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I am really excited to be co-hosting  St Supéry for Taste Live on July 11th.  Since St Supéry has been producing outstanding wines from their 1500+ acres in Napa Valley since the early 1980′s, and since I have written about them several times before here and here, I am really looking forward to this opportunity to taste them along with you on Twitter with several groups around the country, and hundreds on line.

At  St Supéry, their wine making history stems from the Skalli family’s French roots, and Bordeaux varietals are the particular focus.  Additionally, St Supéry is well known for their Moscato and Chardonnay.

We will have the opportunity to taste through the following delights and talk live the returning star winemaker, Michael Scholz. Scholz is a 6th generation family winemaker from Australia’s Barossa Valley, and has created the distinctive sty le that has made St. Supéry a landmark destination in Napa Valley.  He is new to Twitter, and will be answering questions about the wines for us as we taste.

St. Supéry farms according to sustainable viticultural practices, including use of c over crops, estate composting, and natural predators.  On my recent adventure at the winery, Vineyard Manager Josh Anstey showed us how they do this, and walked us through their demonstration vineyard as well as thier practices.

In 2008, Wine & Spirits Magazine named St. Supéry “Outstanding Winery of the Year”, and it really shows!  Their signature property, The Dollarhide vineyard, is an historic cattle and horse ranch nestled among the hills of Napa Valley.  It was here that Robert Skalli, the wineries founder, planted the Bordeaux grapes in the early 1980s, and developed the Rutherford estate property as the home of the winery and their first class Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards.

These are just a few of many reasons why you should join us for our tasting on July 11th!  We will be experiencing four superstar star wines:

• Moscato 2008
  
• Sauvignon Blanc 2008
• Virtu 2006
• Cabernet 2004

If you are here in the San Francisco Bay Area,  head on down to the Jug Shop on Polk & Pacific, where you can taste live some of the winery crew.  For full details, you can visit their events page here.

If you want to host your own Taste Live with St Supéry, you can find out how by going over to the website now!

See you in the Twittersphere at 6pm PT on July 11th!

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To learn more about Twitter Taste Live, click the logo!

And dies.  So much for Twitter Taste LIVE right?  Although we didnt’ get to tweet and share our tasting notes in real time, I was very happy to be able to share the Cornerstone Cellars Napa wines with my group of blogger friends anyway.

So there we were, surrounded by friends, sipping on some amazing Cabernet and eating some tasty treats provided by The Winehiker.

We worked backwards from 2005 to 2002, and while we probably could have let these air more, time did not allow.  If i were to taste them again, I would decant them all for at least 2 hours before the first taste, and periodically taste them over 24 hours to give them their full potential.

Cornerstone Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2005 – $65

This is 100% Cab Sav, and comes from three areas of Napa:  Howell Mountain, the western edge of Oakville, and the Southeast corner of Napa Valley.  The blending of these three distinct areas really created something special here.

Wow!  What a big boy.  I immediately smelled dark fruit, cherry and blackberry.  Upon first sip, it was like drinking blackberry cider, with some baking spice to top it off.  This was a full but soft wine, with some earthy spice on the backend.  It’s ready to drink now, and is full and lush with very little noticeable tannin.  What I love about this cab is that it is not overpowering, both of fruit and on oak.  Nicely balanced.

Cornerstone Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain 2004 – $100

This 2004 Howell Mountain came from a high elevation vineyard, which shows off the complexity of the Howell Mountain District.

I tasted a lot of cocoa powder, followed by soft rich fruit, baking spices and evergreen.  The dark fruit was nicely ripened, and the bits of earth really balanced out the rich fruit.  It’s a big, bold, but soft wine with a great backbone.  I found that the 2004 had more structure than the 05 Napa, and it showed with tons of blackberry and meaty characteristics.  it was a full wine, and one you could chew on.  I found the 05 Napa was fruitier and plusher than this wine, and the Howell Mtn could stand up to a good pice of meat.

The 2004 was definitely my favorite of the night.  It had the power of a classic Napa cab, but was not overwhelming.  At the same time, it had a nice balance of fruit and a good.

Cornerstone Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain 2002 (Library Release) – $125

This is the Library Reserve selection of the Howell Mountain, and it was very interesting to taste them side by side.  I found it to be a bit lackluster for my taste, with flavors of stewed fruit.  It had a very meaty flavor profile, but was a bit muddy.  I enjoyed all three of these wines, and even enjoyed the 2002 Howell Mountain, but preferred the 2004.

Thanks for another fun event!

You’re the Rhone that I want!  That’s the theme for this year’s Hospices du Rhône event, and it’s a great one.  To tie in with this annual extravaganza, Twitter Taste Live is doing a multi-national, multi-coastal, multi time zone tasting event that you can be a part of!
It all kicks off at 7pm local time, on Friday – April 17th.

The first stop is 7pm GMT where in the UK where Robert McIntosh from wineconversation.com will be tasting along with some bloggers and tweeps.

Then we move across the pond to the East Coast, where Joe Roberts, the ONE the ONLY 1winedude, will host live from Wine Riot in Boston at 7pm EDT.  They will be tasting:

• Rutherglen The Alliance  (Viognier/Marsanne) 2006
  
• Fireblock Grenache 2004
• Four Vines The Peasant (Grenache) 2006
• Bonny Doon Le Vol Des Anges (Late Harvest Roussanne) 2007

Then we move out West.  Out here the cowboys of the wine industry will be in multiple locations, at 7pm Best Coast Time!  Oops sorry, I mean PDT.

• A tweet-up will be happening at ESATE Restaurant in Sonoma.  For the bargain price of $12 and a bottle of Rhone wine, you too can join the crowd and tweet live from Sonoma!
• If you can’t make it to one of the live event, you can host your own!  If you can’t host your own, you can taste alone.  Pick one, pick a few but pick something!

Hope you can join us and and I look forward to Friday!

The west coast posse will be tasting:

Wow!  It’s that time again.  Twitter Taste Live!  This time, the good folks at Twitter Taste Live & Wilson Daniels are bringing us a delicious trio of Pinot Noir.  This TTL is dedicated to the love of Pinot, particularly since Jordan Mackay, the author of Passion for Pinot, will be in attendance at The Jug Shop to show off the book.

“Jordan Mackay has devoted the last eight years exploring, understanding, and writing about wine. Formerly a writer for Texas Monthly and wine columnist for the Austin American Statesman, he became Wine and Spirits editor for San Francisco’s 7×7 Magazine, and a contributing writer to Wine and Spirits. He has written about food and wine in publications ranging from Food and Wine, Gourmet, Decanter, and Wine Enthusiast to the New York Tim

es, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle.”

For this event, we have several groups getting together.  I will in Healdsburg with a posse of wine bloggers, including Matt (@mmwine), Shana (@sharayray), Amy (@winewonkette) & Joe (@houstonwino).  After enjoying a day of Barrel Tasting in Dry Creek, we will settle down for dinner and pinots.  Having been one of the elite pre-tasters with Agent Red at Wilson Daniels in January, I am anticipating this live tasting event more than others.
We will be tasting the following line up on Saturday, March 14th at 5pm PT:

• WillaKenzie Estate Pinot Noir 2007
• Gainey Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir 2006
• Sonoma Coast Vineyards Pinot Noir 2005

If you have any trouble finding the “official” wines, just grab your favorite pinot and taste along!  Hope to see you in the Twitterverse.

Have you ever wanted an excuse to open a special bottle of wine you have been holding on to, but just can’t quite bring yourself to crack?  Now is your chance!

Saturday, February 28th, marks the annual Open That Bottle Night celebration, an event started by that wine writing couple from the Wall Street Journal – Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher^. In the late 1990s, OTBN was born as an opportunity encourage their readers not to be intimidated by their wine, and to open a significant bottle and share their stories.

Since wine blogging has exploded int he last year or so, I am partnering with Vinquire (my other wine obsession) and Wilson Daniels, along with twitter Taste Live, to open some tasty treats and share with you.  Wilson Daniels is a full services sales & marketing company, which represents brands from throughout the US as well as internationally.  Having worked with them on Passion for Pinot as well as this event, I am impressed by their quality of product as well as service.  Check them out!

I will be blending wine earlier in the day, but around 6pm PT / 9pm ET, please join me on Twitter (@vinquire) to hear about the following wines, generously provided by Wilson Daniels.  If you can’t play along, check out The Jug Shop or your favorite retailer, and participate from your sofa, easy chair, or corkage free restaurant!  If you are having trouble locating the wines, please click the links below, which will take you to our Vinquire search page.

• 2005 Marc Kreydenweiss Kritt Pinot Blanc "Les Charmes", Alsace, France
• 2006 Domaine Pierre Morey Aligoté, Burgundy, France
• 2005 Domaine Marc Kreydenweiss Perrières, Costières de Nîmes, France
• 2006 Tenuta di Biserno Insolgio del Cinghiale, Toscana IGT; Italy

Hope you can all join us!  By the way, I found out about a nifty new Twitter tool.  Have you tried Tweet Grid?  This cool little app lets you follow along with hashtags like #ttl.  It auto refreshes too!

Yes it’s true.  It’s another post about Pinot Noir.  What can I say?  I love it!  Recently, I was invited to participate in a tasting selection committee for an upcoming Twitter Taste Live.  The illustrious Wine Spies, and the luxury wine company Wilson Daniels were our hosts, as we tasted our way through 6 premium Pinots from California and Oregon.

Since this tasting was blind, I will review them blind and then reveal the secret at the end including what we will be tasting on March 14th, for the Passion for Pinot TTL. I hope you will join us as we taste wines A, D, and E live across the country!

Wine A – I love Pinot Noir.  I mean i REALLY love pinot.  This 2005 Sonoma Coast example was no disappointment.  This juicy little number had a bright cherry nose, with hints of Jolly Rancher, a bit of spice, and characteristic cherry cola aroma.  I also found a slight vegetal & herbaceous quality, which had a touch of mint & ceder on the initial sniff, but opened up in to bright fruit and mushrooms.  I tasted bright strawberries, cherries, and raspberry juice, and really liked the long lingering finish with baking spices tingling my tongue.   A tasty delight that I will seek out and buy again!  I gave this wine an A-, high praise from this lush since I am a picky pinotphile.

Wine B – Pale ruby purple color, with candy apples and strawberries on the nose.  A floral, spicy wine that tasted a bit hot, with a ton of pepper and spice on the finish.  I detected a hint of smoke, and black raspberries along with dusty earth.  B+

Wine C – Minty fresh,

like toothpaste, on the nose.  The palate seemed to have less fruit than A & B.  Lots of evergreen and eucalyptus aromas.  Earthy and forest floor, with a sweet note on the finish.  Finish was not as long as the others, but still enjoyable.  It seemed a bit sharp.  B

Wine D – Nose had a classic cherry cola and baking spice smell.  Almost like a mince meat pie at Thanksgiving.  The palate tasted slightly flat to me, with dust and earth.  A lot of dusty pepper.  There were tons of dark baking spices in the palate, which I normally like but this had a lot of alcohol that was obvious in the taste.  There was a bright berry profile underneath.  C

Wine E – Cherry co

la, strong berry and cheery flavor with strawberry and raspberry.  White pepper and spice, with a slightly dull finish like dusty nutmeg.  B+

Wine F – Deep reddish purple color, with rich spices and black cheery aroma.  The palate has rich black cherries and bark in the background, with notes of Dr. Pepper and oaky spice.  I detected a slight sour cherry finish but mainly enjoyed the dark cherry cola.  B

In our crew of tasters, wine A came in first place, followed closely by wine E and D.  I am excited to taste these again with our friends at the Twitter Taste Live Event!

Now for the reveal:

• Wine A – 2005 Sonoma Coast Vineyard
• Wine B – 2007 Willakenzie Estate Cuvee (Willamette Valley)
• WIne C – 2007 Clos Pegase Mitsuko’s Vineyard
• WIne D – 2006 Gainey Santa Rita Hills
  
• Wine E – 2006 Willakenzie Pierre Lyon (Willammette Valley)
• Wine F – 2005 Sonoma Coast Freestone

If you need help locating any of these pinots, wander on over to Vinquire for some search help.  I was on the ball, and grabbed the 2005 Sonoma Coast from The Wine Spies, but will be seeking out the Gainey and Willakenzie for future imbibing soon.

One of the interesting things I discovered from this exercise is that, YES, i actually DO like Oregon Pinot.  I had a suspicious this was true a while ago, but I have had so many examples that are not my style, that I was wary every time someone said “Willamette”.  I am pleased to report that there are some delicious examples that even I enjoy!

Cheers!

What is the deal with all of these numbers?  What do they really mean?  Who decided that every wine has to be rated on one scale, 1-100 anyway?  It certainly wasn’t me.  For the most part I use the:

1. HELL no you aren’t gonna pry this out of my cold dead hands!
2. Damn that’s some good wine!
3. Ohhh I like it
4. Ah well it’s a party anyway
5. What the F?

But alas, there is a preponderance of rating scales out there and the most popular is the 100 point scale favored by overblown wine critics every where. Wine shopes are filled with wines that either haven’t been deemed as worthy enough to rate, or those that didnt’ score the coveted 90+ points required to sell out quickly, thereby ensuring the futures of the winemakers college educations.

For this Twitter Taste Live, on Saturday December 13th, we are being hosted by David Honig of The 89 Project.  The goal of the project is to expose wines that might otherwise flounder in the dusty bottom shelves of BevMo.  Those wines that are perfectly drinkable, if not enjoyable, and are still inexpensive enough to be worthly of your Carbonara.  The 89 Project seeks to join bloggers, wine lovers and reviewers to cross-post their thoguhts on these 89 point wines.

For the first time, we are being sent our Twitter Taste Live wines BLIND!  That’s right folks.  We aren’t going to knwo what they are.  It’s a SURPRISE!  This will elminate any posturing over lables or regions that might be less than stellar in our minds eyes.  The project participants will all sit down and taste these wines at the same time, and tweet about them – LIVE.

I for one am looking forward to this event and am excited to share our opinions with the wine commuinity!

If you would like to participate, please go to Twitter Taste Live and sign up.  If you’re not already a member, please take a moment to join.  It’s free, and it’s fun!  Just tell them I sent you and then you can RSVP to upcoming events.

Click HERE to order the blind four pack directly from Binendswine.com

Click HERE to RSVP or to join Twitter Taste Live!

It’s that time of year again.  Can you really believe that it’s Thanksgiving NEXT WEEK?  I’m in a bit of a state of panic myself.  That being said, I wanted to call your attention to a wine event on Friday, November 21st.  This special event is hosted by Humanitas Wines, Twitter Taste Live, Twittermoms.com and Lenndevours.com, in an effort to support the local food banks during this needy time.

While it is too late to ship the wine out to anyone not in the Bay Area, you still have 1.5 days to either:

Find a Twitter party or run up to Napa to pick up the wines!  There are a few local stores that carry them, click through to see the locations.

We will be tasting:

• 2006 Sauvignon Blanc-Monterey
• 2007 Chardonnay “Oak Free”-Monterey
• 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon-Paso Robles
• 2006 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast

Humanitas is dedicated to changing the world, one sip of delicious wine at a time.  They donate the profits made from these wines to charities, which find solutions to hunger, housing, and illiteracy.  For this event, proceeds are going to feed the hungry, something close to my heart at this time of year.

In 1997, founder Judd Wallenbrock, who is the President & General Manager of Michel-Schlumberger as well as running Humanitas, had a driving desire to help those less fortunate than ourselves.  Inspired by companies such as Newman’s Own, he started Humanitas to fulfill two dreams:  Owning his own winery, and giving back

Having been fortunate enough to taste some of the Humanitas wines at the Wine Bloggers Conference, I am really excited about both contributing to the local food bank, and having another opportunity invite my wine community friends over, sip some amazing wines from all over California, and do Twitter Taste Live!  Won’t you join us?

Enjoy Humanitas…Drink Charitably!

Last Saturday, a group of bloggers and I got together to participate in Twitter Taste Live, Bloggers Take Over.  Twitter Taste Live is an opportunity for Tweeple (or Twits as I prefer to call them) to taste the same wines at the same time, and Tweet (or blog or video) about them communally.  This is a chance for a larger community to taste collectively, regardless of their physical location.

For this TTL, we had the opportunity to pick our own wines.  As most of us had gone to the Wine Bloggers Conference, we were lucky enough to have blogger samples of Hahn Estates wines to taste.  Since this was a Blogger’s Chocie TTL, I thought that it was a great opportunity to pool our samples and get together as a group to taste.  There were four bloggers, a hapless victim, and a lot of wine!  Joining me in our mad adventure were The Brix Chicks, Liza & Xandria, DrXeno of WineLog, and James, a friend who I managed to convince to join Twitter for the occasion.  If you haven’t followed these guys on Twitter, go ahead!  It’s fun!

The Hahn Estates wine company has several brands.  One of my personal favorites is Huntington Wine Cellars, part of the Front Street Five (or is it 6 now?) on the south side of Healdsburg.  For this tasting, we were given blogger samples of the Hahn Estates and Hahn SLH lines, and we were happy to taste through and provided our feedback.  Also participating in our tasting were Russ, the Winehiker

, and Matt, who enjoys Babbling about NOthing as well as having A Good Time with Wine.  They weren’t in the room, but they were tasting along, which is the entire purpose of Twitter Taste Live.

• 2007 SLH Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Gris - lemonade, refreshing.  Tons of citrus and tropical fruit.  Nice round mouthfeel, not super crisp, nicely balanced with some creaminess and flavors of pinkgrapefruit. B+

• 2006 SLH Santa Lucia Highlands Chardonnay – Meyer lemon, tangerine, spicy oak. Very spicy, tastes overdone on the oak.  Lemon curd, maybe custard? C+ It’s too spicy and oaky for my taste in Chardonnay.

• 2006 Monterey Pinot Noir - Mushrooms, bark, forest floor.  very earthy spice pinot with a lot of evergreen…ceder? Lots of baking spice and cloves on the pinot, but has a finish that is a bit bitter and not very long.  B

• 2006 Central Coast Meritage – Very nice dusty cabernet nose. Very fruity, a lot of plum & blackberry on the front palate.  Long cab franc finish, but not very deep, with hints of plum tarte. Blend is 33% Merlot, 30% Cab Sav, 19% Pet Verdot, 11% cab franc, 7% malbec. Not very interesting but great value at $10.99. C+

• 2006 SLH Santa Lucia Highlands Syrah – This is a deep dark brooding man.  Lots of dusy blackberry on the nose. Tons of chocolate on the palate with blackberry pie and ripe plums. Definately a cool climate syrah that tickles my nose with white pepper and numbs my tounge with clove flavors.  It opens up nicely to have big juicy notes of black and blue fruits, black raspberries, loganberries, with a sprinkling of cloves & allspice.  I love this syrah. It’s very spicy, but would go well with red meat. I don’t eat red meat but well you know what I mean.  A-

• 2006 Central Coast Cabernet Sauvignon – spicy nose & palate.  Very fruity, a bit boring.  Very dry finish on the cab, not really my style.  C

My overwhelming impressing is that these wines are very spicy. for the most part that is a good thing, but it overwhelms the cabernet, and disguises some of the more subtle flavors.  Is this a central coast / Monterey thing?  I don’t know.  It hink this calls for some more tasting to determine!  My fFavorites of the night were the 2006 Monterey Pinot Noir and the 2006 SLH Santa Lucia Highlands Syrah.

There were of course, special guest stars later in the evening, but that is another story for another time.

Stay tuned, the next Twitter Taste Live is TOMORROW November 21st!  Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find a wine made as closely to you as possible, drink and tweet.  While many of you may seek out grapes that are sourced nearby, us urban dwellers are lucky enough to find urban wineries nearby.  I am either going to have a Syrah produced at Crushpad, or something from a micro winery in the urban jungles of the East Bay.
Happy Tasting!

Our next Twitter Taste Live event is upon us!  In this iteration, the bloggers are taking over and tasting anything that they fancy.

This time, on November 15th, my fellow bloggers The Brix Chicks and DrXeno from Wine Log, will be tasting the following selections from Hahn Estates:

• 2007 SLH Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Gris
• 2006 SLH Santa Lucia Highlands Chardonnay
• 2006 Monterey Pinot Noir
• 2006 Central Coast Meritage
• 2006 SLH Santa Lucia Highlands Syrah
• 2006 Central Coast Cabernet Sauvignon

Come join us on Twitter Taste Live!  Tweet your wines with a #ttl and we’ll see what you’re saying!

If you’re not a member yet, join us, and tell them I sent you!