The Ned Sauvignon Blanc 2015

I recently had a discussion with my dad about “epiphany wines” (aka the bottle or glass that first really opened your eyes up to the awesomeness that is wine). His was Gundlach Bundschu’s Gewurztraminer that he tried based on a sommelier’s recommendation at a restaurant. It just so happened that I carried that wine at my store so he got to try it again for the first time in forever. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to his expectations all these years later, but that’s not super surprising.

I didn’t have an epiphany wine so much as I had an epiphany varietal, Sauvignon Blanc, specifically from New Zealand. I’ve mentioned the time I was down from Denton and my parents and I had a blind tasting with three different bottles of NZ Sauvignon Blanc before. What I didn’t mention is that I got back to Denton and made my friend accompany me on a trip to find a bottle of Drylands Sauv Blanc (my favorite from that evening). Thanks to Denton being a dry county there weren’t a whole lot of wine shops to choose from so we wound up driving to Dallas too. Unfortunately nowhere had it or had even heard of it so I think we picked up a bottle of Bitch Grenache (yes, just because I thought the label was hilarious) and some other New Zealand wine. It was actually a pretty fun time despite not finding the particular wine we were looking for.

Several years later I spotted Drylands at a store in San Antonio and of course had to get a bottle of it. Just like my dad with Gundlach Bundschu, I was disappointed. It just lacked the complexity I’d come to expect from that varietal and was rather bland. While it didn’t live up to my memory of it, it still wasn’t a bad bottle of wine, it’s just that by then I’d had better.

One of those better bottles is The Ned Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough. Unlike many NZ Sauv Blancs it’s not so in your face with grapefruit, which can get old rather quick. That’s actually why I stopped drinking or buying this varietal for quite some time (until Kye introduced me to the awesomeness that is Sancerre). It’s a medium-bodied wine that has notes of green pepper, wet grass and gooseberries on the nose. The palate is more fruit forward with lemon peel, passionfruit, and crisp green apple, and of course, a bit of grapefruit. Nicely balanced with sharp acidity and a long-ish finish. This is a super refreshing wine that is lovely by itself or paired with a wide range of dishes. While Kim Crawford and Drylands will always have a special place in my heart, this Sauvignon Blanc beats them not only in price, but also in taste.

Weegmüller Von Gelben Fels Riesling Trocken 2012

So obviously some stuff happened recently that set me on a rather blah path. While it's never fun to feel terrible about things that are happening in your life, it also helps to know that you can get through them relatively unscathed, mostly thanks to the fact that you're fairly used to shit like that happening, but also because of awesome people in your life. My best friend/roommate was a rock during that time (because he is awesome and the best guy ever) and the night after things really went to hell he got me dinner from one of my favorite restaurants in town (Thai Dee) to try and cheer me up.

Since he was providing dinner that night, I figured the least I could do was treat us to a bottle of wine I’d been eyeing for a while: Weegmüller Von Gelben Fels Riesling Trocken 2012. I’d been off the day the distributor came by to taste us on it, but my coworker told me it was delicious and his favorite out of all the wines they'd brought. Since he’d taken my advice on several wine suggestions in the past I decided to trust his suggestion and was very glad I did. It was hands down one of the best Rieslings both Kye and I had drunk in a while (and it paired perfectly with our spicy Thai food).

This winery has been in family hands for 11 generations, producing wine since 1685. It is also one of the few German wineries owned and run exclusively by women. According to the blurb on the importer’s webtsite Stefanie Weegmüller was the first female winemaker in Germany and that’s pretty damn cool. It's from Pfalz in Germany and reminded me of why I usually love the wines that come from that region. Dry and light-bodied with crisp minerality and just a bit of petrol. The fruit notes of white peach, golden pear and red apple on the palate balanced beautifully with the acidity. I know my tasting notes don’t do this wine the justice that it deserves, but trust me when I say this was one of the best white wines I’ve had in quite some time.*

*https://traubenhaus.com/producers/weegmueller

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).