal finish, gradually supplanting all that tartness.

It’s a good wine, especially for the price.

Our review:

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