$7 surprise and a Faugeres that rocks

So inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk, I decided to try my hand at wine vlogging. Next time I'm going to brush my teeth first. This just goes to show what a Macbook can do--no additional cameras or software were purchased or used for this post. Assuming the video ever loads, that is. I'm trying over here but Blogger does not, at the moment, have my back. When I can get this resolved I'll post the video.

We're talking about the 2004 La Croix Belle Faugeres and the 2006 Delas Cotes De Ventoux, both purchased from my favorite wine store, Astor wine. I've had a couple of great tastings from there this week, one that was two French and two Greek wines, one the Red Stag Agioritiko and one a white that was so minerally it was like licking a creek stone. Not necessarily in a bad way. The Spanish tasting on Friday I picked up a bottle of Cal Siscon that was just a lovely, perfumey wine that I'm looking forward to cracking.

I'm going to try to get this video thing resolved, although I may re-shoot it. After brushing and shaving.

A good weekend

Had some lovely wine this weekend. The Sierra Cantabria has become a friend, a go-to red that' affordable pretty much everywhere I go.

While we're on the subject, I pretty much think there's no reason to buy wine at Union Square Wine. Go there to browse, go there to taste, try things, see what you like. But then walk the 8 blocks south to Astor Wines and buy the same stuff for 20% off. I'm serious. I bought a white Muga 20% off at Union (they had it in a tasting) and walked down to Astor and there it was...at the same price I just paid, only NOT on sale. I priced a couple of other bottles and it was the same story. So now you now where to go.

Back to the wine. I actually prefer the Sierra Cantabria to a couple of the riojas that were in that Union Square tasting--fuller, darker flavors, more body, more interesting. We also had an immigrant grape--a California verdelho. Verdelho is usually a Portugese grape, which I think also is Spanish Verdeho? This was the Lee Family Farm Silverspoons Vineyard 2005 Verdelho It had good citrus and good acidity and was fine with the pumpkin ravioli we had. I was sort of wondering if we should have had the white Muga, which I think is a more compex wine, but this was tasty. Purely by chance there had been a bit left at the bottom of the bottle, unsealed, until Wednesday. Astonishingly it was still tasty, smoother and fuller, with some pineapple on the nose and, once you suck some air through it, really buttery,

This has me thinking I'm just going to start decanting every damn thing and see what happens. Julie hates waiting for things to open There's also a sort of herbaceous, almost sagey thing happening on the end, maybe some mineral, too. There's a real sourness starting to creep in at the end, but that's it being off. I also think we chilled it too much. I was reading another blog last night that says Americans drink their reds to hot and their whites too cold. I'm going to see if I agree with that. Timing and oxygen are really interesting to me. But I have to say the Lee Family Verdelho is a lovely wine, and from web research doesn't seem too expensive.

Oh, and we cracked the Bonny Doon Recioto of Barbera. Oh my god. One of m favorite dessert wines ever. Tastes like boysenberries. Remember boysenberry syrup at IHOP? This is what you would imagine that fruit tasted like. I've never actually had a real boysenberry. But I'm having me some more recioto of barbera. You best believe.

Have you seen this man?

Gary Vaynerchuck, the media-loving face of Wine Library TV, is my current obsession (click on the link for the bio). You may have seen him on Ellen Degeneres or Conan O'Brien. He's smart and media-savvy and less of an idiot than those appearances would indicate; in addition to knowing wine, he's figured out how to make a media splash.

I never thought it would be fascinating to watch someone drink. But beyond the Boo-Ya aesthetic, Gary knows his stuff. There's a hilarious mashup of his tasting notes which fairly accurately captures his aesthetic. One thing that's fascinating for me is when the yelling dies down and his love comes through. Not just for wine--there's a lovely episode#395">#395, when his brother turns 21 and has wine for the first time. Also there's a hilarious episode, #403, where Gary's dad, Sacha, basically crashes a taping and takes over. (For some reason he reminds me of my Uncle Dale).

Gary's committed to building his base, to the point of having t-shirts printed up with some of his more outrageous tasting notes. The one about the deer and the cherries was a particular favorite of mine.

The loud can get too much at times--in these more recent episodes you really need to have your volume turned down when they start because of his yelled introduction--but I'm amazed by how much I'm learning from watching these. Vaynerchuck's focus has been on building his community--the Vayniacs, or the Vayner Nation--and for me the more recent posts can feel a bit like network marketing. But every episode--over 400, as he's been doing this every weekday for the past 2 years--is archived. It's a bit fascinating to see the evolution of a media figure. Watch the first two episode--the development is enormous, and you can see where he's headed, even if there are no wristbands or wrestling action figures yet. Gary's getting great press and will probably only get more. Here's hoping that his drive to build his base and get famous doesn't obscure the love.

Eh.

Sometimes you just want a bottle of wine. I was headed home to watch the Monster Tuesday coverage (CNN ended up being the best--Julie was really turned off by how ABC seemed really fond of ole Mikey Huckleberry) and I wanted a big bottle. The Kinton Syrah from Sunday had been good, but at $20 I wasn't about to get another one just for this, so I thought I'd get the Vincente Syrah, or something like that. But Sip was closed, damn them (sure it was 9:30 and they close at 9, but I wanted wine!) so I just cracked the Jelu pinot noir I picked up cheap at Astor.

Eh. Especially before it got some air into it, this was thin stuff. Fruit at the start, almost a watery finish. Air helped, but it never lasted long in the mouth. When it comes to wine I'm not always a believer that you get what you pay for, but this was some boring stuff.

Tasty Syrah

So it's a burner because it's California (15% abv) but I tried it at SIP (surprisingly unhelpful website here) and it was tasty. Julie thought is was meaty. I got lots of black fruit. I don't drink a lot of California; I used to have quite the disdain for cabernet sauvignon and Chardonnay. Tony had a great white burgundy last night, and, I want to say Macon-Village but that's probably wrong, and it was lovely and buttery and although I can drink plenty of it I do get a bit bored with Chardonnay.

Interesting to learn recently that cabernet sauvignon is the offspring of cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc. It's such dominant slut grape that it never occurred to me that it came from somewhere, was bred. Does that make me think better of Muller-Thurgau?