Trimbach Gewurztraminer Cuvée des Seigneurs de Ribeaupierre 2008

Somehow this year has completely flown by and I find myself yet again at the start of another holiday season. While Halloween technically kicks it all off, Thanksgiving is what really gets it going. I've developed a distaste for this time of the year since I started working in retail, but if I'm being honest I never really cared too much about it to begin with, especially Thanksgiving. While I can understand why the turkey holiday (seriously, does anyone actually even like turkey?) is so meaningful to some people, it was never really anything super special to me, especially not after 1999, the year my grandmother died right before Thanksgiving.

I honestly can't remember a Thanksgiving before that one, I'm sure we must have done something in the past, but the tragedy of her passing near the holiday paired with my penchant for forgetting things completely erased all memories of previous ones for me. That year we had a memorial service for her and then my parents decided we needed to get out of town  so they packed up my sisters, me and my grandfather and drove down to Galveston. My memory has never been very reliable (unless we're talking really useless facts and random knowledge that is no good to anyone, not even me) so I'll be the first to admit that my recollection of this time is super hazy, but I'm fairly certain that we drove down there on Thanksgiving Day. My reason for believing that is this: we arrived super hungry and so my parents decided to hit up a Whataburger. You're probably thinking that Whataburger for Thanksgiving doesn't sound too shabby and it honestly doesn't, hell at that point after the long car ride and through my fog of sadness it sounded absolutely amazing. Unfortunately it was not meant to be. The wait was ridiculous and though my parents were willing to endure it, after the only cook in the joint said "f*** this" and walked out they realized their dream of feeding their family a feast of fast food for Thanksgiving had come to an end. 

And that is why I spent Thanksgiving of '99 in a hotel in Galveston eating trail mix. The holiday has never meant a thing to me since then.*

Of course that's not the case for most other people in this country. For them Thanksgiving is a super special day spent with family, gorging on turkey (I'm really truly serious, who the f*** likes turkey and what the hell is wrong with them?) and all the ridiculous sides and traditional dishes served for this holiday (I would list some, but I honestly have no idea what they might be, just know they exist).

On the plus side Thanksgiving is the one time of the year that people actually come in to my store looking for Gewurztraminer mainly because they read somewhere or another that it was the perfect white wine to pair with their feast. They're not wrong about that, Gewurztraminer, when it's done right, is a really unique wine, bursting with all kinds of spices and baked stone fruit flavors. My far and beyond favorite is the Alsatian Trimbach Gewurztraminer. It is a wine that has never let me down and I even managed to turn my mother on to it so she now keeps at least three bottles on hand at all times.

The only other Alsatian Gewurztraminer to outshine it is Trimbach's Cuvée des Seigneurs de Ribeaupierre and I got to open a 2008 vintage of this not too long ago. 

This wine was bursting with aromatic notes of white peach, lychee and rose petals. The palate had flavors of baking spices, peach and honey with enough acidity to offset any flabbiness, The finish is long and the honeyed notes linger for quite a bit. 

*Though to be fair I don't think it ever did before that anyway.

Viñaredo Godello 2016

A week ago I ended the longest relationship I’ve ever been in. I felt like I’d given it a pretty good go and it just wasn’t working for me anymore. Considering his reaction to my saying it was over, my now-ex couldn’t have cared less anyway so all in all it was a win-win. I’d never dated anyone for that long (a year and a half, which is a LONG time for me) so I expected to be more upset than I was. Don’t get me wrong, for about 12 hours I was a crying mess and had my poor roommate most concerned, but then I just… got over it I guess. It’d been a bad relationship for a while and I’d never let anyone make me feel so small and insignificant for such a long time and I was rather upset with myself for that. Once I got all that through my head it became a lot easier to see the up-side to being single again, like getting to use my “heartbreak” as an excuse to guilt all my coworkers into being nice to me and to splurge on wine.

As tempting as it was to drown my not-really-existent sorrows in the latest “wine” obsession, Capprichio Sangria (it’s like Four Loko… but wine! And yes, that does sound beyond awful to me), which we’d just gotten in, much to my annoyance, I went with an actual Spanish wine, Viñaredo Godello.

This wine had just appeared on my shelves during a brief period I was away from work that week. I was excited because my selection of Spanish whites was lacking and I hadn’t had the chance to taste more than a few Godellos, though the ones I had tried were very good. Until 50 or so years ago it had almost ceased to exist. Thankfully a handful of winemakers in the region managed to bring attention again to this nearly forgotten grape and since then it has thrived and grown in reputation. Wines made from Godello come from Valdeorras which is within the Galicia region of Spain in the Northwest. The style of this wine can vary depending on what the winemaker chooses to do with it.

The Viñaredo Godello was a rather fun wine. The nose was dominated by notes of green apple, grapefruit and just a hint of sea salt. The palate was crisp and bright with the addition flavors of pineapple, lime and just a hint of wet rocks. The finish was perfect for the hot weather we’re having (and will continue to have until December) with high acidity that leaves your tongue tingling for quite a while. On day two it did seem to lose some of the bright crispness that I’d really enjoyed, but it was still more than drinkable.

Argiolas Costera Cannonau di Sardegna 2013

One of the most amusing and annoying parts of working at Whole Foods was dealing with the Dr. Oz groupies. These people would show up in droves looking for whatever "miracle" cure for... whatever... that "amazing" man was currently being paid to sell them on his show at the time. I usually got to watch this from a safe distance since I worked strictly in the beer, cheese and wine department. Then came the day that, for some unfathomable reason, Dr. Oz decided to try his hand at selling wine, specifically Sardinian Cannonau. From what I could gather he'd claimed that the the people of Sardinia, who apparently drink nothing but wine all day, were more likely to live to 100 (why anyone wants to live to 100 is truly beyond my understanding). What his viewers heard was that if they imbibed enough of this wine they could live FOR-EV-ER and they descended upon us like vultures. These were people who only drank wine when it was sweet or mixed with orange juice, so I wound up feeling rather bad for selling them an almost $30 bottle of wine I knew they would hate. Unfortunately there was no convincing them to ignore this latest "prescription" from this daytime television doctor they believed in wholeheartedly.

I have no idea if the bottles of Argiolas Costera Cannonau di Sardegna (the only Cannonau we had on the shelf) were ever actually imbibed. To be honest, they'd been gracing our shelf for quite some time and while it was nice to finally sell them, I rather doubt those buyers took more than one sip before pouring the bottle down the drain.  Absolutely none of those customers ever came back to buy another bottle so I suppose their desire for immortality wasn't that great. Quitters.

I hadn't really thought about those days until one of my sales reps gave me a bottle of 2013 Argiolas Cannonau and it brought the memory of that amusement and chagrin flooding back.

 

The Italian island of Sardinia is the second largest in the Mediterranean Sea, located just south of Corsica. The dominate red varietal grown there is Cannonau (aka Grenache) most believe it came there during the nearly 400 years the island was ruled by the Spanish Kingdom of Aragon. There is also the theory that the grape actually originated in Sardinia. No matter which is correct it's a grape that does very well in the warm Sardinian climate. 

The 2013 Argiolas Costera Cannonau is 90% Cannonau, 5% Bovale Sardo and 5% Carignano, it spends 8-10 months in French Oak barrels and 5 months in cement vats. The wine is full-bodied and spicy with notes of dark cherry and baked strawberry on the nose. The fruit carries over to the palate and is joined by hints of anise, black pepper and cloves. It finishes dry with firm tannins and bright acidity. It would really shine with pairings of roasted meats or pastas with red sauce. I really enjoyed this bottle and the walk down memory lane that came with it. 

Southold Farm + Cellar Love Habit 2015

A few of weeks ago Kye came home absolutely raving about a wine one of his reps had brought by the restaurant. Not to imply he hasn’t gotten excited about other wines before, but there was something different in his excitement about this one. It was a sparkling Lagrein from Southold Farm and Cellar, their 2016 Horseshoes and Hand grenades to be exact. I think the part of what had him so excited was that this producer had recently moved from Long Island to Texas and their tasting room was located less than two hours away outside of Fredericksburg. Since I hadn’t seen Kye that excited about a producer in a while I was intrigued and we made plans (that inevitably got postponed) to go up there as soon as we both had a day off together. We finally made it up there this previous Sunday and though we’d thought about hitting other wineries nearby we wound up just spending most of our time there. Their tasting room sat at the top of a hill that gives you an amazing 360 view and as soon as I tasted the first wine (their 2015 Chashing Moonlight Sparkling Lagrein) I could understand why Kye had been so excited about their wines.

Everything they let us taste was just really cool and unique (yes, I know those are terrible descriptors, but it’s the best I could come up with right now and it’s true). Regan Meador obviously has his own way of doing things and that way works very well for the wines he produces. His dad, Rusty, was manning the bar of the tasting room and he was incredibly nice and informative. The Southold winery was originally established in North Fork Long Island and most of the wines they’re pouring right now are from that area. Kye had apparently heard about them before they moved their operation to Texas because their wines had such a good reputation. We don’t get many New York wines down here so I was thrilled to get to try so many from a part of the country I was mostly unfamiliar with.

That being said, I’m also really excited to see what Regan does with Texas wines. I think my favorite part about talking with him was his down-to-earth approach he was planning to take with the wines he produced down here. He didn’t wax on about how he was going to produce the greatest wines ever here, it seems more like he just wants to produce wines that really highlight the best out of Texas grapes. I really liked how practical he was about that, especially coming from someone who already had a reputation for producing some incredible wines up north.  

We bought several wines from them after the tasting and tonight we opened their 2015 Love Habit Cabernet Franc:

This wine is just lovely, that’s really the best way to put it. It’s on the lighter end of medium-bodied and a bright and refreshing example of this varietal. It’s practically bursting with notes of red cherry, raspberry and strawberry with hints of vanilla, allspice and a slight smokiness. The finish is clean with nicely balanced acidity and smooth tannins. It’s definitely a wine that can be enjoyed with or without food (though to be fair I don’t honestly believe there’s a wine that can’t be enjoyed without food).

Heitz Cellars Ink Grade Vineyard Zinfandel 2013

When I passed the Society of Wine Educators Certified Specialist of Wine exam, my parents promised me they'd take me out to celebrate to wherever I wanted to go. This was my second time taking the exam (I'd failed by two damn points the first time, which was super annoying) and earlier in the day I'd seen that 20nine, a wine bar in town, was hosting an event featuring Heitz Cellars Wines. I'm constantly paranoid about jinxing myself so I hadn't mentioned it before I went in for the exam, but I thought it was an amazing coincidence that one of my favorite Napa Valley producer's wines were being featured the day I was determined to pass the CSW.

Immediately after I got my results back that day telling me I'd passed the exam I called my parents and told them we were going to this event. The wines being poured were Heitz's Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Zinfandel, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and the Trailside Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and they were all just as delicious as I remembered their wines being.

It was a nice surprise to go back there this past week and find the Zinfandel still on their list, since it's usually by far my favorite and the most reasonably priced (for my purposes) of their reds (retails for usually under $30).

It's not a typical California Zinfandel, which tend to be very full-bodied and bursting with jammy fruit notes. The Heitz "Ink Grade Vineyard" Zinfandel displays a bit more finesse and elegance. It's medium-bodied with dark fruit notes of black cherry, raspberry and a bit of plum. It spends two years in French Oak barrels and you definitely pick up a bit of the vanilla and baking spices usually accompanied by that particular oak aging on the palate as well. It's a very well-balanced wine with smooth tannins and a medium acidity that give it a lingering finish. I absolutely love this wine and was happy to finally get a chance to write about it!