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A Trip to Sonoma Valley
Spanish Wine in San Francisco
Not Your Typical Chardonnay
Just to close out my week of Napa trip recap, I have to share a funny thing about Chardonnay. I'm of the belief that 99.99% of wine drinkers hate it. My reasoning for this goes beyond Sideways comments and arises from the fact that at every winery we went to a week ago, a chardonnay would be part of the flight tastings. While that kind of consistency was to be expected, what was really funny was the nearly verbatim description of the chardonnay as they poured it. It was something along the lines of, "A very bright, crisp chardonnay. No oak at all. Not your typical chardonnay. Very enjoyable." This translates in to yeah, kinda drinkable. Maybe better mixed in a spritzer. Certainly not going to buy it.
Those winery pouring lines are the same words that I hear from the 0.01% of wine drinkers who like chardonnay and are always trying to pimp it to the rest of us. What is it with this wine? I mean really, in general it sucks. Yeah, I'm a red wine drinker, but I do like a good deal of whites. Chardonnay just always tastes like the bastard child of the winery that they've begrudgingly made because they feel that they have to. Well, lemme tell ya, you don't. You can stop. You can stop tomorrow. You can rip out all those vines and put in viognier or anything. Just stop making chardonnay. I know that you'd lose those drunken, super plasticized "Corvette couples" with the fake tans and all, but seriously, who buys more wine? Red freaks like my woman and I, that's who. I've got four cases at home right now just because I like to look at it and be prepared for spontaneous party attacks. But is there any chardonnay in there? No. None. At. All.
I Love Frog's Leap
As I said yesterday, Frog's Leap Winery is great. Like many wineries, they do charge for an actual tasting ($10 I believe) and you have to make reservations, which sucks quite a lot seeing as how I'm not the reservations kind of guy when it comes to my vino boozin'. But, making up for that is the fact that they seem to have a bottle of something always open and are willing to pour it if you stop in unannounced. Ah, but what good is one small glass of wine? Well, if you step out back of their house, you can sit outside on the rocking chairs and benches overlooking the vines. This is one of the most soothing things we did in our afternoon of travels. While it was quite warm that day, this covered area made for a lovely spot to just sit for a good long while.
But as you notice, I said "house" as in something like a living domicile. This wasn't a mistake in words because their main place is built just like a house. It's really strange, but this is what it is. They've got a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, and the lovely, wonderful back porch. I mean really, it feels like I've walked in to my grandparents' home and then someone pops out and greets you. No concierge. No snootiness. Just a bit of over-zealous friendliness, but I'll gladly take that over any kind of attitude.
Once we were done with a glass of free Sauvignon Blanc and came back in there, wasn't any push to buy wines. Not even a subtle one. They just seemed happy to have us and it was great. Naturally, this technique got me to spend $45 on a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon which, if it's half as good as the staff there, will be great!
Enjoying the Silverado Trail
You Stay Classy Washington State
So, despite all this crazy warm weather we've been having, the choice was made to stay indoors at night and enjoy the offerings of The Hidden Vine. As I've summed up before, they pick a different region of wine to showcase each month. This month happens to be the wines of Washington state.
Naturally, like any Californian aspiring to wine snobbery, when I heard 'Washington' and 'wine' in the same sentence, I just had to laugh. In fact, I almost didn't even get them because I thought it was just pointless. But this little nagging voice in my head reminded me that Angela and David (the owners) do a great job in finding the best wines of any region they decide to feature. They also know that they need to keep up the high caliber of wines they offer or folks just won't come back anymore (let me emphasize there has never been a problem in this area). So, I sucked up my native Californian pride and got the flight of reds to try.
I can't create much of a buildup here, because they were great. However they've figured out to do it, these Washingtonians are putting out some tasty vino. I can't really speak to the specific varietals that there were since we also shared a Pinot-Syrah blend from Ceja Vineyard which was heavenly and blurred the mind a great deal. But, one wine that really stuck out in the group from WA was the Cabernet Sauvignon. It was really well balanced and tasty. I am of course a complete neophyte when it comes to really knowing what a great wine is, but I enjoyed this a lot. The other two had a lot of character as well and overall, it was a great sample from The Evergreen State up north.
A Taste of the Past
Movia - Pinot Noir - 2001
It was a cold and rainy April of 2006 when I was in Ljubljana, Slovenia but I was having a good time. I made a lot of friends when I was there, but Alja, was one friend in particular who enjoyed red wine and that for me is an instant connection. For, even the worst of conversations over a good glass of wine can just be about the flavors and that is something you can talk for hours about.
At any rate, we wandered down to Stara Ulica in the old city of Ljubljana and went to a wine bar there that I had noticed days before but hadn't ventured in to. It turned out to be a lovely, inviting place to sit out the rain and was rather uncrowded. It also happened that this wine bar was [still is] THE Movia wine bar. I didn't think anything of it, since the name didn't sound Slavic and so that must have meant it was some cheesy foreign affair. Oh how wrong I was. As I learned while sitting there with a cab sauv, these Movia wines were some of the finest in Slovenia. While this cabernet wasn't what I was used to in California, it was still damned good and complex.
Intrigued, I moved on to a Pinot Noir, or as it is sometimes called, Pinot Nero, but never Crni Pinot for some reason. I believe it must have been the 2000 that I had because of the length of time that they age their wines. It knocked me backwards. It was in one word: amazing. I raved and raved about it only to return back to the US, hungry to find someone who imports this wine, to find that A) there are very few and B) it is rather cost prohibitive to my standard wine budget.
So, after giving up hope of ever tasting this wine in the land of my birth, I was told by a wine importer whom I work for that A Cote in Oakland would be having a slew of Movia wines paired with a five course meal and hosted (or narrated as I found out) by Aleš Kristančič who is part of the family that has been making these wines since 1820. I could ramble on and on about how great the food was, how good the company was (Elia I realize it was a treat to go, but it is an even greater treat to share a meal with someone meaningful) but it was the second course where they poured the 2001 Pinot Noir.
I looked at my glass. Could it be my long-lost wine? I inhaled and did all the stupid snobby things you do when trying to be pretentious, and then I drank. It was as I remembered. The deep flavors swirled around. It had for lack of a better word a great plushness you could love. There was a slight tannic aftertaste to it, but it finished great. Yes, they do a fine job with this wine. But, was it as good as I remember when in Ljubljana? Well, naturally the answer to that is no. When you go from drinking a wine an hour drive from where it is made to drinking it an 11 hour flight from where it is made, things change. And of course, there is the romance of drinking a great wine in Europe in the Old City of a town. Would I drink it again if given the chance? Of course. I find that Movia seems to managed to get a twist to their wines that has a real California element to them. I'm not sure if that is an insult or a compliment, but I mean it lovingly as I love the wines in my home state to no end.
Čara - Marco Polo Pošip - 2005
This is a Croatian white that always seems to sell out fast here in the US and as I finally found out after getting my hands on a bottle it, there is a very good reason. It is delicious!
I'm trying to think of what to compare in to in varietals that people have had here, but I really can't think of any. Well, maybe a little Sauvignon Blanc with some Pinot Grigio and a bit of Riesling. But that's all really just a guess since it is very much its own grape. The immediate flavors are light, slightly sweet, and slightly dry. The nose is wonderful, so make sure you drink it in a glass that will capture this. There are hints of honey and it's very floral without being overpowering at all.
The best part about this is that I didn't taste any oak in it and I hate oak in a white which is the reason I tend to despise most Chardonnays. It's also incredibly smooth. While it doesn't have the buttery texture like the Bibich Debit, it has this great round quality to it that I can really only say is like a very good Pinot Noir, although it tastes nothing like that red. But, once you complete a taste of it, you're greeted by a quick aftertaste of mint that I found to be nothing short of pretty fantastic.
But, enough already, if you want to try it, read more.
Zlatan Plenković - Zlatan Plavac Grand Cru - 2003
This is the bigger (and much more expensive) brother of Zlatan Plavac barrique. Then of course, there is the straight Zlatan Plavac which is just a basic table wine. Still tasty, but definitely not the barrique and not the Grand Cru. So, what makes the difference between the Grand Cru and barrique worth $17? I'll get to that.
For a little back story, 'plavac' is a grape varietal grown in Croatia that this is grape very, very closely related to California Zinfandel and they share the same root grape. This being the case, you definitely taste a lot of Zin in any Plavac Mali that you drink. Of course, you taste a lot of other things as well. In this case, the wine is quite dry. I would say that the Grand Cru is even a bit more dry than the barrique. There are the slight berry hints in the nose and an overall smoothness to the wine when drinking. As with any Old World wine, you've really, really gotta let this puppy decant before drinking. A half hour is mandatory. An hour is even better. Straight out of the bottle, the tannins are really strong, but given time to adjust to its short life in the air outside its homeland, the wine develops all kinds of subtleties. So many that I really don't have a sophisticated enough nose or palate to understand all of them. Also, because there is a relatively high alcohol content in this wine compared to many European wines, your mouth is lose many of the swirling hints of various flavors as you you make your way down the bottle.
One flavor is particularly striking in the wine and I would say is the biggest difference between it and the barrique. It's this flavor that I can only sum up as 'dandelion'. That's completely the wrong word, but to me, it's a slightly acrid, dry flavor that you taste the longer the wine has been let to breath. I can't say it was a flavor that I warmed towards, but it was definitely interesting and gave a great deal of texture to the taste. Of course, this is in addition to the other flavors that I'm most likely missing.
So, is this wine worth the price? If you have the tongue and nose for it, then yes, you'll definitely find it a worthy wine. For me, I am a simple man and I find the barrique to be absolutely wonderful for my tastes. Both are deep, rich, and wonderful wines that when I serve them to friends, get the reaction, "This is from Croatia? I had no idea they made good wine." Obviously, I want to keep the secret mine as I'm sure these will go up in price in time, but then again, I love to share wine that I love.

