Heartland Stickleback

Did I love this crisp Australian White. A mixture of Verdelho, Semillon, and Chardonnay grapes. It had a great nose of straw and a slight citrus with a beautiful pale straw color. With a clean, quick finish, I thought that this crisp wine would be great with buttery fish like Monkfish or a shellfish either shrimp or scallops. I found it refreshing in its own way.

Again, looking at the write-ups that the group gave - tastes do vary widely. They are nearly impossible to account for. Some found it too sweet, even effervescent as if the sugars were causing it to fizz on the drinker's tongue. Ratings ranged from unenthusiastic 5 out of 10s to 8 out of 10.

Now next weekend, we have the next Brown Bag Sommelier meeting. The kill zone for next week is Spain. Three of our weekly attendees have signed up to bring whites. I'll be curious to see how they are received. I know that whites are really out of favor with wine drinkers - at least the ones that I know. It will be interesting to see if choosing some good Albarinos, we'll be able to build a consensus.

Or is there something really broken with the production of white wines? Are they too sweet... acidic... syrupy... etc.,

Again, I really enjoyed the Stickleback. However, it came in at 13 bucks - out the door at the Silver Lake Wine shop. I don't know if I would drop 13 dollars on a wine that so clearly divided the room. I don't think I am willing to gamble 13 dollars on people's indifference to white wine.

Even though in the scheme of things, 13 bucks, is a modest sum, you should still be highly satisfied at that price point.

RATING: 2.75 Screwcaps
LABEL: Heartland Stickleback
GRAPE: Verdehlo, Semillon, Chardonnay
PRICE: 13 bucks out the door at Silverlake Wine

Rosemount Estate Chardonnay

Now the Australia event was a special one as my Mom and Dad were in town and able to attend. They were deputized by the high order of the BBS, and they did a good job. I'd gone up to K&L Wines on Vine Street just south of Sunset Blvd( a great wine shop that opened their first LA location a couple of years back. I believe they started up in San Francisco and the Bay Area). They selected a 2005 Rosemount Estate Chardonnay.

Now before the pours started, I knew this wine had an uphill battle. It is a chardonnay. A great many wine drinkers for whatever reason do not like chardonnays. Most wine drinkers complain of the oak.The oak flavor being popular back in the day, wine makers just pumped up the oak volume thinking that wine drinkers would love it that much more. My Dad likened the situation to the French Chablis of the mid to late '70s and early '80s. He said that a certain taste and the name brand Chablis had created a Chablis rush. Inferior wine makers rush in, and ruin the reputation of the grape and the wine.

I can say that personally, this wine quickly won me over. Someone remarked that it had some "green grass" on the nose. With a really nice straw color and flavors of grapes, apples, honey, yes - some oak, and believe it or not... nut oil - this wine had a nice balanced flavor. The general agreement was that though it did have the signature chardonnay oak flavor, it wasn't overwhelmingly oaky. Although one BBSers' comment was that it did have too much lingering oak on the finish.

Probably good with a buttery fish or shrimp or scallops. But it had a nice clean edge which might let it go also equally well with oysters.

RATING:3.5 Screwcaps
LABEL: Rosemount Estate
GRAPE: Chardonnay
PRICE: $7.99

Jacob's Creek Riesling

So March 14th, the Brown Bag Sommeliers met for a night of tasting Australian wines hopefully ones that turned out to be good bargains. I personally felt like we met with a lot of success, although some attending felt like this night decided for them that they didn't like Australian wines. Not that you'd know from all the empties in my recycling bin. Said booze hounds who turned their noses up at Australian juice even as they poured it down into their wine circulating systems( aka: the bloodstream) shall remain names.

We kicked off the night with a 2005 Jacob's Creek Riesling. Looking back at the note cards that people handed in, this wine really divided the room. And it could have something to do with how wine drinkers feel about Rieslings. Some people described it as bitter with a nose of burnt rubber with lingering "yucky" tannins. While others felt that it had a nice, clean mineral taste - " a medium bodied wine with a hint of lemon rind, gooseberry, and seagrass. With a quick finnish but also a lingering syrupy taste."

Personally, I liked the wine. I thought it had a nice clean taste with mineral and hay notes. This is something I could have with shellfish. Aaron, who brought it, likes this with Thai food or something where the wines structure can cut the spicy heat in the food. He also wanted props that he brought in a wine for $8.99. He usually brings wines in at the $12.99 ceiling.

RATING: 3.25 Screwcaps
LABEL: Jacob's Creek
GRAPE:Riesling
PRICE: $8.99

Greenblatt's

On Friday night, Christine, my son James, and I went out to get something to eat at Greenblatt's Deli on Sunset. I love Greenblatt's, and I really love their tuna sandwich. It is one of the few things that I eat which I feel better after eating. Yeah yeah, I know it's strange, but for the most part I feel sick after I eat - not so Greenblatt's Tuna Salad Sandwich. I also know that Greenblatt's has some bitchin' wines in their cellar and selection.

Anyway, what I didn't know is that Greenblatt's has the best wine prices in town for in house eating. When you sit down to eat in the deli you can get wines by the bottle for retail cost plus a $5.95 corkage. To go along with our dinner we got a 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon from Avalon. The total cost with corkage was $16.95. And the wine was fanatastic, and yes as a matter of fact it does go with tuna salad on rye. Another highlight on the menu was a bottle of Veuve Cliquot - the yellow label brut - for 43 bucks. That's less than I saw it in Gelson's for cryin' out loud.

So if you like Deli and you like good wine at great prices hit Greenblatt's Deli 8017 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood CA 90046

Cafayate Valley

The second to last wine of the night that we tried, the 2006 Cafayate Valley Tannat was a great teaching device. A lot of the Brown Baggers did not understand what was meant by a chewy wine. After trying this wine made from Tannat grapes we all know. This deep purple red was a puckery, chewy beast. It seemed like something that British confectioners would take and turn into a wine jelly that they would sandwich between chocolate, biscuit and marshmallow.

It was definitely not a crowd pleaser. Although some gave it some props - my wife suggested that it could be served with a carne asada burrito and that the pairing might elevate the wine.

Now me saying that this was not a crowd pleaser does not mean I am unappreciative of the Brown Bagger who brought the wine. Hey, we have to try a range. And we're weeding through labels to find the gems. There's a lot of wines out there, and it's good to know what is a bargain and what ain't.

But I suppose that trashing a wine that someone has brought to a casual tasting like this could cause some hardships. If you do this with friends, please emphasize that judgements passed on a wine are not personal attacks.

Wine tastings like this should not be a competition. They're really just good excuses for people to get together and bullshit while at the same time discovering great wines to pursue and villainous wines to avoid.

Cafayate Valley get to work on your Tannat - it's a good enough grape just step up your game.

RATING: .5 screwcaps
LABEL: Cafayate Valley
GRAPE: Tannat
Price: $5.99

Gouguenheim

Gouguenheim was one of the real stand-out hits of the night. A spicy Malbec that Brown Bagger Mike Brand picked up at the Silver Lake Wine Store Gouguenheim was a real crowdpleaser. It was a Malbec whose spicy, peppery notes had rounded off some allowing some of the real darkfruit flavors to come out.

Again, like the other Malbecs, the Gouguenheim benefitted with food especially the dark chocolate which helped some of its subtleties out.

An interesting thing about this wine: its price. Brown Bagger Mike consistently picks up delicious wines for these events, and every time they cost 13 dollars with tax out the door. Mike goes in and talks to his friendly Silver Lake Wine store guy, says I need a delicious wine from "X" region for 12.99 or less. And guess what? He gets a wine for 12.99 - 13 bucks.

Now there is nothing wrong with this. Silver Lake Wine is a great wine shop with tons of bargains from wineries overlooked by the big buyers. In other words, it is a very well curated shop, but I doubt it will ever have anything for less than 10 bucks - which is the Brown Bag Holy Grail.

10 to 13 could very well just be a sweet spot for wines. With rising labor costs, fuel costs, and land costs, delicious wines under ten bucks might be a thing of the past like buggy whips and manual typewriters.

All that said Gouguenheim is a really satisfying wine and would be a great thing to bring to a friend's house who is cooking you dinner - especially when they're making red friendly foods. If you do pick up a bottle of it for such an occasion bring some dark chocolate or a blue cheese to help bring this wine's flavours out and show off what it can do.

We learned from our Argentina night that the Argentine wines benefit from a little pro-active wine drinking - ie., be smart what you pair it with.

RATING: 3 Screwcaps
LABEL: Gouguenheim
GRAPE: Malbec
PRICE: 12.99 - 13 bucks out the door at Silver Lake Wine

Durigutti

This spicy red made from bonarda grapes( which according to Wikipedia comes from Italian strains known in Italy as Dolce Nero - though not Dolcetto) was one of my big favorites of the night. People thought it was tight. One commenter called it thin, uptight, and peppery. But I felt that its dark fruit flavors of blackberry and cherry yielded a quick, modern tasting wine. How does one find modernity in a wine? Once at a restaurant in Boston called The Butcher Shop, my wife and I had an Austrian red( I think it was a zweigelt although I am not even sure since this was years ago and before I had even a hint of knowledge of wines). I loved the wine, but I had a hard time describing it. It didn't have flavors like a traditional European wine of terroir and funked up stone cellars, nor did it have the powerful, juicy pop of Californian wines. It was something else entirely - its own thing.

A modern tasting wine like this Durigutti then evokes late Summer nights in lower Manhattan, a street whose name you can no longer recall. Dim, tea candle-lit packed restaurants putting out blue cheese, spiky arugula, and hanger steaks with thin cut fries. That's what I taste when I taste a "modern wine," and I love it.

Now some in the group felt like its flavor didn't open up, but that's modern too. Like the well-dressed, too smart looking women in the above mentioned restaurants. It's not what you'd call open....

You have to be in the mood for that kind of crowd. Still for the $9.99 price tag, Durigutti is still a smart buy earning it 2 screw craps. I'd give it another .5

RATING: 2 Screwcaps ( 2.5 Screwcaps if this sounds like your kind of trip)
LABEL: Durigutti
GRAPE: Bonarda
PRICE: $9.99