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Cork:Authentic
Name: Frei Brothers Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
Type: Blend - Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage: 2003
Region: Alexander Valley, CA (Northern Sonoma)
Country: USA
Producer: Frei Brothers Vineyards
Price: $14.99 with super duper discount card
Purchased at: Cheers Liquor Mart
Date: 07/17/07
Served With: Some home made chicken and noodle concoction
Appearance: So dark it’s almost black!
Aroma: Alcoholy, oaky, some eucalyptus and mint
Taste: Very well balanced, medium tannins, smoky
Comments: Here’s a wine that is still a bit tight but has a very smooth, balanced, not overly fruity taste. It is very tasty, not overloaded with fruit, has some complexity with the eucalyptus and mint and would be hard pressed to offend anyone. BUT, it normally costs about $19 per bottle. That’s a bit high for me even at the sale price of $15.

Overall, I really liked this wine. It offers the consistency that I look for in lower priced wines like Cellar 8 or Blackstone Cabernet but at a higher price. In my opinion it doesn’t knock my socks off enough to warrant buying on a regular basis.

Popularity: 55% [?]

Cork:Authentic
Name: Wildhurst Vineyards Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2004
Type: Blend - Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage: 2004
Region: Lake County, CA
Country: USA
Producer: Wildhurst Vineyards
Price: $16.99
Purchased at: Vintage’s Wine & Spirits
Date: 07/10/07
Served With: Fillet Mignon prepared Medium
Appearance: Excellent legs, thick and juicy (not the steak!)
Aroma: Dusty, vanilla, cherry, allspice
Taste: Full and rich with a tasty finish. It lingers for a medium finish offering layered and complex flavors of coffee, chocolate and even some carmelization. Light tannins; a bit heavier tannins would have been perfect!
Comments: This was a great wine. Do you think it had anything to do with the great fillet I had it with? Sure it does! As I’ve mentioned before the atmosphere and food pairing can have a large influence in the way I enjoy wines. I think it truly affects everybody. I drank this the night that I was trading wine glasses with my wife and it made for great conversation and fine tastes. The medium finish on this wine with its complex flavors led to a lengthy exchange of what I tasted vs. what Robin tasted vs. what glass we tasted them from.

Also, I actually took out my aroma card/cheat sheet to help me define some of the flavors we were enjoying. On the one hand it was helpful in helping to define some flavors but on the other hand it may have been an aid in reaching for flavors that may or may not have existed. I believe that the flavors were actually there and the card was a great tool to aid in explaining the tastes of the wine.

My recommendation is to try a new bottle of wine with multiple types of wine glasses and an aroma card. Your wine drinking experience could grow by leaps and bounds!

Popularity: 45% [?]

Cork:Authentic
Name: The Other
Type: Blend - 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 10% Syrah
Vintage: 2005
Region: Lodi, CA
Country: USA
Producer: Peirano Estate Vineyards
Price: $12.99
Purchased at: Vintage’s Wine & Spirits
Date: 07/10/07
Served With: 3 Cheese Ziti, house salad w/bleu cheese
Appearance: Looks a little thin…uh, oh…Merlot!
Aroma: Raisins, prunes, some cloves and maybe cinnamon
Taste: Very mellow and balanced. A fruity start with a somewhat dry and balanced finish.
Comments: This is the second time that I’ve had this wine and I think it was better the first time which involved more people, a lively atmosphere, more wine to follow and even a different blend ratio (see more below). In this instance it was the only wine I was drinking for the evening and while it paired well with the dinner I couldn’t help thinking…MERLOT!! There is a certain taste, call it the Merlot grapes if you must that just makes this wine not my favorite. Maybe if they change the blends around from the Merlot and the Syrah it would be a bit more stout?

Overall, I like this wine. It’s easy to drink, unoffensive if thin and merlot-like. I think it could be a hit with a red sauce-based dinner or even a steak. It’s priced right and can easily be enjoyed by many!

NOTE that there are different versions of the blend out there. I believe that the first time I had this it was in the Syrah section of the menu and I had the version like the one described here that was the Syrah-heavy blend. I’ll keep my eyes open for that one too and see if we can’t get a higher rating for it because I sure recalling it tasting a bit better!

Popularity: 44% [?]

What’s in a wine glass? Hopefully, wine!

What makes a wine glass? The shape.

Don’t believe me? Heck, I didn’t believe it until the other night.

We were drinking a very nice bottle of wine and waxing poetic about the various flavors and tastes and smells in this wine. Out of nowhere my wife asks me to trade glasses with her. “What for?” I ask. After all, I have my favorite wine glass that I drink out of and she has her favorite glass that she drinks out of. However, the glasses are different shapes.

Forget about the fact that both of these glasses have white wine in them. You know that as a Level 4 I rarely drink white wine. Our glasses were full of red wine! My glass is on the left and Robin’s glass is on the right.

My wife always likes to show me up about her wine glass and tease me about how attached I am to mine but I indulge her and swap glasses for a taste of wine. What followed was interesting…I got a different set of tastes from her glass than I did from my own glass. She experienced the same thing.

Hmm…looks like those Riedel people are on to something after all.

But why did it taste different? My immediate discovery was that I was able to put my nose further into her glass than I was my own. This led to different aroma qualities as well as the fact that when I took a drink/taste I wasn’t required to tilt my head back as far as when I drank from my own glass. This results in the wine hitting further back on my tongue initially and therefore producing a different set of flavors. They weren’t entirely different but they were different and enhanced.

When drinking out of my own preferred glass I can’t get my nose in as deep and my head tilt causes the wine to hit the front of my tongue first. This results in some different, enhanced flavors.

What I noticed with the wine we were drinking at the time (review to come over the weekend) was that with my glass I noticed more fruit flavors and with her glass I got more of the earthy flavors. It was an interesting experiment and one I will try again.

Go here for a peek at the Riedel Sommelier series of glasses and try this out the next time you’re drinking wine!

Popularity: 100% [?]

Tom Wark ran a survey a few weeks ago about wine bloggers, wine reviews and consumer choices. I took the survey myself and was looking forward to seeing the results.

Tom released some of those results on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 and I’m not surprised at what I saw. However, I did want to point out a few things.

According the the results over 65% of the respondents admitted to having purchased a wine based on a review they read on a wine blog. Is that a scary thing? What if the blog is the Redneck Wine Review?? Who would buy a wine recommended by a self-proclaimed Level 4 Redneck?

I think many people would and that’s why I started this blog in the first place.

Let’s be frank, there are much better wine reviewers out there than me. People who are professionally trained, have decades of experience, whose palates are fine tuned instruments, education and worldly travels, etc. But, isn’t that the problem in the first place? Do the vast majority of wine drinkers have those types of resumes and skills? Heck no! That’s why many wine drinkers are put off by such reviewers, such professional palates.

One thing I’ve learned in my years thus far on earth is that people don’t like to be intimidated. They don’t like to be talked down to. They don’t like to feel uninformed, uneducated…unworthy. How many of us would feel many of those things tasting and reviewing a wine next to Robert Parker? I’m holding my hand up.

As I said the results don’t surprise me. Take what you read here for what it’s worth - just one Redneck’s opinion about any given bottle of wine. But hey, I’m not any better than you, don’t know more than you, buy wine in the stores just like you.

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Popularity: 40% [?]

This is the 3rd installment of a trip down memory lane about my first visit to Wine Country. You can catch up here for Episode 1 and Episode 2.

Friday June 30, 2006
After a relatively short night that involved more coma than sleep we arose the next morning to cram in a few more things while we were in the bay area.

We first had breakfast delivered to the room and then headed out across the bridge Sausalito. I had been there once before but it was a new experience for Robin. What a cool little town Sausalito is. We walked the main street shopping here and there. We got a coffee and marveled at what it must be like to live in this place. We decided that if the 3 of us got 2 jobs each and put the 2 dogs and 1 cat to work we might be able to afford to share a garage apartment somewhere near San Francisco or Sausalito.

One of the few things I bought that wasn’t wine or chocolate was a set of photos from the Mark Reuben Gallery in Sausalito. He has a neat little store off of the main street and we probably spent an hour in there looking at all the vintage photographs he has. I bought 3 different photos of Denver Bronco players before/during/after Super Bowl XXXII including a classic shot of Elway in the locker room after the game with an ear-to-ear smile. I can’t find it at his online store presumably because I bought it! He does still have a shot of John Elway near the end of SB XXXIII.

Around lunch time we headed back to the Archbishop’s Mansion to pack up and head to Wine Country. Finally!!!

After a quick stop at Walgreens for some snacks and Pepto Bismol (not necessarily in that order) it’s about a 40 mile drive from the Mansion to the Motel 6 in Petaluma.

How could we go from staying at a Mansion to the Motel 6? We chose to do it that way so that we could spend our money on the limo drive through Napa and Sonoma instead of spending big at a hotel. It was a fair trade off and there is just nothing like touring Wine Country in a limo, not having to worry about driving, tasting/drinking as much wine as you want, getting tossed around in the back as the driver speeds through the valley, there is nothing to compare it to!

In any event we checked into the Motel 6 and headed a few blocks down the road to Starbucks for a quick pick-me-up before our next jaunt over to Bodega Bay. What a very cool place that is! Here’s a picture of Robin nearly getting blown away by the winds coming off the bay. Jerri used to do a bit of camping around the area and pointed out several landmarks and camping locations. It seemed to be growing with some construction going on at both ends of the main drive and we just hope it doesn’t lose the charm when that’s all done!

Robin was driving us nuts by singing at every quiet moment. The Muppets song Mah Na Mah Na was the tune and Robin was replacing the scat-like Mah Na Mah Na words with “Bodega Bay!”. To this day whenever any of us hears that song we all sing “Bodega Bay!”

We stopped in for more wine at Gourmet Au Bay where we watched some very skilled windsurfers surf in and out of the bay. I think in my next life I want to own that place. What a spectacular view and lifestyle. We must have fit right in because one of the locals walked over and started talking to us like she knew us! After a minute she realized she didn’t but was very nice nonetheless!

We then enjoyed our final meal of the day at the Tide’s Wharf where I had a fantastic lobster dinner! We got a table at the window and sat back to take it all in. What a great trip! If it ended here it would have been a vacation to remember. But we still had 2 more days to go!

We called it an early night and drove back to the Motel 6 to get some beauty rest and prepare for our trip to Napa.

Saturday would be filled with wine tastings, great cheese, George the Limo Driver and our first In & Out Burgers experience. Stay tuned!

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Popularity: 34% [?]

What is California Wine Hikes? Well it’s exactly what the name says!

California Wine Hikes is a website offering guided hikes, wine tastings, fine dining & accommodations in the California wine country. The primary angle of the site is as a wine country vacation destination. The thing is, the destination changes depending on what type of vacation you want.

Russ Beebe, the founder of the business, has found what I think is a spectacular niche involving vacations, hiking and, my favorite, wine! California Wine Hikes is actually a tour company that allows Russ to combine hiking and wine tasting. The company currently offers 19 different tours ranging from EASY to STRENUOUS hiking levels and the opportunity to take in spectacular scenery and excellent wines.

As I perused the site I found one tour in particular that caught my eye: Romp Through the Redwoods. Having always wanted to see the great Redwoods I can tell you that when I do I will do it through Russ and California Wine Hikes! For a very reasonable price you can enjoy a moderate level hike and visit a local winery when you’re through.

Here’s an excerpt of the tour description:

One-Day Hike & Wine-Tasting Tour: 8 moderate mi., 1000′ elev. gain
Hiking a loop through this mystical Santa Cruz Mountain watershed differs from other, more modern San Francisco Bay Area hiking locales. It’s easy to see why the unmaintained character of this place, with its many downed trees and ungraded slopes, can make this loop hike one of the more rugged hikes in the area. Which, for many who have come to know me, is precisely why it’s one of my favorite places to take my winehiking guests.

If one of the existing tours doesn’t fit your style or timing or budget Russ gives you the option to customize your very own California Wine Hike. Bring a small group of friends or family (or both) and enjoy each other’s company as well as a great vacation with California Wine Hikes.

In addition to the normal business angle Russ has a great blog on his site as well. There are tasting notes, wine reviews, tasting venues, winehiker trails and information about reviewing his site, California Wine Hikes where if you do a review you have a chance at winning a case of really good wine.

Incidentally, he’s also running a promotion right now where you can win a bottle of 2004 Dominus Estate just by signing up to the RSS feed. The exciting thing about it is that if Russ grows his list to over 600 subscribers the winner will get 6 bottles instead of 1! Contain your excitement though as from what I can tell the current number of public subscribers is 35. Quite a ways to go yet.

Technically speaking I really like the site and the fabulous promotion ideas Russ has. It’s obvious to me that in addition to his primary business of wine hikes Russ has a good handle on SEO and blog promotion. I also think that California Wine Hikes is a perfect example of niche marketing. In today’s environment where everyone is trying to find some unique niche to market to Russ seems to have hit a home run.

Popularity: 36% [?]

Cork:Synthetic
Name: Judd (Judd’s Hill)
Type: Syrah
Vintage: 2002
Region: Napa Valley
Country: USA
Producer: Finkelstein Vineyards
Price: $18.99
Purchased at: Vintage’s Wine & Spirits
Date: 07/10/07
Served With: Hershey’s Extra Creamy Milk Chocolate w/Toffee & Almonds
Appearance: I can’t see through it! That’s usually a good thing. Very deep, dark purple.
Aroma: Black berry, black currant (cassis)
Taste: Very fruity on the front end and slightly tart on the finish. A bit alcoholy on the long finish. It’s a little lite on the tannins for my tastes.
Comments: Very thick. Very Rich. Very intense. 14.2% Alcohol. Too fruity for me. I bought this on a recommendation from the store owner. I told her I like smooth syrahs that aren’t to alcoholy and I like some fruity taste. She translated that into a silky, aged, intensely fruity wine. This was not her fault at all, I simply expressed myself incorrectly. Also, to be fair this wine is probably better served with an entre.

While the wine is OK I will finish the bottle but I won’t buy it again for 2 reasons: 1. It’s nearly twice as much as I normally like to pay for a bottle of wine and 2. I think I’ve just discovered that I prefer a more earthy taste to a fruity taste. I guess I’ve known that for a while now I just didn’t know how to express it. Maybe I’m getting better at it now.

I find it interesting that as I drink more wine and study it a bit more than I used to - and the slap upside the head from the Spectacular Shiraz that has caused me to go outside my comfort zone to find something similar - my vocabulary expands and I yearn for a way to express what I see, smell and taste in a wine because I want to drink what I enjoy. Most people who drink wine and aren’t connoisseurs don’t have the knowledge to express what they like in a wine other than “fruity”, “dry”, “sweet” and the like; this, I believe, is the biggest hurdle the wine industry constantly struggles with.

–update–

After a day in the bottle this wine has decanted very nicely. It’s still not one of my favorites but I’m getting very strong strawberry jam tastes coming through. It is enjoyable!

–end update–

Popularity: 33% [?]

Cork:Authentic
Name: Boeger Barbera
Type: Barbera
Vintage: 2005
Region: El Dorado
Country: USA
Producer: Boeger Winery
Price: $14.00
Purchased at: Barbera Winery
Date: 05/12/07
Served With: Shredded Chicken Tacos
Appearance: Looks a little thin, long legs, medium body
Aroma: Smokey, oaky, rhubarb pie
Taste: Dry. The smoky aroma carries over into the taste. Different, decent.
Comments: This is the first time I’ve had a Barbera. It certainly has a different taste. As far as the body is concerned it lies somewhere between a Zinfandel and a Cabernet Sauvignon.

I’m not particularly crazy about this wine. I can’t find any other reviews online of this wine. From what I can gather, and correct me if I’m wrong, Barberas are typically used as a mixer/blender. DrDebs points out the how and why of blends in a great post about a wine that isn’t quite as good as it used to be.

Popularity: 29% [?]

During our trip to Wine Country last summer we stopped at Blackstone in Sonoma on day 2 of the trip. Besides finding a great everyday wine in the California Blackstone Cabernet the lady behind the counter was very helpful.

She explained to us wine novices what it means when a bottle of wine says “Napa Valley” or “Sonoma Valley” or “Santa Barbara” or just “California”.

What she said was that in order for a bottle of wine to have the designation of being from the Napa Valley region or viticultural area or appellation of origin (where all these terms mean about the same thing) that a certain percentage of the grapes used in that wine must be grown from that region.

Why do I care about which region the wine comes from? Well, beyond the characteristics of the soil, season length, humidity, and other regional conditions that ultimately affect the grape and to at least some degree the wine, it also affects the price!

Napa Valley is a very prestigious name for wines in the state of California. So sought after is it that wine producers in other regions were apparently putting the label “Napa Valley” on their wine bottles when a very small percentage (if any) of the grapes used to make the wine came from the region. These producers were taking advantage of the region to sell more wine and probably at higher prices.

The next time you’re at the wine store check it out for yourself! In my recent experience the local wine store I saw the Blackstone Cabernet Sauvignon available from Napa, Sonoma and California. Guess how the prices compared? The one from Napa was about $17, the one from Sonoma was about $15 and the one from California was $10.

Now, getting back to what percentage is required is a bit trickier. This is also where the terms State, County and Viticultural area become more important. You can check out the details if you so desire at the Wine Institute but to keep it simple and only regarding viticultural areas (regions) at least 85% of the grapes used in the wine must be grown in the area advertised. In the case of Blackstone and the Cab from Napa you can rest assured that 85% of the grapes used in that wine came from Napa. For the state designation of California at least 75% of the grapes used to make the wine must have been grown in the state.

The truth is that the designation goes beyond simply where the grape was grown. It also has to do with where the wine was “finished” or produced.

As I said, check the Wine Institute for more details but for an everyday application I keep in mind where the grapes are from and what the price difference is. For the record I prefer the California Blackstone Cab to the Napa or Sonoma bottles!

Popularity: 12% [?]