Izzie (with the ball, on the left) and Phoebe dutifully returning for more ball throwing.

After many, many months of seeing nothing but white outside (in the form of snow) we’ve finally seen the light.  I know I’ve heard of this thing called the sun and there it was in all its glory warming our world.  THIS called for a sunshine wine!  (or two)

Shelley's father, Lloyd, shows one of the Komomoto Oysters we had with the 2007 Whidbey Island Madeleine Angevine.

 So, before I left Seattle after visiting my daughter on Spring Break, I made two obligatory stops: 

1-      The Metropolitan Grill for their carrot cake that Shelley loves so much, and,

2-      The Pike Place Fish Market to pick up some Kumomoto Oysters for grilling when I got back home.

Remember when I wrote about Madeleine Angevine from San Juan Vineyards back in mid March of this year?  Well, I found another producer of this unique varietal, Whidbey Island Winery, located, ironically, on Whidbey Island.  Whidbey Island is within Puget Sound American Viticultural Area (appellation) which was approved by the federal government in 1995.  I paid only about $13 for this one and we thought we would have it with the oysters.  We put those Kumomoto Oysters on the grill and after no more than five minutes the shells had popped open, ready to eat. 

With the addition of a little Tabasco Sauce, melted butter and lemon we enjoyed the oysters with the 2007 Madeleine Angevine and it was absolutely wonderful!  Shelley’s father Lloyd (pictured above, slightly right) continues to talk about it day in and day out, which leads me to believe I’ll be making another trip over the mountains to Seattle sometime soon.  This Madeleine Angevine was much drier than the one from San Juan Vineyards but it went perfectly with the oysters.  Now, I’m not much of a seafood guy and I especially don’t particularly enjoy raw oysters but this combination was, and is, sensational.

The next night (well, actually late afternoon) we made it outside to throw the ball to the dogs (see picture at top left) for the first time this spring and so we opened up another wine from Whidbey Island Winery, Siegerrebe.  I’ve never heard of this German varietal before I bought this wine.  It was much sweeter than the Madeleine Angevine with hints of peaches and honey.  It reminded me of a Viognier or even a Reisling.  I look forward to trying more of this grape and I continue to be fascinated by how many different grape varietals there are.

As you can see, in the pictures above (with the dogs), and below, there is still snow in our backyard.  Last year it didn’t leave until May 6.  We’ve got three weeks to go to break that record.  I’ll keep you posted.

Last time I promised you I would write about corked wine (cork taint), what it is and how it comes to be and I will live up to that promise now. 

This is the official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine:  “Corked is the pejorative tasting term for a wine spoiled by a cork stopper contaminated with cork taint. This is one of the most serious wine faults as in most cases it irrevocably imbues the wine with such a powerfully off-putting smell that it cannot be drunk with any enjoyment.”  (Sounds like a perfect description of the Yellowtail Chardonnay I tried once.)

One of the resources I use is cellarnotes.net (I’ve added a link under the blogroll in the left column) and their description is:  “A ‘Corked’ wine is a wine that has been bottled with a cork that is contaminated with TCA (2,4,6-Trichloroanisole). TCA contamination usually comes from corks but can also come from barrels, other cooperage or even, apparently, from wood within the cellar including walls or beams. The term ‘corked wine’ is applied to all wines with TCA contamination because corks are the souce of most of the problems. The wine industry estimates that as many as 3% to 7% of all wines have TCA contamination at levels that can be detected by consumers. Because most people are not trained to recognize the smell and taste of TCA, only a very small fraction of these bad bottles are ever returned to stores or sent back at a restaurant.”

One would think with the increase of man made stoppers and screw caps that “corked wine” should be on the decrease.  Time will tell.  Shelley and I still like real corks so that we can pitch them in our cork catcher after we’ve finished another great bottle of wine, but that’s just us.

Thanks for visiting and, until next time, bottoms up!

Shelley and Lloyd toast the snow leaving (FINALLY!) with a 2007 Whidbey Island Siegerrebe. Take note of the snow still in the background.

Recently I had the privilege of tasting a couple of very good and well thought of wines and one very interesting one from a highly thought of winery.  I’ll start with that one.

I was having a conversation with the General Manager of Elliotts Oyster House in Seattle, Washington, one of the top seafood restaurants in the nation and I told him about this wine blog I write, the one you just happen to be reading right now.  I had asked him if he would consider being interviewed for a future post and he agreed.  So look forward to an interview with Tom Arthur coming up soon as we talk in depth about Pinot Noir, his favorite varietal. 

He then poured me a glass of a 2005 Syrah from McCrea Cellars.  McCrea has a great reputation for producing very nice Syrah’s.  He told me that this wine was returned by one of his guests as being corked.  (Be sure to read the next post which will describe what it means when a wine is corked).  “Well”, he said, “it wasn’t corked” but it WAS something and he asked me to identify what was wrong.

Oh, great, I thought, now he’s going to find out just how little I really DO know about wine!

It smelled fine.  (Oh, now, I’ve failed.)  He said, no the nose IS fine.  Whew!  Next the taste; Immediately I tasted what seemed to be carbonation and I told him just that.  He said, “Bingo!  You nailed it.”   Apparently the wine makers at McCrea Cellars goofed a tad on this wine and didn’t remove all the yeast and that caused it to be, as Tom said, “a bit spritzy.”  People just don’t expect that sort of taste in a red wine but it isn’t harmful and, actually, it was a very interesting taste.  I asked him if this might be the next style of wine, a red wine that you can chill a bit and have it be effervescent.  He didn’t think that would happen.

I tasted a couple of other wines, as well.  One was a 2005 Dunham Cellars Trutina which is a blend of 41% Cabernet Sauvignon, 41% Merlot, 13% Syrah and 5% Cabernet Franc.  Absolutely delicious.  Full, rich body and not too tannic.  Dunham Cellars has a history of producing very nice wine.  This one was well balanced and had great mouthfeel.  The nose was spectacular with hints of spice and pepper. 

The last one I tried was from Betts & Scholl, a 2005 Grenache from Australia’s Barossa Valley.  According to the winery, Grenache is the most widely planted grape in the world.  This wine had a lot of berry on the nose and wasn’t as complex as the Trutina.  It also had a fair amount of tannins.  It isn’t often I get an opportunity to have a Grenache and it makes me wonder why I don’t choose this varietal more.

Suffice it to say I enjoyed ALL three wines including the “spritzy” one from McCrea.  But these wines are hardly at the price point of the wines in my last two posts.  The McCrea and Dunham wines are over $30 and the Betts & Scholl is near $25.  But the value of a wine isn’t only about the cost of it but the quality related to the cost.  That is why we were so high on the Oak Leaf Chardonnay (see my post from March 20) which was UNDER three bucks but not on the Two Buck Chuck which is priced very similarly.

One thing that I’ve found in the world of wine is that it is sometimes difficult to find out what wine to serve with the food you’re preparing or, the other way around, what food you should make to go with the wine you want to open.  With that in mind, I just added a new widget to help you pair wine with food and you can see it at the bottom of the left column.  I’m not sure I will keep it as it’s rather small.  The regular size widget blows right through the words of the post and I can’t figure out (yet) how to make that NOT happen.  If you have a comment on this widget or anything else, please don’t hesitate.  Just click on the word “comment” at the bottom of this post and it will be directed right to me.  After the Ultimate Blog Party 2009 posts netted me many comments I felt very liberated.  So you TOO can help me feel that way with a comment.  Ok, enough begging.

Remember the next post I will write about what a “corked” wine is.  Until then, bottoms up!