5 Wines Under $25

One of my favorite wine stores of all time is back up and running. Weygandt Wines in Washington DC's Cleveland Park neighborhood is re-launching with a great new selection of under $25 wines. They still have their classic offerings from Burgundy, Rhone and Germany, as well as an incredible selection of Austrian rieslings and gruner veltliner's from one of my all-time favorite producers, F.X. Pichler.

I stopped by the shop and tasted through five wines, all priced at less than $25. There is serious value out there in Old World wines, and I was impressed at how well these wines showed. The three pinots were all great, which is quite an achievement considering their low price point. Anyway, here are some notes... Cheers! Remember: drink well; drink cheap.

2008 Domaine des Cassagnoles Gros Manseng Vin de Pays des Côtes de Gascogne (France, Southwest France, Gascony, Vin de Pays des Côtes de Gascogne)

this wine is made from 100 percent gros manseng. the color is very light straw. the nose shows grass, flowers and green pears. the palate shows fresh acidity and delicious, tangy lemon-lime flavors. at $12, this wine is a steal, and a no-brainer for scallops, light pastas or salads. (86 pts)

2009 Christophe Denizot Givry Domaine des Moirots (France, Burgundy, Côte Chalonnaise, Givry)

i was surprised by the amount of funkiness on the nose. it's matched with bright red fruit as well, so it's interesting. the palate is bright with acid, it has a solid tannic structure. rich cherry fruit and a distinct iron note. this is a complex wine, but it's also straight up delicious and showing very well right now. this is a steal at $24. (90 pts) 

2009 Gerard & Pierre Morin Sancerre Rouge (France, Loire Valley, Upper Loire, Sancerre)

this pinot noir is really exciting, especially at $25. it's gorgeous purple in color, and the aromas are great: flowers, red currants, plums and just a little bit of loam. the palate is rich with red cherry fruit and dark chocolate, but the iron-like minerality and the fresh acid make this a balanced package. i really enjoyed it, and i think this wine could please pretty much any palate. (90 pts) 

2009 Gerard & Pierre Morin Sancerre Rouge Bellechaume (France, Loire Valley, Upper Loire, Sancerre)

this pinot noir was much richer in style. the nose was full of flowers and dark cherries. i really liked the silkiness of this wine, and the rich cherry and cranberry fruit. (88 pts) 

2010 L'Oustal Blanc (Isabel et Claude Fonquerle) Vin de France K (France, Vin de France) 

this 100 percent carignan is a gorgeous purple color in the glass. it smells like plum cake and blackberry sauce. the palate is really dense and rich. the alcohol shows a bit at 15%. there's a lot of sweet blackberries and milk chocolate on the palate. if you like fruit bomb syrahs, this wine is for you. (87 pts)

Tattoos - A Poem

“Tattoos” — Poem published in BloodLotus: An Online Literary Journal, August, 2011.

http://www.bloodlotusjournal.com/2011/08/bl-21.html

Blood Lotus is a great lit journal, and I'm thrilled they published this poem. I've pasted it below, but be sure to check out the journal because these people are doing great things with poetry and prose. Cheers!

Tattoos

a bright blue celtic cross

tattooed on my forearm

the first one, a dare

proud, green vines and

grapes etched into my leg

i thought i was finished

i fell down again, ended up

with a deck of cards on my hip

a salute to the will of chance

i almost lost my life, wound

up with nothing but a body

my wrist now says: vive la liberte

and a broken bone runs

across my arm, that one

just looked really cool

© Isaac James Baker

A Poem for a Philadelphia Friend

A Philadelphia Night

I showed up on your doorstep
loaded down with freedom, wine
and half a pack of cigarettes.
You invited me into your home,
gave me a drink and a listen.
To this day I remember it all:
the kitten kneading the couch,
smoke rising from the ashtray,
the smoothe taste of good gin.
You told me about Portofino,
where truffles prefer to grow,
how to hotwire a car in seconds.
I told you about Social Distortion,
where to catch the big waves,
how to fight dirty when needed.
We stayed up until dawn
betting on when the moon
would disappear over the rooftops.
It was a good night, and the sun
rose early on Philadelphia.

 

(c) Isaac James Baker
August 2011
Washington, DC

For discussion on this poem, visit: http://www.fledglingarts.org/content/philadelphia-night#comment-3659

Review of "The Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay

Peekay epitomizes the underdog. As a “rooinek” (of British blood), the other students in his largely Afrikaans boarding school hate him. They mock Peekay for speaking English, “the infected tongue that had spread like a plague into the sacred land and contaminated the pure, sweet waters of Afrikanerdom.” As a white kid in 1940s South Africa with a soul untainted by racism, he doesn’t fit in with the white supremacist crowd. As a boxer, he is small and stringy, nowhere near as big as Boers he fights in the ring. His name itself is a derivative of the nickname his elementary schoolmates gave him: Pisskopf. Yeah, it’s fair to say Peekay is an outcast.

The first 100 pages of this boxing story deal very little with actual boxing. Byrce Courtenay instead takes readers through Peekay’s struggles as a bedwetting screw-up in an Afrikaner boarding school for elementary students. Peekay is brutalized by his peers, forced by his superiors to sleep in his own piss. His only friend is a chicken named Granpa Chook, but even the chicken doesn’t stick around long. Peekay develops a bleak and cynical view of the world during these formative years. (“One thing is certain in life, just when things are going well, soon afterward they are certain to go wrong.” “All children are flotsam driven by the ebb and flow of adult lives.”)

Young Peekay’s narration is lovely, and considering this novel tops 500 pages, a solid narrator is a necessity. Peekay does offer a disclaimer to his own narration: “You may ask how a six-year-old could think like this. I can only answer that one did.” Peekay’s narration, language and personal understanding grow and develop with time and pages. By the end of the book, Peekay speaks as a young man who has garnered a whole lot of life experience.

The first mention of boxing comes while Peekay is on a train from his boarding school to home. Here young Peekay meets Hoppie, a railroad worker and amateur welterweight. Peekay is changed after watching Hoppie defeat a light heavyweight with a couple dozen extra pounds. It’s Peekay’s first introduction to boxing, and it has a profound impact on the impressionable boy. The fight, to Peekay, is “a perfectly wrought plan where small defeats big. First with the head and then with the heart.” Seeing Hoppie knock out a much bigger man gives Peekay hope. “ I had witnessed small triumph over big. I was not powerless.” It is Hoppie who helps Peekay realize his life-long goal: to become welterweight champion of the world. “You see,” Peekay explains when he decides to start training, “I’ve got to start boxing because I have to become the welterweight champion of the world.”

1999 Kestrel Cabernet Sauvignon

I have a thing about wine shops. I have to go into them, and then, once inside, I have to peruse their the entire collection. I guess it could be called compulsive behavior, but I like to think of it as a passion, or at least a decent way to spend a Saturday afternoon. On such a recent afternoon, I found myself on the Jersey Shore with two of my sisters and my brother. We'd spent a lot of time on the beach and wanted to pick up some wine on the way home to have with dinner.

It was supposed to be a quick stop, just some shop in a strip mall. I ended up in their California and Washington section, checking each bottle individually. It was like a wine thrift store, and there were all sorts of oddities on the shelves: Napa cabernets from as far back as 1989, Duckhorn merlots from the early 2000s, Au Bon Climat pinots from the late 90s. Judging from the dust on the bottles, it seemed likely that many of these wines had been sitting in this store since their release, which had me wondering about the quality of the wine in the bottle. Still, I picked up a few, including a 1999 Kestrel cabernet sauvignon from Washington’s Yakima Valley. It cost $30, and it was definitely worth it. I’m sure I lucked out, because some of the bottles on those shelves were certainly way past their drinking window. This wasn’t one of them.

Notes…
1999 Kestrel Cabernet Sauvignon (USA, Washington, Columbia Valley, Yakima Valley) 

the color on this 11-year-old cabernet is still a solid purple and almost opaque. this must have been a massive wine upon release. time has done its work on the aromas, providing dried currants, topsoil and sweet chewing tobacco. the palate is still vibrant, and the acid is tangy. this wine has dusty tannins and chewy currant fruit. i find a very distinct dark chocolate flavor in this wine, and i love it. sour cherries and earth flavors carry on to the finish.

A Chorus of Mendocino County Wines

My brother Zeke and his wife Bekah have been on a cross-country road trip from California to the East Coast by way of Utah, Chicago, Detroit and Ohio. After a weekend at Belmar Beach, the New Jersey town my brother and I grew up in, we came down to DC for a wine party I organized. The theme: "Mostly Mendocino."

It was the wedding of Zeke and Bekah that first brought me to Mendocino County, California. Since then, I've fallen in love with the region. I've toured many vineyards and tasting rooms: Breggo, Parducci, Roederer Estate, Nelson Family, Tahto, McFadden,Yorkville Cellars. I hiked through vineyards in Potter Valley and helped the maker of Tahto wines crush his chardonnay. I explored the redwoods and the rugged coast. Mendocino County is an enchanting place, and many wine producers seem capable of bottling that enchantment. So, I figured, since my family was in town, I'd open some Mendocino County wines. I was surrounded by great people and great wines, so it was obviously quite a night.

2007 Syrahs

I had two 2007 syrahs from Mendocino, both from producers I know, visited and loved. I figured it would be fun to open them together. These wines were drained quickly.

• 2007 Parducci Syrah - Mendocino County
  this was the first wine of the evening, and the crowd loved it. it smells like earth and bright red fruit. the palate is fresh and lively, with plum and spicy red fruit. candy apple red and licorice on the finish. zeke and bekah really liked this wine. i love parducci wines, and this is a great bargain at $20 (89 pts.)
• 2007 Breggo Cellars Syrah - Anderson Valley
  this wine showed really well and was a great contrast with the 2007 parducci syrah. aromas of spiced clove, bacon and plum sauce. the palate has great acid and smoothness. wonderful balance. delicious plum flavors and some earth on the finish. (90 pts.)

Coros

Coro means chorus in Italian and Spanish. The term sums up the idea behind this collective group of wines: producers working together with common goals and grapes to make delicious wines, each with its own distinctiveness. Coro is kind of like a winemaking club. If you make an amazing wine with zinfandel, syrah, grenache and a few other grapes, and you submit it to this organization, you just might be able to label a bottle of your wine "Coro." The labels are striking similar, even from different producers and vintages. I love zinfandel and Rhone varietals like syrah and grenache. These wines were all very different, but all intriguing in their own right. They paired wonderfully with a wide array of creamy cow cheeses, although, to be honest, the Parducci Coros would have gone well with chocolate or dates and nuts.

• 2005 Parducci Coro Mendocino - Ukiah Valley
  the first coro of the evening impressed a lot of people. the nose is gorgeous: dates, port, prunes and raisins. the palate is absolutely gushing with fruit. it's like chocolate pie and raspberry tart. smooth finish. this is a really fruit-forward, unashamed wine. it is what it is, but this hit the spot. 60% zinfandel, 25% syrah and 15% petite sirah. (89 pts.)
• 2006 Parducci Coro Mendocino - Ukiah Valley
  the 2006 coro was much different than the 2005. the nose showed raspberries, plum cake and cinnamon disk candies. this is bright and tangy on the palate. shows great smoothness. the 2006 is made up of 55% zinfandel, 20% syrah, 15% petite sirah, and 10% grenache. (88 pts.)
• 2007 Guinness McFadden Coro Mendocino - Mendocino County
  the 2007 guinness mcfadden coro was also very different. lots of vanilla on the nose, along with a medley of fresh red and black fruit. fresh and silky on the palate. smooth and lucious with bold fruit. the acid and solid tannic structure in this wine keeps it balanced. very impressive effort. thanks, zeke and bekah, for bringing this great bottle. 60% zinfandel, 27% syrah, 13% petite sirah. (91 pts.)

Three California Reds

Well, we didn't just stick to Mendocino. I've been a fan of the Sonoma Coast and Paso Robles, and this flight showcased three solid wines.

• 2007 A.P. Vin Pinot Noir Kanzler Vineyard - Sonoma Coast 

  

  

  Three Bakers: Zeke (left), me, and Priscilla (right)

  
  i had this in 2009, but this wine has softened down since then. the nose is absolutely intoxicating with its ripe, gushing fruit. it's a bit candied, but i still enjoy it. zeke, bekah, me and a whole lot of others really loved this wine. (90 pts.)
• 2007 Tahto Petite Sirah Limited Production Reserve - Potter Valley
  this bottle was another one of zeke's contributions to the tasting. the nose is inky and dark. i love the boldness of this wine, its dark fruit, and the meaty note on the finish. (90 pts.)
• 2009 J. Lohr Cabernet Sauvignon Seven Oaks - Paso Robles
  this wine wasn't from mendocino, but we threw it into the tasting. this wine is always a solid, fruity cabernet. smooth tannins and some toasty oak. never great, but always crowd-pleasing. (85 pts.)