Brutocao Quadriga 2013

Sometimes things go wrong in every way that they can and you’re left having to pick through the mess and find remnants worth saving. While it would be easy to sit around and bask in a “woe is me” attitude, what’s the point? So what if shit doesn’t work out? Deep down I never really expected it to in the first place. I’m not an optimistic kind of gal, never have been and never will be, but I also think that there’s no point in worrying about yesterday’s problems because tomorrow’s might be worse and next week’s will probably be catastrophic. And why worry when I have wine? *

I had honestly planned out a better (more eloquent) post to accompany this wine, then life happened, and that killed off any and all attempts to fake optimism... BUT that doesn’t make this wine any less spectacular:

Brutocao Quadriga (quadriga being a Roman chariot drawn by four horses, in this case four Italian varietals) is a blend of 40% Sangiovese, 28% Primitivo, 16% Barbera and 16% Dolcetto from Mendocino. In my opinion its an old world style wine with a new world feel. It spends 18 months in oak (90% French, 10% American). Medium-bodied with notes of violet accompanied by red cherry and fresh blackberry on the nose. The fruit carries over to the palate and the oak adds some caramel and more rustic notes. The finish is medium-plus with bright acidity and light tannins. It’s a super enjoyable red wine, perfect for warmer weather.

I promise a better post next time, once I’ve gotten past this terrible month. Also some people in the McDonalds drive-thru outside my apartment just started some major drama and the screaming and honking is a bit distracting... while also highly entertaining. My apologies.

*not saying you should try drinking your problems away, it’s a less than stellar plan and rarely ever works out.

Chateau Pegau Maclura 2014

Growing up I was a bit of a weird kid, more interested in old movies, books and opera than video games, girl/boy bands or trying in any way to relate to my peers. When other girls my age were flocking to see Spice World, I was renting The Seventh Seal for the zillionth time (still an amazing film!). They went to see N*Sync in concert while I willingly accompanied my parents to see Madame Butterfly. It’s not that I was more cultured or better educated than them, I just had people in my life who influenced me to have different interests.

My paternal grandparents played the biggest part of all in that.* They lived close to us (eventually right across the street) and I probably saw them almost as often as I saw my parents. I loved spending time at their home and not because they had cable TV (a luxury my parents did not allow us, thanks to my oldest sister’s penchant for watching “inappropriate” channels, aka MTV for some reason). What I loved most about their house was their extensive collection of books. Some of them were a bit out of my league at the time and others might have been a bit inappropriate, but I just loved the way their backroom looked filled with worn hardcovers. That might be why I’ve always kept a ridiculous number of books that I refuse to get rid of, no matter how much of a pain they are to take on trips or move from apartment to apartment (sure, Kindles and the like, are nifty, but it’s just not the same as having an actual, physical book).

My favorite book out of that backroom was Edward FtizGerald’s English translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám, a collection of poems attributed to Omar Khayyám, a Persian poet, astronomer and mathematician from the Middle Ages. Before I could even read, this was the book I’d grab off the shelf because I loved the vivid, colorful illustrations in it. Once I became literate I also appreciated the words as well:

                                                                                      

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

I’ve never forgotten that particular poem, it was my favorite then and it’s still up there now. These days it also makes me want Rhone wine (a region that produces what I would consider the epitome of wild and untamed wines). In order to satisfy that craving recently, I took home Chateau Pegau’s Cotes du Rhone Maclura 2014. It’s a blend of 65% Grenache, 25^% Syrah and 10% Mouvedere with no oak aging and it was spectacular. Full-bodied and dry with notes of raspberry, cassis, black pepper and dried violets. There was a bit more emphasis on the fruit than I’d expected, but the full tannins and earthiness on the finish gave it more of that Old World feel.

Rhone will always be one of my favorite wine regions and it will always make me wish my grandparents were still alive to share a glass with me. They were good people and I owe them for shaping me into the person I am today, weirdness and all.

*Not that my parents were slacking in that regard, e.g. when I was in elementary school I had a terrible stomach virus and my dad used it as an excuse to make me watch a filmed performance of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in its entirety… something I totally didn’t appreciate as much as I should have at the time (for obvious reasons).  

Peter Nicolay Erdener Treppchen Off-dry 2015

“I don’t think I like people period. I mean, you guys are okay... I’m just trying to be honest about being a misanthrope.” – Dazed and Confused (1993)

The first time I heard that quote, it rang so very true for me, of course I was a rather angst-y, antisocial teen at the time so that was understandable. It also gave me a new favorite way to describe myself (much to my mother’s chagrin):

mis·an·thrope. noun. A person who dislikes humankind and avoids human society.

So then, you might wonder, what the hell am I doing working in customer service? Simple… my love for wine is stronger than my distaste for humanity. I really do enjoy talking to people about wine and I love being able to convince them to try something simply based off my enthusiasm for it. Obviously not every person I talk to gives a damn about my opinion and there are days when I only deal utterly unpleasant people (who probably think I’m full of crap), but those just serve to make the good interactions that much better.  And sometimes it’s not just about finding someone a wine to suit their tastes, occasionally they also need a wine to suit their issues as well. It happens often enough that I’ve gotten rather good at wine and woes pairings (maybe even better than I am at wine and food pairings). It also tends to make them more willing to let me steer them towards something that might be outside of their comfort zone.  

Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of these “therapy” sessions involve relationship issues. Usually I run into someone desperately checking every bottle in our Moscato section, because even though that’s their drink of choice they’d never before realized how low the alcohol content was and really need something with a little more kick to properly drown their sorrows in… and that is all I need to introduce them to the awesomeness that is Riesling!*

Riesling is my go-to in those situations because the wines made from it vary in sweetness, but no matter if its dry, sweet or somewhere in-between the complexity of the grape still shines through. My favorite suggestion these days is Peter Nicolay Erdener Treppchen off-dry Riesling from the Mosel in Germany. Mosel is one of Germany’s thirteen quality wine regions, or anbaugebiete, and is one of Germany’s oldest winegrowing regions, known for its light, delicate Rieslings. The Peter Nicolay has bright acidity with crisp notes of white peach, green apple and a hint of honeysuckle. Even though it’s on the dryer side, there’s still enough sweetness that I’ve found it to be a good starter Riesling for Moscato junkies.

*For the record there is nothing wrong with drinking Moscato, (I started off my wine journey drinking Boone’s Farm and thinking Yellow Tail was the height of class) therefore I have no right to judge anyone on their preferences… but there’s still better stuff out there to explore!

Ampelos Pinot Noir Lambda 2012

Yesterday was my best friend/roommate, Kye’s birthday and in celebration we raided our box of wines we brought back from our California trip back in September and opened up an Ampelos Cellars Lambda Pinot Noir 2012. We randomly stumbled on the Ampelos Cellars tasting room while checking out the Lompoc Ghetto our first day there and were really impressed by the wines, especially their Pinot Noirs and a Grenache/Syrah blend they called "Syrache".  

It was also our last stop after a very long day and I wound up making a terrible faux pas. We'd had a 5am flight and I hadn't managed much sleep since insomnia's a bitch, so in my tipsy, exhausted haze I accidentally wound up leaving the very nice and knowledgeable girl who handled our tasting a 20 cent tip instead of the 20% I'd actually meant to. It was pretty damn mortifying since there's nothing I despise more than crappy tippers and 20 cents isn't just crappy, it's downright insulting. I didn't stop feeling guilty until I mailed her a real tip along with a letter apologizing profusely. The owners, Peter and Rebecca Work, wrote me back to reassure me I wasn't the first person to make that sort of mistake which was very nice of them and helped assuage my guilt somewhat. 

From Ampelos Cellars website:

“In 1999 we  purchased 82 acres in what would later become the Sta. Rita Hills appellation (Santa Rita Hills in California is legally Sta. Rita Hills), and named it “Ampelos”, the Greek word for vine. The name has a two-fold purpose. First, we believe that all great wines start in the vineyard. Secondly, we have close ties with Greece; we were married there and own a small bed & breakfast, called Ampelos Resort, on the island of Folegandros. We bought the land with dreams of someday watching the nightly sunset over the hills and our dogs running through the vines.

[...]

A cancelled meeting at the World Trade Center on the morning of September, 11, 2001, brought us to the realization that it was time to pursue our dreams of growing grapes as if tomorrow might never arrive. We quit our corporate jobs and moved permanently to our fledgling vineyard in the southern Sta. Rita Hills AVA to start learning about farming the land from Jeff Newton (Central Vineyard Care).”

We didn't really have high hopes of finding any of their wines in Texas, so I was super thrilled when I started a new job with Spec's and found not one, but two of the Ampelos Pinot Noirs on the shelf (Lambda and the Sta. Rita Hills). There's a fairly decent chance that I did a happy little jig when I saw those bottles, because I am ridiculous like that sometimes.

The Lambda 2012 was still everything I remember it being. A blend of six different clones, 33% aged for about two and a half years in new French oak. Light bodied with bright red fruit, vanilla, cloves and a hint of black pepper. It's a fairly complex wine with moderate acidity and very well balanced. Definitely still one of my favorite California Pinot Noirs!