GEMTREE TADPOLE SHIRAZ

The Gemtree Shiraz was the winner of the night. From the McLaren Vale Region, this is a wine that likes to tell you its story. The label of the wine( great design by the way) explains how the owner/operators of Gemtree are committed to the building of a wetland in the middle of the their vineyard along with the planting of native trees and vegetation in a larger push to green Australia.

And that's great. The wine also happens to be good - and that makes their push to make Australia a greener pasture even that much better.

After two powerful, heavy shiraz wines, the 2007 Gemtree Tadpole Shiraz proved to be a smooth and balanced wine.

This wine had a great peppery nose with hints of leather and blackberries. Unlike the Winner's Tank and the Boxhead, however, its dark fruits had been tamed. This wine was really balanced and drinkable.

Now red-staters might think that the high rating the group gave this wine is because we're Hollywood crackpots with a soft spot for some Australian vineyard claiming the badge of eco-friendliness because they're building wetlands for some nearly extinct frog. This is not the case. Peer reviewed, this was the highest scoring wine of the night.

I also feel that this was the easiest drinking wine of the night - because it was so smooth. The rough edges of the other shiraz wines had been rounded and polished in the Gemtree. And right in the $9.99 sweet spot for the BBS group.

All in all, Gemtree Tadpole Shiraz is a great buy.

RATING: 4 Screwcaps ( wetlands restoration or no this is a good wine)
LABEL: Gemtree Tadpole Shiraz
GRAPE: Shiraz
PRICE: $9.99

2008 BOXhead Shiraz

Here's a wine with a great label and some decent taste. One of Silver Lake Wine's( on Glendale Boulevard in Silver Lake) 13 bucks out the door specials ( a 13 dollar wine seems to be a recurring theme from Silver Lake Wine when our Brown Bag agents ask for a great wine for 12.99 or less), this was the second of a string of powerful Aussie reds we tasted that night. With a big alcohol nose and a bigger alcohol content of 14.5%, this juice could have powered Mad Max's V-8 Interceptor across the wasteland and beyond Thunderdome( sorry - had to inject a Mad Max ref at some point in a series of postings about Australian wines).

This is a wine exhibiting a lot of dark fruit with a nose of figs, boysenberry, and some serious dirt earthiness it is big, strong fruit distilled into shiraz. Not necessarily a bad thing if you are prepared for it.

The talk back notes I got from the group were mixed. Some people enjoyed it. One of the tasters remarked that the wine was about a 1.5 screwcap rating - but taken with some cheese - the flavor got a boost.

This was part of a series of wines during the night that lead some people to think that maybe they don't like Australian wines. That perhaps the flavor is too concentrated. Too powerful. I do think that if you like wines with strong fruit then you might really enjoy Boxhead Shiraz.

The Boxhead like the Lanhorn Winner's Tank before it, ultimately, might be lacking in balance.

Something which the next wine from the night( which I'll post about tomorrow night), the Gemtree Shiraz really seemed to get right.

Overall... the Boxhead was good, but for 13 bucks.... it didn't make many Brown Bag friends. Which is unfortunate since Brown Bagger Mike has had a string of hits from his local wine shop Silver Lake Wines where he also picked up this bottle of Boxhead.

RATING: 1.75 Screwcaps
LABEL: Boxhead Shiraz
GRAPE: Shiraz
PRICE: 12.99

Langhorn: The Winner's Tank

If the Heartland Stickleback was a divisive white, this shiraz was a unifying factor for the group. It was almost universally hated. Which sucks because this was the wine that I brought. This means that out of three tastings, people have hated two of my selections. Both times, the wines were strong, powerful, and inky.

People found the Langhorn Shiraz to have a highly, highly alcoholic nose - it had a rather high alcohol content of 15.3%. It had a really dark color. Inky. You could barely see through it to the other side of the glass.

With flavors of dried figs, cloves, and even pipe tobacco, I think the group found that this wine was a little much. Did it suffer from following three whites? Maybe. Although I think only my wife and I liked it. It was a pretty unanimous trashing.

Which is unfortunate since in the past, I've found this to be a smooth and wonderfully drinkable wine. I've had it three times now. The first two times it had the same inky color and the same high alcohol content, but it seemed more refined.

At $12.99, I have to say that I would be reticent about picking up a bottle again. If I saw it on sale for maybe $8.99 or $9.99 I would be willing to give it another try especially if I had some cheeseburgers( with blue cheese) or a flank steak grilling.

Regardless of whether or not you like it, this dusty wine is really Australian: dark eggplant color and in your face potency.

RATING: 1.5 screwcaps
LABEL: Langhorn: The Winner's Tank
GRAPE: Shiraz
PRICE: $12.99

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