Tasting - MAN Shiraz 2015

• MAN Shiraz 2015
• 92% Shiraz, 8% mix of Cinsault, Mourvèdre, Grenache
• Coastal Region
• South Africa
• $7.49
• Wine Spectator - “An open, easy style, with soft-edged plum and blackberry fruit, carried by hints of anise. Shows modest toast on the finish. Drink now. 87 points.”

My Tasting notes

Color: Red rims with dark violet/inky purple hue, mostly opaque

Nose: Meat/game, plum, raspberry, hints of spice and blackberry

Palate:

• Acidity: 3
• Body: 4
• Alcohol: 4
• Tannins: 2.5

Very juicy with ripe and soft fruits of red plums, and blackberries with sour cherries and licorice on the finish. Other slight hints of black pepper, but it has a round and pretty complex mouth feel with soft, round tannins. Good balance, but a bit sour on the finish for my personal taste. Would go really well with red and dark meats and even lamb or game bird. 

Tasting - Vinterra Pinot Noir 2015

• Vinterra Pinot Noir 2015
• Pinot Noir
• Marlborough
• New Zealand
• 2015
• $9.95
• The Vinterra Pinot Noir displays ripe, sweet plum notes with an edge of complexity on the nose. The palate is rich and round supported by fine grain tannins.

My Tasting Notes

Color: Mostly garnet ith hints of violet, but not very concentrated. Lighter looking with a good amount of transparency

Nose: It smells like strawberries with slightly blackberry, but I get a distinct strawberry yogurt aroma more than anything else. There are also hints of raspberry and wet soil, like a musty undertone.

Palate:

• Body: 3
• Alcohol: 2
• Acidity: 4
• Tannin: 2-3

It has a medium to heavier body for a pinot with very good acidity aside a small amount of rounded grippy tannins. It tastes like unripe strawberries, raspberries, slight herbal and mint spices, and has a lot of tart sensation. It's not a very concentrated flavor either. Not my favorite pinot noir.

Tasting - Acronym Chardonnay 2012

• Acronym Chardonnay 2012
• Chardonnay
• California
• USA
• 2012
• $6.95
• Simple and soft, this Chard is a juicy, forward with hints of tropical fruit and a touch of vanilla. A nice acidity balances the rich fruit flavors.

My Tasting Notes

Color: Yellow with straw hints, appears a little oxidized, medium brightness

Nose: hints of butter under apple and lime aromas, citrus with a little popcorn

Palate:

• Acidity: 3
• Body: 4
• Alcohol: 3

Soft apple flavors with pear and slight peach, lime on the finish. Smooth and creamy with acidity giving it some citrus zest. A bit buttery/creamy and round on the palate. Pretty good with a solid body.

Tasting - Buenas Viura 2015

• Buenas Viura 2015
• Macabeo (viura)
• Spain
• 2015
• $6.95
• ¡buenas! Viura offers alluring notes of ripe, red grapefruit that intermingle with flavors of pear and wild flower on the palate. This refreshing white has invigorating acidity with a crisp, clean finish.

My Tasting Notes

Color: Bright straw colored with hints of yellow

Nose: lemon and citrus zest with pear and white flowers

Palate:

• Alcohol: 2
• Acidity: 5
• Body: 3

Really really crisp with high acidity. Lime and lemon flavors with grape fruit and pear. It really makes the sides of your tongue tingle and may be a bit too angular. 

Wine and Cheese 1

Wine and Cheese Tasting

Cheese 1: Port Salut
Wine 1: Mira Luna Pinot Noir 2013

• Pinot Noir
• Willamette Valley, Oregon
• 2013

Color: On the darker side of redish garnet with orange hints towards the rims, fairly transparent and light looking

Nose: Slightly underripe strawberries with hints of raspberries and light baking spices and very slight earthy/musty undertones

Palate: Lots of strawberry and red cherry flavors, bright red fruits with bright acidity making the light body of the wine very lively, hints of raspberry, and a slight savory hint of spice and tobacco earthiness. Very soft and small tannins that aren't a huge presence and a longer finish. Nice balance.

Pairing: Pretty good mix with the creamy and zesty cheese. The cheese has some sort of soft boldness and light creaminess but doesn't have very pungent flavors that stink. It's got a sort of orange and round mouth feel that's more smooth and creamy with lightly spiced and smoothened flavors. The delicate red fruit flavors of the wine meshed well with the smooth, light flavors from the cheese. The cheese muted the wines acidity taking off the edge, and the creaminess of the cheese was complimented by the light body of the Pinot. Anything bigger would have been overwhelming on the palate since the cheese was so creamy and took up lots of the mouth. These two worked pretty well together.

Cheese 2: Grayson

Wine 2: Union Cardinal Point 2013

• 90% Petit verdot 10% Tannat
• Montecello ava, Virginia
• 2013

Color: Dark violet, a little bit translucent, very dark color. 

Nose: Not much going on here, just heavy oak (smoke and tobacco box) and black berry aromas

Palate: raspberry hints under strong blackberry flavors with hints of smoke, pretty boring. Medium body with pretty edgy acidity and chewy tannins

Pairing: First off, the cheese was really terrible as well as the wine. Though this may seem like a joke, it isn't, but the Grayson cheese seriously smelled and tasted like unshowered feet, a dark coffee blend, almonds and mold, and my roommates bathroom. It was also slightly creamy so it took up the entirety of your mouth. Naturally, with an oaked and boring wine of just blackberry and oak aromas, the pair brought out the worst of the two. There was less body in the wine thanks to the creaminess and strength of the cheese aromas and flavors, so rotten coffee, feet, and nut flavors in a creamy texture take up your entire mouth with the addition of muted red and dark berry and cigar box flavors along with sharp acidity. The tannins were reduced by the creaminess of the cheese as well, but the flavors just made the pair awful.

Cheese 3: Havrati

Wine 3: Geerlings Wade Cabernet Sauvignon 2014

• Cabernet Sauvignon
• California, USA
• 2014

Color: Purple with garnet hints, bold and dark color mostly opaque. Nice color.

Nose: sweet strawberries, cassis, and undertones of asparagus and sweet red bell peppers and hints of herbal spice (thyme)

Palate: Sweet red peppers, both cooked and uncooked bell peppers along with hints of cassis, and red plums. Strong body and tannic backbone along with medium alcohol and acidity. It's a pretty simple wine but it has good balance and a nice, red and sweet flavor profile, though it's a dry wine. More red than a typical cabernet, feels like a heavy cab franc.

Pairing: The Havrati is relatively stinky and slightly creamy but was still tough and had bold/brown aromas of coffee, toffee, black and brown baking spices, and a bold angular stench. With a strong and bold wine, the bodies meshed together decently. The cheese brought down the acidity of the wine, maybe a little too much making the cheese feel a bit overwhelming, and the bodies evened out nicely to catch both flavor profiles together. However, their flavor profiles were not for each other at all. The wine had sweet red peppers and berry notes along with hints of vegetal nuances and cassis, but the cheese was stinky, bold, slightly creamy, and had darker aromas based more on toffee and spices, which don't particularly go well with bright and sweet red flavors. This cheese would have benefited from a very oaky wine, maybe a strong Australian shiraz or a very oaked Zinfandel or Malbec.

Wine Dinner 1

Wine Dinner

Course 1: Potato skins with sour cream, bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, and chives
Wine 1: Villa Jolanda no vintage Prosecco 2015

• Prosecco
• Veneto, Italy
• no vintage

Course 2: Steak with mashed potatoes
Wine 2: Biltmore malbec 2015

• Malbec
• Asheville, North Carolina
• 2015

Course 3: Chocolate cake
Wine 3: Cline Zinfandel old vines 2015

• old vine Zinfandel
• Contra Costa County, California
• 2015

Tasting Notes

Course 1: Potato skins with sour cream, bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, and chives

Wine 1: Villa Jolanda no vintage Prosecco 2015

Color: dull yellow and straw, mostly transparent with a medium amount of bubbles

Nose: light stone fruit aromas like white peach and pair with a scent of almonds over white stones or rock minerality

Palate: ripe peach and nectarines with hints of pear and citrus on the finish. It even has notes of banana and honey with a sort of nuttiness. There's also a slight herbal side but it's very fruity with bright and fresh acidity balancing a medium body and medium carbonation on the tip of the tongue.

Pairing: The potato skins dish mutes the acidity of the wine as well as mixes the savory flavors of the sour cream, potato, and bacon with the ripe fruit and nuttiness of the prosecco. The fruit from the wine also takes away from the biting salty sensation of the potato skins bringing the meal and wine into better balance. The sparkling wine worked much better with the dish than I thought it would.


Course 2: Steak with mashed potatoes
Wine 2: Biltmore malbec 2015

Color: violet with purple hints, medium deep color, bright rims

Nose: really ripe raspberry and red plum flavors, blueberries, spice, and tobacco

Palate: good amount of dark spice with a very smokey mouth feel. medium body with flavors of plum, blueberry and ripe soft fruits and spice. Medium acidity with smaller tannins that are sweet and round balanced by regular alcohol. The wine was good, balanced, and concentrated.

Pairing: The pair was decent. Though the wine was dry, it has very concentrated and sweeter fruit flavors than your average red that pairs well with steak, so the fruit flavors were a bit too bright and sweet against the fatty spiced steak. The mashed potatoes did a good job bringing the brightness of the sweet fruit of the wine in harmony with the darker and savory steak, but I'd say it wasn't enough to balance the wines concentration. The smoke and spice in the malbec actually brought some harmony with the spices and fats from the steak, but in the end the fruit flavors of the wine overpowered the steak dish. Not bad, but this wine worked much better with the chocolate cake.


Course 3: Chocolate cake
Wine 3: Cline Zinfandel old vines 2015

Color: Deeper violet towards purple with hints of garnet in the rims. Pretty deeply colored

Nose: Strong black pepper and dark concentrated berries: plum, blackberry, cassis, hints of dark cherries and smokiness with coffee/vanilla hints

Palate: Black currant and oaky flavors of smoked vanilla, black berries, cassis, cigar leaf, hints of raspberries and spice. It has medium acidity with a big and concentrated body of deep and dark flavors of cooked fruit and strong oak and alcohol. Really nice for big meat dishes.

Pairing: This was shockingly fantastic with the chocolate cake and I would say it was the best pair of the day. The sugar in the cake seemed to bring the acidity down to a really softened and warm mouth feel. The spices and oak from the wine become undertones in the mouth behind really well integrated flavors of cassis, smooth chocolate, and smoked jammy raspberries and blackberries. These two came in harmony and I kept eating them at a dangerous rate.

Tasting - Cline Pinot Noir 2015

• Cline Pinot Noir 2015
• pinot noir
• Sonoma coast
• California
• 2015
• $14.99
• Their Website - Bright red fruit characteristics mingle with deep color, lush body, touches of vanilla and spearmint followed by delicate strawberry flavor.

My Tasting notes

Color: very deep violet dipping into purple, yet only a bit cloudy and not opaque.

Nose: very musty and earthy. Mushrooms, hints of strawberries and blackberries with a touch of dark spice

Palate:

• Body: 3
• Acidity: 4
• Alcohol: 3
• Tannin: 3

This is a really full and food friendly pinot noir. It's definitely been oaked due to the fact that it has a decent amount of mouth filling tannins that are soft but slightly grippy. It has darker fruit flavors like blackberries with undertones of strawberry along with a bit of mint on the outside of the palate and some tobacco and earthy notes and black pepper creeping in on the finish. Seems like it would be really good with game meats or beef stews. This could become very interesting with age since it does have a good level of tannins and acidity to do so.

Tasting - Château du Pintey 2009

• Château du Pintey 2009
• Merlot & Cabernet Sauvignon & Cabernet Franc
• Bordeaux Supérieur
• France
• $14.95
• Vivino - Good robust but gentle bordeaux.. Good body but not overwhelming.. Good Balance on notes.. Excellent Value

My Tasting Notes

Color: Very deep concentrated violet with red hues. It looks powerful and big

Nose: Really concentrated dark berries and fruits like plum, black berry and cassis with a hint of leather and game and tobacco. It has a vegetal side to it too of maybe herbal spice or bell peppers. It's a deep and bright nose and pops out of the glass.

Palate:

• Body: 4
• Alcohol: 4
• Tannin: 4
• Acidity: 3

This is a huge mouth full with really good structure and balance. It has a really firm and grippy but softened tannic backbone that gives the wine structure and aging potential along with a good level of acidity and strong alcohol. The flavors are concentrated and big but have a soft side to them from the merlot. It has deep blackberry and cassis flavors with ripe juicy plums with a smoked overtone of cigar box and bell peppers on the finish. It's good but the tannins take up a lot of the mouth, so I'd probably wait a few years to drink this.

Tasting - Baron de Lajoyosa Gran Reserva 2005

• Barón de Lajoyosa Gran Reserva 2005
• 50% Grenache, 30% Tempranillo, 10% Carinena, 10% cabernet sauvignon
• Cariñena
• spain
• 2005
• $9.95
• It is a wine of beautiful appearance, color dress mature and well covered with light shades of cherry development. Its primary aromas of ripe red berry fruits. The palate expands exceptionally ripe and round: warm and fleshy, long, proud finish.

My Tasting Notes

Color: Dark red and garnet color with ambering rims, clear oxidation and definitely aged 

Nose: deep and smokey concentrated nose, insanely ripe fruits and cooked/candied blackberries and black currant with hints of tar, sweet coffee, toffee, and raisin with tobacco and toasted oak.

Palate: 

• Tannins: 4
• Alcohol: 4
• Body: 4
• acidity: 3

Velvety and smooth with good acidity to back up the bold body. really softened tannins but they still take up a really wide portion of the mouth, even mostly detectable on the lips and gums rather than the tongue, but they're rounded out and could still use a bit more aging or should be eaten with bold red gamey meats. Concentrated black cooked fruits like blackberry, plum, prunes, and hints of fig and the slightest hint of cooked sweet red berries. It also has a toasted and deeply smoked character with notes of cassis and licorce with bell pepper and herbal spices coming in on the finish. lots of complexity.