Cali Sauvignon Blanc, Grown Organically

Bonterra Organic Vineyards bills itself as America's number one wine made from organic grapes.  They also make a trio of wines from grapes grown in their biodynamic vineyards.  The winery makes it clear that they have been doing organic farming since long before it was a fashionable trend.  Winemaker Jeff Cichocki feels an organic approach to growing the grapes makes a better wine.

The 2019 Bonterra Sauvignon Blanc comes from a blend of grapes grown in Mendocino, Lake, San Luis Obispo and Sonoma counties.  The grapes were fermented in steel tanks and aged there for six months, so there is no oak effect in this wine at all.  The wine has an alcohol level of 13.3% abv and sells for $14.

This pale-tinted wine has a fresh nose of lemons, limes, grapefruit and minerals, along with an herbal aspect that stays well short of New Zealand style grassiness.  California SauvBlancs usually feature riper fruit, and fuller fruit flavor than those from the southern hemisphere.  The palate on this one is all minerals, with a hint of the citrus in the background.  The acidity is zippy and the finish is long and savory.

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Blood Of The Vines - Wild About Wilder

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  This week, Billy Wilder movies, one… two… three of them, with appropriate wine pairings.

1961's One, Two, Three saw James Cagney playing the head of Coca Cola's Berlin office.  If I were in Germany, I would prefer a Riesling.  Cagney's boss in Atlanta puts him in charge of his daughter, who is visiting the divided city.  She turns up married to a young East German communist hothead, and the comedy unfurls at a breakneck pace under Billy Wilder's direction.  Cagney's comic chops were never better.

The movie was loosely based on the 1939 Wilder-penned film, Ninotchka, which lampooned the Soviet Union under Stalin.  With the USSR still ripe for satire in the Cold War '60s, Wilder borrowed heavily from his previous work for One, Two, Three's framework.  Construction began on the Berlin Wall - Google it, kids - while the movie was being shot.  The chill of the Cold War after that rather put a damper on the laughs for many moviegoers.

Cagney reportedly hated co-star Horst Buchholz and wished he had "knocked him on his ass" for stealing scenes.  My wife chuckled at that.  "That's rich coming from Cagney," she said, adding with a maniacal grin, "Maybe we should talk to Mae Clarke about it."  Grapefruit for breakfast, anyone?  Top o' the world!

They drink a lot of Coke in One, Two, Three, but we want something a bit more robust with the movie.  Blue Nun was a popular German wine back in the '60s, but I’m Sure Jimmy Cagney wouldn't wish that on Horst Buchholz.  How about ordering a Spätburgunder?  It's really a German Pinot Noir, but just saying it puts me in mind of Cagney's "Schlemmer!"

Speaking of pacing, 1944's Double Indemnity has Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck as fast-talking tough guy and femme fatale.  How fast?  There didn’t appear to be a speed limit in effect.

After seeing what Walter Neff goes through in DI, and hearing a few Johnny Dollar episodes on old time radio, I realized how tough the insurance game can be.  It elevates the respect I feel for my State Farm guy.  But, if the next time I see him he asks if I've got a beer that’s not doing anything - I'll be looking over my shoulder.

Blood Of The Vines suggests pairing this film noir with the MacMurray Estate Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley. It's Fred, all right, from the ranch he bought in 1941.  Grapes weren't really planted there until Gallo did it in the '90s.  The wine features earthy cherry flavors - rich, sweet and powerful. 

It feels a bit creepy to pair wine with a movie about a drunk, but here goes.  1945's The Lost Weekend is about a writer who drinks too much, as if that narrows it down.  Ray Milland knocks back the rye whiskey here - experience he would use later in Dial M for Murder, the drinking man's Hitchcock.  Milland turned his portrayal of a rummy into an Academy Award, but it sometimes looks as if he's just trying to get away from the theramin music.

Wilder’s film really touched a nerve in the liquor biz, which allegedly had a mobster offer the studio five million dollars to burn the negative.  Wilder later joked that, for that kind of money, he'd strike the match.  

Drinks for a movie about a drunk?  It seems like such a cheap shot.  Beauregard Vineyards makes a Santa Cruz Mountains Zinfandel blend called, conveniently enough, "The Lost Weekend."  We don't know whether that name signifies a turning point in the winemaker's life or just cluelessness in the marketing department.  My money is on the latter.

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Gambero Rosso Italian Wine Master Class

Virtual wine tasting events are no stranger to me, especially in the era of COVID-19.  Get the box, open the box, log on and taste from home.  No social distancing to strain the process, no mask needed.  I was invited to take part in a Zoom gathering recently along with two dozen other wine writers.  The event was called the Tre Bicchieri Web Show, which featured twelve different Italian wines from various producers.  My shipment was delayed several times - it came from Italy, after all - so I didn't get to take part in the moment, but the box finally arrived and I was finally able to taste the wines inside.

The Tre Bicchieri Web Show was presented by Gambero Rosso, a Rome-based Italian wine and food magazine that was founded in 1986.  It was their first-ever Master Class, which indicates that there are more planned.

The interactive event was hosted by Lorenzo Ruggeri, the wine guide's international editor, with comments along the two-hour journey from each winery's representative.  This is the first of several articles on Now And Zin Wine which will feature the wines that were tasted.  We're starting with four amazing white wines.

Panizzi Vernaccia di San Gimignano 2019 

Tuscany's Panizzi built their company on this wine, which has been in production for some three decades. They say it's a modern interpretation of a wine some 800 years old.  The winery says that Giovanni Panizzi pioneered San Gimignano's modern Vernaccia renaissance.  The estate is now owned by Simone Niccolai, who continues to expand the vineyards.

The 2019 Panizzi Vernaccia di San Gimignano is made mostly from Vernaccia grapes.  That grape is known in Sardinia as Vernaccia di Oristano and in Marche as Vernaccia di Serrapetrona.  This one, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, has been declared by wine scientists as distinct from the other ones, and likely not related to them.  It is also possibly the oldest grape variety, but some feel it originated in Eastern Europe or Greece.  At any rate, this wine features mainly Vernaccia di San Gimignano, with a splash of Manzoni and Trebbiano.  The fruit was grown in all the various Panizzi vineyards - Larniano, Montagnana, Santa Margherita and Lazzeretto.  The winery’s representative in the web show was hopeful that wine lovers in the U.S. would rediscover the Vernaccia grape.

The wine was fermented in steel and aged there, on the lees, for five months.  Alcohol hits only 13% abv and the retail price is $18.

This Italian white wine sports a nose full of minerals and hard citrus with a nice savory streak to back it up.  The straw-colored juice has a fantastic salinity on the palate, which is mostly minerals.  The mouthfeel is a bit fuller than expected, but acidity is bright and fresh.  Pair this wine with seafood, especially shellfish or a creamy chowder. 

Boccadigabbia Colli Maceratesi Ribona Le Grane 2018 

Elvio Alessandri is the owner of Boccadigabbia, located in the Marche region.  The estate was once owned by a descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte, who planted French grapes there.  Those international varieties are still there, in the vineyards nearer to the Adriatic Sea.  Further inland - on the La Floriana estate near Macerata - Alessandri put in the more traditional Sangiovese, Ribona, Montepulciano and Verdicchio grapes.  All winemaking is done at the cellar in Civitanova Marche.  

The 2018 Le Grane was made from 100% Ribona grapes, grown in the sandy-clay soil of Marche.  The fruit was gently pressed, then fermented for about 12 days in stainless steel tanks.  This is where things get interesting.  Whole grape berries, picked slightly over-ripe, were added to the wine.  This is traditionally known as fare le grane, which I am told is Italian for "adding the berries."  The resulting second fermentation lasts another ten days, allowing more extraction of compounds and aromatics from the grape skins.  Alcohol hits 14.5% abv and the wine retails for $18.

This white wine smells peculiar, and I mean that in the best possible way.  The nose gives off Meyer lemon with some nuttiness and a side of lanolin.  There is great salinity in the wine.  It is peculiar because I find it uncommon, not because it tastes bad.  Quite the opposite.  The mouthfeel is full, even though the acidity snaps.  Citrus and minerals cover the palate, and it is the citrus that lingers longest in the ample finish.  I want to have it with bacon and eggs.

Zorzettig FCO Pinot Bianco Myò 2018 

It is a five-generation family affair in Friuli Venezia Giulia, where Annalisa Zorzettig now runs Zorzettig FCO while her brother, Alessandro, tends the vineyards.  The winery was founded by their father, Giuseppe, in 1986.  The operation is located on one of the highest hills in the Spessa di Cividale area, the heart of the Friuli Colli Orientali.  The area is in the northeast corner of Italy, bordering both Austria and Slovenia.  The Zorzettigs say their location is protected from the cold currents from the Alps while enjoying breezes from the Adriatic Sea.

The 2018 Myò Pinot Bianco was made entirely from Pinot Bianco grapes grown in the Friuli Eastern Hills vineyard, destemmed and softly crushed.  The land sports chalky limestone soil, which is always good for acidity and the flinty character of such wines.  The wine was aged on its lees for a little more than half a year, imparting additional weight to the mouthfeel.  During the web show, Ruggeri called it "clean and precise."  The wine's alcohol level is a restrained 13% abv and it retails for $27.

This white wine from the hills of Friuli is very pale in color and quite distinctive in the nose.  There is a hint of smoke which gives way to apricot and sea spray aromas.  The salinity shows up on the palate as well, where minerals rule and that apricot note follows, staying on the long finish.  A sort of toasty quality is in there, too.  I had it with some potato chips and an eggplant dish, and it was great with both.

Casalfarneto Castelli di Jesi Verdicchio Classico Crisio Riserva 2016 

Casalfarneto specializes in wines made from the Verdicchio grape.  The winery is in the Marche region, near the northern border of the appellation.  The grapes for the 2016 Crisio Riserva were harvested in three different batches to help control the alcohol level and make it more summertime-friendly..  The early Verdicchio grapes - half of the wine's makeup - were fermented in oak, while the mid- and late-harvest grapes were vinified in stainless steel tanks.  All three groups were made separately and blended together after they were completed.  The finished wine aged for a year in steel, then longer in the bottle.  Alcohol hits only 13% abv and retail is $30.

This wine shows its partial oak treatment with a yellow-gold color.  There is also a hint of oak on the nose, but it is secondary to the citrus and the sea spray salinity.  The complex palate brings a Meyer lemon flavor tinged with apricot.  Acidity is perfect and the wine pairs great with my Anson Mills grits, but it's even better with grilled prawns.

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Albariño With A Twist

Bodega Granbazán is in Spain's Rias Baixas region, where they know all about good Albariño.  The winery was established there in the Salnés Valley in 1981.

Granbazán Albariño 2018

The grapes for Etiqueta Ámbar (amber label) came from vines more than 35 years old, destemmed, with a gravity free-run.  Winemaker Jesus Alvarez Otero says that this wine gets fruit from the Finca Tremoedo vineyard, the warmest plots on the estate with the most fertile soils.  The wine was fermented in steel tanks over three weeks, then aged there for five months on the lees, then three months in the bottle.  Alcohol is the expected 13.5% abv and the retail price is $22.

This Albariño offers up a serious and complex nose.  One whiff it's the ocean.  Next whiff it's a field of flowers.  Then, nectarines and tangerine zest.  I know I am in for a treat before I take a sip.  When I do, the pale golden wine delivers stone fruit up front, with plenty of salinity close behind.  The acidity races, then is gone.  It's great while it is there.  That odd citrus/salt flavor lingers, on a finish that is all too brief.


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Abruzzian Art Of The Earth

People sometimes don't think that wine importers are very important, that all they do is have crates of wine shipped in from who-knows-where to be peddled on the shelves in the lower reaches.  The best importers are those with a nose for wine, who can sniff out good stuff through endless trials, then bring the product to us.  Great importers like Kermit Lynch and Terry Theise are as important and as recognizable as great producers.  Mack and Schühle are Miami-based importers who find great wine and pass it along at a price that is more than fair.  Founded in 1939, the company expanded to the Miami office eight years ago.  They produce wine in Italy and Spain and distribute other wines globally.

Art of Earth Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2019

The certified organic grapes for this bottle were grown in the light, sandy loam of Abruzzo DOC in eastern Italy, between the Adriatic sea and the Apennine Mountains.  The variety is full, 100% Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, the wine hits a reasonable 13.5% abv on the alcohol scale and it retails for $12.

This wine certainly smells like it is the art of the earth.  There are abundant minerals to go along with the ripe, red cherry aromas and the sweet oak on the nose.  The palate follows suit and lays in a racy acidity on top of the firm tannins.  Spaghetti Bolognese would be a nice pairing, but I had mine with a pork chop and loved it. 

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Blood Of The Vines - Oscar Bait

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  This week, a look at some award-winning movies.  If you are reading outside, please keep your mask on.  Intense laughter can really send those COVID germs a-flying.

There are still more than six months until the next Academy Awards show, if there is a next one.  The way things are going, February is like that car in the rear view mirror - closer than it looks.  Hopefully, a vaccine against COVID-19 will be developed before we lose another 650,000 people from this planet.  Yay, Pfizer!  Said no one ever.  That's right, this pandemic has brought us to that - cheering Big Pharma. 

Amadeus was a big hit and an award magnet in 1984, sort of a curious time for a movie about classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  The Cars, Prince and Wham were riding high on the Billboard charts that year.  Pop star Falco - Austrian, like Mozart - also rode the charts with "Rock Me Amadeus," a song which praised Mozart as a freewheeling party boy, albeit in German.  It was a classic ditty, but it was anything but classical.

Mozart died at the young age of 35, and his death is surrounded by conspiracy theories.  It's nice to know our time doesn't have exclusive claim to those annoyances.

One theory posited that the Italian composer, Antonio Salieri, poisoned Mozart.  The theory has been debunked, but that never stopped anyone from making a movie.  That whole Mozart/Salieri rivalry does sound like a baroque version of rap's East/West feuding, but there are no reports that someone bus' a cap in young Wolfgang.  Rock us, Amadeus.

There's a Mozart wine - an Austrian Blaufränkisch - which is sold on a website that looks cheesy enough to pair with the wine.  Sonoma County's Tara Bella Winery plays Mozart's music to the Sangiovese grapes in the namesake vineyard.

The 1953 epic Julius Caesar gathered a handful of Oscar nominations, but only one win - for Best Art Direction.  Marlon Brando was hailed for his role of Marc Antony, largely because he didn't mumble his lines or stand in the street yelling, "Stellaaaa!"

Those ancient Romans loved their wines, and they were kinda snooty about it.  They derided beer as being fit only for those living north of the Alps.  Isn't it amazing how many nations have adopted France as their designated punching bag?  Planeta makes a wine even today which pleased Julius Caesar - a Sicilian Nero d'Avola/Nocera blend called Mamertino.

Moulin Rouge - the 1952 version - centers on the life and death of artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.  His body didn't develop properly, leaving him with a man's torso and a child's legs.  He was tortured by the derision brought on by his physical deformity and sought refuge in booze, prostitutes and jobs which paid him in booze and prostitutes.  

Nowhere was life gayer in the Gay Nineties than in Gay Paree.  Toulouse-Lautrec hung out at the Moulin Rouge cabaret so much that people thought he came with the place.  Sitting before the beautiful ladies dancing the can-can, the artist with his sketch pad provided the template for everyone who would later do their jobs while sitting in a Starbucks.

Bordeaux's Château du Moulin Rouge makes a namesake wine, but due to the stuffy French labeling regulations, there is nary a red windmill in sight.  The official drink of the actual Moulin Rouge is Champagne, so here's to bubbles.  Spring for some Laurent-Perrier Cuvée Rosé, the kind that will likely be flowing again at the tables in the Moulin Rouge when it reopens after the COVID crisis.

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Pinot Grigio That Is Actually A Bargain

People sometimes don’t think that wine importers are very important, that all they do is have crates of wine shipped in from who-knows-where to be peddled on the shelves in the lower reaches.  The best importers are those with a nose for wine, who can sniff out good stuff through endless trials, then bring the pleasure to us.  Great importers like Kermit Lynch and Terry Theise - are as important and as recognizable as great producers.  Mack and Schühle are Miami-based importers who find great wine and pass it along at a price that is more than fair.  Founded in 1939, the company expanded to the Miami office eight years ago.  They produce wine in Italy and Spain and distribute other wines globally.

Barone Montalto Pinot Grigio 2019 carries the designation of Terre Siciliane IGT, which means the grapes were grown in the clay soil of Sicily.  It is a full varietal wine, all Pinot Grigio, with restrained alcohol at 12.5% and a price tag of $12.  We tend to think of that price point as "bargain wine," but often the quality is poor enough to nullify the concept.  If the wine is no good, is it really a bargain?  This wine is a true bargain.

My experience with Pinot Grigio - and Pinot Gris - leaves me flat, really.  PG is not my favorite grape, by a long shot.  It is so seldom captured in all its savory beauty, more often drenched in a floral sweetness and hung with a sameness that reaches from brand to brand.

This wine is drier than your typical - or at least my typical - Pinot Grigio.  Almost the color of water, the nose shows the usual suspects: flowers and limes and rocks, oh my.  The accent on minerality is a nice flourish, particularly in this grape.  On the palate, the floral angle plays a tad stronger, with citrus in tow.  That Sicilian salinity makes itself known throughout.

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RRV Chardonnay At $18

California wine négociant Cameron Hughes owns no vineyards and has no official winery.  He sniffs out good wine which has already been produced by established makers, then buys it on the down low with an agreement not to reveal the source.  He then sells the wine online through his wine club - he calls it a wineocracy - bringing top-shelf wines to lower-shelf wallets.  Hughes says he keeps prices low by removing the middleman, the distributor and retailer through which store-bought wines must pass.

Lot 718 Chardonnay Russian River Valley 2018

As usual, Hughes is tight-lipped about where this wine was grown and made, except to say that it came from "one of the region's storied estates, with almost a century of family history."  He goes on to praise the region, citing the Russian River Valley's cool ocean breezes and fog, which help the grapes mature well. "Anchored by a rare type of soil formed by an ancient sandstone seabed," he says, "there's just no place quite like it."  Hughes says Lot 718 is a "classic Russian River Valley Chard," only it sells for a mere $18.  Alcohol sits at 13.5% abv.

This Chardonnay is fairly lean, by old California standards.  There is a touch of oak on the nose, but the citrus and stone fruit stay in the spotlight.  The palate shows a bit more oak, but it does not overpower the profile.  Acidity is bright enough to make me order oysters on the half shell for takeout tonight.  The finish is long and vibrant, with pears and tangerine persisting.

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Blood Of The Vines - Media Darkness

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  This week, a look at Media Darkness - what makes news, what makes entertainment and what's the dif?  Brought to you by White Ford Bronco Wine.  Keep your mask on.  It muffles your complaining about having to wear a mask.

Newsmakers aren't always news.  Think about Donald Trump.  He is angered when he feels underappreciated and takes to an early morning Twitter rant to air his grievances.  That is his default state, so is it really news?  Cops use their police cars to chase suspected criminals.  It happens all the time.  Is it really worth live coverage simply because a TV station was able to get a helicopter overhead?  Think about Joe McCarthy.  If the name doesn’t ring a bell, he was a senator - but don’t hold that against him.  He ruined people's lives by making false accusations without offering evidence.  THAT you can hold against him.  TV journalist Edward R. Murrow helped bring him down by doing what TV news should do - put ugliness in the spotlight for all to see.

George Clooney directed, starred in and co-wrote 2005's Good Night and Good Luck.  Those were the words used by Murrow back in the early 1950s to sign off his news broadcast.  If only he had known how much good luck we would someday need in order to have a good night.

The movie shows how politicians use fear as leverage against their opposition.  McCarthy made headlines by doing that in the infamous subcommittee hearings on trumped up charges of communist influence in government.  Just 15 years ago, test audiences reportedly thought Clooney's film depicted McCarthy as too outlandish to be believed.  However, the film used archival footage of the actual raving lunatic.

Murrow warned that if television didn’t embrace its power to inform and educate, it would end up being nothing more than "wires and lights in a box."  In more modern terms, TV could become nothing more than a police chase elevated to the status of  "breaking news." 

Need a drink?  Casamigos tequila shots are in order here.  Clooney co-founded the company before selling it to a conglomerate for a billion bucks.  Keep in mind that the Senate wasn't then, and isn’t now, a "house of friends."

In the 1976 film, Network, Howard Beale is a newscaster who is about to be fired.  He promises to kill himself on the air, but ends up being shot on camera in a terrorist attack planned by the show’s producers to save flagging viewership.  As such, Beale becomes the first person to be murdered "because he had lousy ratings."  Maybe television would be better if the consequences were so severe. 

Beale’s "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" tagline spawned plenty of semi-humorous mad-as-hell take-offs.  Food: not going to bake it anymore.  Meat: not going to steak it anymore.  Leaves: not going to rake it anymore.  Authenticity: not going to fake it anymore.  Discontinuation: not going to make it anymore.  You get the picture.

A wine for a fallen newscaster?  Easy.  Muscadine wine from Atlanta's Chateau Elan Winery.  I love the way they do without the Frenchified diacritic which so often trips up Muscadine drinkers.  Chateau Elan is where a real-life newscaster took an on-air tumble about eleven years ago while stomping Chambourcin grapes, becoming something of a YouTube celeb in the process.  The catastrophe was apparently enough to put them off that grape altogether.  Besides, nothing says "epic fail" like Muscadine wine.

1957's A Face in the Crowd has Andy Griffith in his film debut.  By then he had become known for the comedy recording, "What It Was Was Football" and the role of folksy Will Stockdale in the Broadway presentation of "No Time for Sergeants."  This was a darker turn.  The character of Lonesome Rhodes was Will Stockdale on cocaine.  It illustrates how a shot of fame, to an egomaniac, is like a shot of bourbon to an alcoholic - it's never enough.  It is an especially worthwhile film today, with stardom coming cheaper by the dozen on the multitude of oxymoronic "reality television" shows. 

In honor of Lonesome Rhodes' heritage, let's get a wine from the Land of Opportunity, Arkansas.  At Circle T Vineyards and Winery, John Trickett did wonderful things with Syrah until shutting down the business a couple of years ago.  So how about a bottle from Chateau Aux Arc?  You at least have to admire the pronunciation pun - and that missing diacritic.  If you can get it, enjoy their Arkansas Cynthiana wine while watching Rhodes' life take the swirling route down.


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A Rosé Wine For Summer

The lion on the Hess label represents the winery and its founder Donald Hess.  Hess staked out a claim on Napa's Mount Veeder in the 1970s, when there was still room to move around.  He retired in 2011 and passed the torch to the fifth generation of the family to carry on old traditions and forge new ones.  Dave Guffy is only the second person to lead the winemaking team at Hess.

The 2019 Hess Select rosé was made from 100% Pinot Noir grapes grown in the Hess estate vineyards and in several other California appellations.  The wine was fermented in stainless steel and has an alcohol level of 13.5% abv.  It sells for only $12.

This rosé wine is a shade of salmon that leans more into pink than orange.  The breezy nose gives a lovely show of cherry and strawberry aromas, with a bit of salinity peeking through.  The palate brings plenty of cherry fruit into play with a bracing acidity.  Citrus lingers on the finish.  Pair this with salads and seafood for sure, but if you have a pork chop on the grill, unscrew the cap.

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Zinfandel, From Lodi

Whenever I get to take a trip - virtually - to Lodi, I jump at the chance.  John Fogerty may have been "stuck in Lodi," but he should have visited a winery or two.  That would have brightened his view of the locale.

Oak Farm Vineyards is my stop on this virtual vacation.  I took part in a July conversation with Oak Farm's co-owner and Director of Winemaking, Dan Panella.  The get-together was held on Zoom, where everything else also seems to be held in these pandemic times.

Panella talked about his family's three-generation farming claim at Oak Farm, which in Lodi is practically newcomer status.  He spoke of his fondness for the Italian and Spanish grape varieties found on his estate and reminisced about his younger days driving a tractor through the cherry and walnut orchards.  He turned the business into the wine arena in 2004.

Oak Farm itself was founded in 1860, with the Panella coming along in the 1930s.  Today, Panella and head winemaker Sierra Zieter manage a diverse portfolio of wines.

Oak Farm Vineyards Tievoli Red Blend 2018

The Oak Farms Red Blend called Tievoli (I Love It spelled backwards) is made from two-thirds Zinfandel grapes, 8% Primitivo, 18% Barbera and 8% Petite Sirah - all grown in Lodi.  The old vine Zin was grown in the Hohenrieder vineyard, while the rest came from Oak Farm's estate vineyards. 

Panella says, "Zinfandel is the backbone of this blend.  It brings the fruitiness to this wine, while the Primitivo adds earthiness, bringing the spices and earth floor notes.  The Barbera adds the acidity backbone and helps brighten the wine and smooth it out.  Petite Sirah strengthens the color and helps with the structure."

The wine was aged eight months in French and American oak before being bottled.  Alcohol strikes 14.5% and the retail sticker is only $22.

This red blend shows a ripe cherry nose abetted by black pepper and a touch of leather.  The palate has an earthy quality, almost savory, but the Zinfandel fruit stands firm.  So do the tannins, and the wine's acidity is bright and fresh.


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Blood Of The Vines - Still Yet More Movies You Never Heard Of

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  You've probably never heard of these films, but the upside is that watching them alone at home won't require a mask.

According to the one-sheet, in 1965's Nightmare in the Sun, Ursula Andress was old enough to know better but too beautiful to care.  She's cheating on her older husband with the town sheriff, then takes up with a hitchhiker.  It turns out the husband knows better than to kill people, but was too drunk to care.

The soap opera that accompanied the production reads like an early draft of Blake Edwards' S.O.B.  The story goes that Andress's real-life husband, John Derek, agreed to let his wife do a nude scene with Aldo Ray, but reportedly reneged on the deal just before shooting started.  A millionaire put up the money to make the movie, but didn't get a credit.  The millionaire later bought the rough cut, fired the director and put in the excised nude scene.  Oh, and the millionaire didn't cough up the cash anyway.  Ah, the glamour of Hollywood.

Mendocino County's Murder Ridge Winery can provide some great juice for your viewing and imbibing pleasure.  It's in the Mendocino Ridge AVA, where only the mountaintops get AVA status.  The grapes grown below 1,200 feet in elevation won't ripen because the fog keeps things too cool.  No doubt, Ursula Andress could have warmed up the wilderness.

Sound of Noise is a 2010 crime comedy from Sweden.  The story brings to mind the old joke, "What do you call a guy who hangs around with musicians?  A drummer."  In this case, the drummers mastermind the takeover of a city, all for the sake of performance art.  Toss in a tone-deaf policeman and you have the makings of musical mayhem.  Somebody get Allstate on the phone.

If drumming is your madness, you may already know that SP Drummer puts out a blend of Napa Valley Cabernets Sauvignon and Franc which would be a great way to filter out the noise and enjoy the sound.

Zeder continues the international feel of this week's selections.  An Italian horror film from 1983, Zeder is about bringing the dead back to life.  Certain areas are found to be "K-Zones" where death is no longer a problem.  Bury a body there, and voila! - instant zombie.  It's an admirable scientific excursion, but you want to be careful about exactly who gets reanimated. 

Chateau Diana makes a thing called Zombie Zin, which runs about $10 a bottle.  Then there's the Walking Dead Blood Red Blend, complete with Bordeaux varieties and interactive labels.  The licensing for that one jacks up the price to about 20 bucks.


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Barbera, From Lodi

Whenever I get to take a trip - virtually - to Lodi, I jump at the chance.  John Fogerty may have been "stuck in Lodi," but he should have visited a winery or two.  That would have brightened his view of the locale.

Oak Farm Vineyards is my stop on this virtual vacation.  I took part in a July conversation with Oak Farm's co-owner and Director of Winemaking, Dan Panella.  The get-together was held on Zoom, where everything else also seems to be held in these pandemic times.

Panella talked about his family's three-generation farming claim at Oak Farm, which in Lodi is practically newcomer status.  He spoke of his fondness for the Italian and Spanish grape varieties found on his estate and reminisced about his younger days driving a tractor through the cherry and walnut orchards.  He turned the business into the wine arena in 2004.

Oak Farm itself was founded in 1860, with the Panella coming along in the 1930s.  Today, Panella and head winemaker Sierra Zieter manage a diverse portfolio of wines.

Oak Farm Vineyards Barbera 2017

Panella conveyed the notion that they really like Barbera grapes at Oak Farm.  In this wine, it shows.  The wine is 88% Barbera with 12% Petite Sirah included "for color and structure."  The grapes were sourced from three green, sustainably farmed vineyards in Lodi.  Oak aging over 20 months occurred in barrels made from the wood of France, the U.S. and the Caucasus region south of Russia, 24% of which was new.  Alcohol hits 15% abv and the retail price was $25, until it sold out.

This Italian grape grows dark in Lodi.  The nose gives off black cherry, blackberry, cigar and cedar.  It is a complex and delightful package of aromas.  The palate is also dominated by dark fruit, with plentiful oak effects.  It is a fresh wine, with lively acidity, and the tannins have a bit of bite just after the cork is removed.  Wait a bit and they settle down.


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Rosé, From Lodi

Whenever I get to take a trip - virtually - to Lodi, I jump at the chance.  John Fogerty may have been "stuck in Lodi," but he should have visited a winery or two.  That would have brightened his view of the locale.

Oak Farm Vineyards is my stop on this virtual vacation.  I took part in a July conversation with Oak Farm's co-owner and Director of Winemaking, Dan Panella.  The get-together was held on Zoom, where everything else also seems to be held in these pandemic times.

Panella talked about his family's three-generation farming claim at Oak Farm, which in Lodi is practically newcomer status.  He spoke of his fondness for the Italian and Spanish grape varieties found on his estate and reminisced about his younger days driving a tractor through the cherry and walnut orchards.  He turned the business into the wine arena in 2004.

Oak Farm itself was founded in 1860, with the Panella family coming along in the 1930s.  Today, Panella and head winemaker Sierra Zieter manage a diverse portfolio of wines.  Oak Farms is in Lodi's Mokelumne River appellation

Oak Farm Vineyards Rosé 2018

The Oak Farm Vineyards Rosé is made from an equal share of estate-grown Sangiovese and Barbera grapes.  It is produced as if it were a white wine, not as the bleed-off by-product of red wine.  Aaron Shinn manages the vineyard and takes suggestions from the winemaker on how best to grow the vines.  The rosé went through stainless steel aging, carries alcohol at 13%  and retails for $26.

The Oak Farm rosé has a lively nose full of cherry and strawberry aromas, with some citrus minerality and a floral note also in the mix.  The palate brings red fruit and tropical notes with a pleasant salinity and a zippy acidity.


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Blood Of The Vines - R.I.P. Carl Reiner

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  We're still cooped up at home, and now we're missing Carl Reiner, too.

Comedy icon Carl Reiner passed away on June 29th at the age of 98 years.  He pulled televised comedy through the '50s and '60s before jumping onto the big screen as an actor, writer and director.  It was fitting that a guy who gave octogenarian George Burns his role of a lifetime in Oh, God, had the favor returned by Steven Soderbergh in Ocean's Eleven when he was 79.  Reiner played the hell out of the role of Saul Bloom in the trilogy.

A newspaper writer friend of mine told me about meeting Carl Reiner in the '70s at a big event at The Summit in Houston.  My friend was in the restroom when Reiner walked in.  The conversation at the lavatory was short, but laced with comedy.  Reiner apparently thought my friend was the restroom attendant and asked him for a towel.  It was one of my friend's prouder brushes with fame.

This week, Trailers From Hell takes a look at Reiner's cinematic side, during breaks from binge-watching The Dick Van Dyke Show.  CBS colorized a couple of the shows from the series, including the "Coast to Coast Big Mouth" episode.

Reiner teamed up with Steve Martin on four films, the first being The Jerk in 1979.  Besides launching Martin's cinematic career, the film also brought to the popular vocabulary the excitedly shouted phrase, "The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!"  In my circle of friends, that quickly became, "He asked me for a towel! He asked me for a towel!"

Martin's character asks a waiter at a fancy restaurant to forget the 1963 Chateau Latour and bring some fresh wine, "the freshest you’ve got."  He also keeps his Château Lafite Rothschild in a water cooler, with wine glasses in the paper cup dispenser.  We're not dealing with the most sophisticated wine aficionado here, we're dealing with a jerk.  So lets pair a wine that's more affordable than the Lafite, and fresher.

In wine, freshness equals acidity.  The Luli Sauvignon Blanc hails from Monterey County and carries a very zippy acidity with it.  If you're pairing The Jerk with a jerk chicken recipe, you might want to go with a less acidic wine, maybe Tatomer's Vandenberg Riesling from Santa Barbara County.

In 1969's The Comic, Reiner had a hand in writing, producing, acting and directing.  The movie stars Van Dyke as a Keaton-esque movie comedian from the BT era - before talkies.  He spends a lifetime trying to recapture his silent slapstick heyday.  Van Dyke had long wished for such a role and says that he and Reiner were proud of the movie even though it laid an egg at the box office.

If you are exploring alternative drinking hours during the pandemic, and they begin at breakfast, here's an idea.  Reiner appeared in a 1964 print ad for Kahlua, so you might want to grab a bottle and spike your coffee with it.  Serve it alongside a mimosa.  Oh, yeah, and a breakfast.

The Doris Day/James Garner classic, 1963's The Thrill of It All, was written by Reiner smack in the middle of his successful run on TV with Van Dyke.  He also shows up in cameo roles as different characters on a TV show, one of whom causes Day to announce on a live broadcast that she is a pig.  She's wrong, of course.  Day's character is a mid-century modern housewife, who is launched into a new career shilling for Happy Soap in TV commercials.  In today's jargon, she'd probably be a dedicated member of the Mommy Wine culture, with a T-shirt exclaiming that "sippy cups are for Sauvignon Blanc."

Day is the Prosecco of Film, all sweet and bubbly, and you'll be able to find that pairing for cheap.  But, for Happy Soap, a Happy wine would be appropriate.  Happy Canyon Vineyard is in the warm corner of Santa Barbara County, so they specialize in grape varieties from Bordeaux.  Their Piocho Rosé is made from Cabernet Franc, a grape which always makes me happy.  They also do a nice Sauvignon Blanc.


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Fiano, From Lodi

Whenever I get to take a trip to Lodi, I jump at the chance.  John Fogerty may have been "stuck in Lodi," but he should have visited a winery or two.  That would have brightened his view of the locale.

Oak Farm Vineyards is my stop on this virtual vacation.  I am taking part this week in a conversation with Oak Farm's co-owner and Director of Winemaking, Dan Panella.  The get-together is to be held on Zoom, where everything else also seems to be held in these pandemic times.

Panella talks about his family's three-generation agriculture claim at Oak Farm, which in Lodi is practically newcomer status.  He speaks of his fondness for the Italian and Spanish grape varieties found on his estate and reminisces about his younger days driving a tractor through the cherry and walnut orchards.  He turned the business into the wine arena in 2004.

Oak Farm itself was founded in 1860, with the Panella family coming along in the 1930s.  Today, Panella and head winemaker Sierra Zieter manage a diverse portfolio of wines.

Oak Farm Vineyards Fiano 2019

Fiano isn't a made-up name for a wine.  It's a southern Italian grape variety, grown in Lodi's Mokelumne River AVA, on the Oak Farm estate.  It is originally from Campania and Sicily.  The grapes were picked whole-cluster, then pressed into steel tanks for fermentation, then aged in neutral oak barrels.  Alcohol is reasonable at 13% abv and the price runs $26.

This wine's nose carries some great salinity and minerality, with notes of honeydew and orange peel.  The palate is about as refreshing as a white wine gets, with plenty of citrus - tangerine, lemon and grapefruit.  The acidity is racy enough to challenge any Sauvignon Blanc.  I could down some oysters with this Fiano, or a Maryland crab cake - I've been jonesing for that lately.


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Mendo Field Blend Rocks

California wine négociant Cameron Hughes owns no vineyards and has no official winery.  He sniffs out good wine which has already been produced by established makers, then buys it on the down low with an agreement not to reveal the source.  He then sells the wine online through his wine club - he calls it a wineocracy - bringing top-shelf wines to lower-shelf wallets.  Hughes says he keeps prices low by removing the middleman, the distributor and retailer through which store-bought wines must pass.

Lot 674 Field Blend Mendocino County 2017

Hughes says the Lot 674 Field Blend was made by a guy who has been producing wine in Mendocino County for more than three decades.  He also insists that winemakers to the south, in Napa and Sonoma, have been goosing their juice with Mendocino wine for years.  Field blends - where the grapes are grown, harvested and vinified together - are usually old-vine wines, and this one is 75% Syrah and 25% Petite Sirah.  Alcohol tips 14.2% abv and the retail sticker reads $13.

This dark wine has a wonderful Rhônish nose - blue and black berries, vanilla highlights, a bit of meat - while the palate is deep and rich with great structure and balance.  Savory features get rough with the fruit after it has been open awhile - a little Rhône treat for those who are patient.  The finish is long and serves as a reminder of a great sip.  It’s kinda hard to believe that it sells for less than 15 bucks. 

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Blood Of The Vines - Even More Movies You Never Heard Of

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. The shut-in can't end until you've seen these films, so get moving.

We find ourselves this week pandemically pondering movies which are so far off the radar, air traffic controllers believe them to be gnats in their peripheral vision, not full-scale blips.  Holiday hits?  Summertime smashes?  Not this time, I'm afraid.  This week is for movie - and wine - nerds.

The 1970 psychological thriller Road to Salina was taken from a novel entitled, "Sur la Route de Salina."  If my high school French still works, I think that translates to, "On the road to Salina," which sounds too much like a Hope/Crosby flick.  The book's author, Maurice Cury, is so invisible in a Google search that he appears to be about one step away from witness protection.

The main character is taken to be a man who has been gone four years.  He gets to have some skinny dipping and hot sex with the woman who is supposed to be his sister, and it's hard to tell which of them likes that scenario better.  Then, things really get weird.  Critics of the day blurbed the movie as ranging from "admirably ambitious" to "perversely compelling."  Now for a wine to match.

Road to Salina was shot in the Canary Islands and if you can find any, the wines from that Spanish isle off the coast of Africa are ambitiously compelling and admirably perverse.  I got to sample a few some years back at a small event in Santa Monica.  The Bermejos Malvasia Seco is a worthy pairing with the strange movie.

Patti Cake$ is only a few years old and already the TFH gurus see it obscure enough to justify inclusion in this grouping.  A rags-to-better-rags story of the struggle to break into the rap world, Cake$ feels familiar over a number of genres.  We've seen movies about how tough it is to navigate into music, acting, comedy, professional sports and certified public accounting, so it's a well-worn shoe by now.

Much like that Hair Club For Men guy, Jay-Z liked Armand de Brignac Champagne so much he bought the company.  Nicky Minaj touts MYX Fusions Moscato, Conjure Cognac belongs to Ludacris and Tupac Shakur liked Cristal Champagne so much that he invented a cocktail made from Crissy and Alizé Gold Passion liqueur.

In 1961's The Last Judgment, an international host of movie stars ramble through a movie they might rather forget.  Much like Pinot Grigio, the film was universally panned at the time of its release.  Today, many come to the defense of director Vittorio De Sica, calling the movie an unheralded masterpiece, a romp prompted by the voice of God.  If you are in the right part of the world, you can judge for yourself on Amazon Prime.  If you are not in the right zone, well, that may be why you've never heard of it.

The film opens with a voice from above booming that everyone has about twelve hours to get their drink on before the end of the world happens.  We then see actors like Jack Palance, Ernest Borgnine, Melina Mercouri and Anouk Aimée playing characters who prepare for the end in different ways. 

World's End Cabernet hails from Napa Valley and will run a wine lover a buck-and-a-half at Total Wine.  Is it an overpriced, over-saturated wine, or an unheralded masterpiece?  Again, you be the judge.


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Great Zinfandel At Half The Price

California wine négociant Cameron Hughes owns no vineyards and has no official winery.  He sniffs out good wine which has already been produced by established makers, then buys it on the down low with an agreement not to reveal the source.  He then sells the wine online through his wine club - he calls it a wineocracy - bringing top-shelf wines to lower-shelf wallets.  Hughes says he keeps prices low by removing the middleman, the distributor and retailer through which store-bought wines must pass.

Lot 725 Zinfandel Russian River Valley 2018

Hughes says the Lot 725 Zinfandel is sourced from a "pioneering, family-owned estate," one of the oldest in Sonoma County.  The unnamed winemaker has experience in both the Dry Creek and Russian River valleys.  This Zin was aged for more than a year in oak, alcohol hits 15.5% abv and the retail sticker is only $17.  It could easily be much more.

This wine is luscious from the first pour.  Bright red cherries and vanilla notes on the nose show a wonderful balance that is found in good Zinfandel grapes, carefully vinified.  The mouth is full and rich, hefty and zippy at the same time with a beautifully fresh acidity.  I've tasted Zins this good before, but they cost twice as much.

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Blood Of The Vines - Koo Koo Kaiju

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  They are the walrus. 

This week's wine-and-movie pairings focus our pandemic-weary lens on Japanese kaiju films.  Kaiju is a Japanese word meaning "strange beast."  It does not refer to Two Hands Wine and their Sexy Beast Cabernet Sauvignon.  The word describes the genre of monster films which started in the mid-1950s with Godzilla, as well as the creatures themselves.  Godzilla was born from the nuclear fears of the day, only a decade after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Over the years, numerous kaiju films have depicted the horrors of the nuclear age as monsters either born or unleashed by radiation.

Half Human hails from 1955, although it didn't wash up on American shores until a few years later.  Its Japanese title translates aptly to "Beast-Man Snow-Man."  The story concerns a ski trip gone wrong, thanks to Mr. Half Human himself.  He turns out to be a nice guy after all, but don’t think that stops the search party from chasing him to his death.

This is an opportune moment to think about opening a case of Mistaken Identity Vineyards wines, or at least a bottle.  The vineyard and winery are on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia.  A good stone's throw from the U.S. of A., the locale is separated from Washington state by only an imaginary line in the sea.  Their Abbondante Bianco is a good fit here, since kaiju monsters are generally abbondante themselves - on the large side.

You may also want to consider a sake for Half Human, since sake is often incorrectly called rice wine, when it is actually beer made from rice.  There's a very good Japanese craft beer - Kawaba Sunrise Ale - but its alcohol content is a little lean for a monster movie.

The 1966 epic, Gammera the Invincible, is a re-edited version of a film released in Japan a year earlier.  Apparently the audiences clamored for "more kaiju!"  The Gamera franchise never really caught on in the states - this was the first in the series and the only one released in America.  Perhaps it was the additional "m" added to the monster's name that turned away the crowds.  Or, perhaps I'm over-analyzing it. 

Gamera - er, Gammera - looks like a giant fire-snorting prehistoric turtle, and he can bust up an unsuspecting Japanese city just like Godzilla.  He also has a nifty getaway where he turns into a sort of flying saucer.  There must have been a lot of sake poured during the making of this film.  Gamera is ultimately dispatched to Mars by the scientific community’s Z Plan.  I guess Z Plan was Japan's version of Plan 9. 

You are going to need alcohol for Gammera the Invincible.  There is a home brewer in Florida who makes a double chocolate stout named after Gamera, but his quantities are limited, I'm sure.  However, in Inglewood, California, Tortugo Brewing Company uses a Gameraesque creature in their logo.  They even made a hazy double IPA called Gamera.  I think we have a winner.

Oh no, there goes Tokyo.  Godzilla is the king of kaiju, the beast who inspired the genre.  Blue Oyster Cult paid homage to the biggest G of them all in 1977, with lyrics outlining the monster's rampage, the downed power lines, the shocked commuters, the absolute destruction.  Godzilla wraps up by repeating that "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man."  And that, my wine and movie friends, is what kaiju is all about.

In the 1964 classic, Mothra vs Godzilla, the monster is pitted against the insect god.  Mothra gives it a good go while protecting an egg, but cannot overcome the beast's breath.  Have a Mentos, buddy.  Fortunately, two giant larvae burst from the egg as in tag-team wrestling and take charge of driving Godzilla back into the sea.

You'd think it would be easy to find a wine with a pic of Godzilla on the label.  Napa Valley's Adler Fels Winery found out the hard way how many lawyers are working to protect the Godzilla brand.  Nearly two decades ago they had to pour out their Cabzilla over copyright infringement.  Wine writers sometimes refer to high-alcohol wines as Godzillas, so you might try pairing a 15% Zinfandel or a bottle of Port with this movie.  Australian brewer Kaiju Beer reportedly has not yet run into trouble with any attorneys protecting the genre, but look out, Tortugo.


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