Humpday Sherry

Only vaguely familiar with Harvey’s Bristol Cream, I was skeptical of how our sherry tasting would turn out. My interest was piqued when Jen said that it was a wine that had a lot of enthusiastic fans and that restaurants have been adding sherry to wine lists, but I can’t say I was completely converted by the end of the evening. I probably had some preconceptions that it would all taste like raisins, but only one really had a raisin-y quality — the Lustau Pedro Ximénez, which was the sweetest sherry we tried. This Humpday definitely changed my general perception of sherry, so it was successful in that respect.

To me, tasting sherry is different than tasting wine. First off, swirling it in the glass doesn’t seem to do much beyond releasing the extra alcohol in the wine — after all, this is basically fortified hooch. In that sense it seemed like tasting spirits to me — you don’t swirl tequila because you’ll just get a big whiff of alcohol. The tasting part was strange, too — for me, each of the lighter sherries had a big almost grappa-like quality to them, followed by a finish of nuttiness and in one case (the Alvear Asuncion Oloroso Sherry) a distinct maple taste. It was fascinating, but so different than most wine, which to me tastes more balanced from beginning to end. Some of the sherries seemed to “settle down” on subsequent days, losing some of the grappa taste.

I spent a lot of time on the food, hoping that we’d get it right — sherry seemed like it would need more thought than, say, a steak and Cabernet required. The pairings were definitely interesting, and some of it was really good (not my doing — I just tried to follow different recommendations), but I still can’t see ordering a sherry with a main course. I’d of course try some more sherries — maybe we just didn’t get the right ones for me.

Humpday Cabernet Franc

The Cabernet Franc Humpday Tipple is up. As fans of New York wines — both in the Finger Lakes and on Long Island, we were looking forward to this Tipple and sorry to say, we had some disappointment. Jen writes: “Why were we less than enthusiastic? Are we just barbarians, or was there really something missing?”

After initially being really underwhelmed by Cabernet Franc, over the years we’ve noticed more and more good examples of the varietal. Jen, Michael and I went to WD-50 a few years ago and enjoyed a Finger Lakes Cabernet Franc from Miles Wine Cellars, which we were familiar with, having visited there in 2006. This past March we tried several really good Cabernet Francs from Napa — Trespass Vineyards stands out as one of the best I’ve ever tasted. It’s a cool wine when it’s done well.

When Cabernet Franc is not done well, however, it is kind of gross. One of the earliest lessons I learned about viticulture came in 2005 when we first visited Long Island and tried many examples of Cabernet Franc. Place after place we kept noticing this bell pepper taste (and sometimes a rubbery taste). I innocently kept saying, “oh, it tastes like bell pepper!” and it wasn’t until later that we learned that the taste of bell pepper comes out when grapes are underripe — usually the sign of a rainy growing season. We left Long Island thinking we didn’t like Cabernet Franc, then we tasted the good ones in the Finger Lakes and then Napa — since then it’s been a grape we’ve sought out.

I was definitely looking forward to trying the French Cabernet Francs and I have to say that I was really disappointed in the “thinness” (as Jen writes) of the Chinon. Elsewhere, the Schneider Cabernet Franc from Long Island just reeked of rubber. The one fantastic wine we tried was the Anjou Pur Breton Cousin-Leduc 2006 from the Loire Valley in France — the normally quiet clerk at Astor got really excited when I asked where to find this bottle and it was as advertised — really wonderful stuff (the “naturalness” of the wine is great, too).

Now I should add, to be fair, that some of these wines tasted a lot better the next day. Sometimes red wine leftovers don’t taste real great the next day, but some of the wines that didn’t taste real great on Humpday actually tasted OK on Thursday and Friday. Not sure why this would be, but I’m passing it along.

Until next time . . .

Latest Humpday Tipple: Cabernet Sauvignon

We tasted Cabernet Sauvignon last night:

I was really excited to try some high-end Cabernet/Bordeaux. There’s a thrill in going to the wine store and having the helpful clerk have to unlock the special bin that cradles some high-priced bottle. And it helps when friends pitch in to defray the cost.

I have to say though — and this was a unanimous conclusion by the Tipplers — that the fan favorite was the Chilean Cousiño Macul Cabernet Sauvignon. For me, it was the first time I’ve tasted a Cabernet that had clearly identifiable Cabernet qualities like berries and especially black pepper, which I’ve heard happens in Cabernet but never actually tasted or smelled. And at $15.99, this was a great deal.

Which isn’t to say that the Pride Mountain Cabernet at $74.99 wasn’t also really good — it was. Brother Michael, Jen and I tasted the 2007 vintage when we visited Pride Mountain back in March. I remember it being really good. I also assumed that I’d never get to drink it ever again because we just don’t buy $66 bottles of wine, even from the winery.

And then there was the Château Rauzan-Ségla Margaux. We got out our big fancy elegant decanter and let the thing breathe. There was a great buildup in my mind as the decanter squatted there all smug and knowing while we tasted the other five bottles. And then we tasted it. And it was only OK. And at $73.97, that was a little disappointing. (Though to be fair, it did taste good with the gouda cheese we had on hand.)

Maybe part of it, like Jen explained to us, is that Bordeaux wines aren’t supposed to be big flavorfuls of fantastic awesomeness that you sit back and chew on while your mind blows. Maybe we were drinking it too soon (this was a 2006). Maybe 2006 wasn’t a great Bordeaux year (it wasn’t). Or maybe, for all I know I know about how “Americans” love “big fruit” and such and how of course I don’t expect to want to have big jammy fruity drug trip-esque wine experiences, I actually kind of want big jammy fruity drug trip-esque wine experiences. I don’t mean that I want big jammy high-alcohol Zinfandels but rather that I have an expectation that when I’m drinking a good wine — or god willing, a great wine — and pairing that thing with good or even great food then some mysterious synergistic brilliance will take over and . . . I will have my mind blown. When a pairing is really good I sometimes joke that that particular pairing is “like taking drugs” — I think I’ve told a server that once or twice and they probably were like “Dude, you’re an idiot,” but it’s true — sometimes the flavors pop out and burst and turn into something even more wonderful than the sum of its parts — like viticultural MSG. And maybe this is what it means when they say that wines are crafted for “American” tastes. This all made me feel very small.

But going back to the Cousiño Macul — and we will, since it’s a great value! — the flavors in this New World wine shimmered in ways that you only dream about when you read tasting notes and believe in the back of your mind that for all your experience drinking wine you’ll probably never really understand what it means to detect notes of “bay leaf” or “wet hay.” With the Cousiño Macul we actually were able to detect some of those ephemeral flavors that seem to zip off the tongue of intelligent wine folks. That was cool.

Elsewhere, I was the joker who said the Château Rauzan-Ségla smelled like “lightning” — I was actually riffing off of Tippler Blakeney’s comment that it smelled like “static electricity.” In my gut, I understood what she was saying and I was trying to visualize that smell and I was grasping for words and I think it happened to be the exact moment when a storm was blowing through town and I saw lightning through the window . . . I didn’t actually think that Jen would write that down. But it was a distinctive smell, for sure. I think it was me wanting to feel something powerful and electric and being frustrated that the wine just kind of dangled a wine-ness out there with out letting you in. Or maybe I was kind of tipsy by that point — it’s perfectly possible.

More wine later . . .

Five more Humpday Tipples are up!

You can now peruse our notes on five more tastings: Riesling, Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio, Chenin Blanc, Grüner Veltliner, and Zinfandel.

We begin with good friends and good wine…

If you’re a fan of this website, you already knew that Scott and I like to cook and eat.  Now you know that we like to drink, too.

We’ve been doing a series of wine tastings with friends every other Wednesday night, now cheerfully dubbed The Humpday Tipples.  Tasting notes on all of the wines we drink there will go up in our brand new wine section on The Blue Cleaver, and we’ll also link to them here.  For example, you can go check out our first five tastings – Pinot Noir, Merlot,  Chardonnay, Syrah, and Sauvignon Blanc – right now. 

These tastings were the inspiration for creating this blog, but it will include much more than just those evenings’ notes.  We’ll make it a home for all manner of musings on wine, beer, spirits, and all the things that go along with them, from adventures while visiting wineries to checking out restaurant lists to reveling in finding the right bottle to pair with Jersey Shore episodes On Demand.  Cheers!