2009 Mario Ercolino Saserello

Upon stating that I didn’t know what to write, Jonathan told me I should start with something like It was a dark and stormy night.... Then he promptly told me he had dibs on that intro. So I’m back to not knowing how to start the story on this one. Apparently I had a little too much wine too quickly this evening. ;)

So I guess I’ll just get to the gist of it. We recently joined a new wine club to try something different. We now get a case of wine 4 times a year from the Zagat Wine Club and this came from our most recent case.

The facts:

2009 Mario Ercolino Saserello
Variety: 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, 25% Sangiovese, 25% Syrah

Region: Sicilia, Italy
Winemaker: Mario Ercolino



My take

The nose is red with an earthy touch, but without being too brown. Before eating anything, the wine is spicy and full up front (but not in an overwhelming way) with a good range of flavors. This wine struck me as fairly complex – more complex than I expected from a wine club wine. (Perhaps my expectations are too low?) The spice carries through the middle and then ends with a dry finish.

All that being said, if you’re a red meat eater – try this wine with steak. The bottle itself suggests it pairs well with “richly flavoured dishes such as steak with a peppercorn sauce, slow-cooked venison with juniper and full-flavoured cheeses” and it lives up to those claims (at least as far as a peppery steak is concerned). The peppery steak took the edge right off the dry and deepened the flavors. I still got spice in the front and middle, but with the meat, the wine rounded out in a dark purple red for a smooth, long finish.

This is one I would definitely buy again. Two bottles came with our wine club shipment and they’re already gone. For the price point, this could easily be a go-to wine that you keep on hand for a good steak dinner without breaking the bank.

Price Point: $12.00 a bottle

2005 Surfrider Red - reviewed by Kerri

The facts:

2005 Surfrider Red
Region: Malibu Newton Canyon, California
Variety: 73% Merlot, 26% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1% Petit Verdot
Aging: French oak, 18 months
Winemaker: Christian Roguenant



My take:
Upon first pour, the wine was rather red and smelled red-pink. A full glass looks purplish and smells a little jammy.

The first sip was rather surprising. I didn’t get that full, in your face, jammy sip of a California wine that I was expecting. On the contrary, it is more mellow than what I normally expect from a California wine. After reading about the wine and the winemaker at the Rosenthal Estate website, it's not that surprising. The winemaker lived in Burgundy for some time and the wine is aged only in French oak. (For reference, I make it a practice not to read anything about the wine before I taste and draft my review. I don't want to be biased or unduly influenced by what I read prior to writing my review.)

I’d call this one a good sipping wine.

I find it to be medium bodied with a nice mouth-feel. It’s not too dry (though it’s more so if you pull some air over it), but it’s also not very creamy. It’s somewhere in the middle. Very nicely balanced. The downside to this wine is fairly short and you’re not going to get a huge amount of complexity from it. Like I said..., a good sipping wine.

Price point:
$24-$29

Frankly, though I think this is a nice wine, it’s too short and not complex enough in my opinion to warrant that price tag. $15..., sure. $30...,nope. (We must have gotten this one through wine club or as a gift.) That being said, the label says, "For each bottle purchased, a donation is made to the Surfrider Foundation, a grassroots, non-profit, environmental organization that works to protect our oceans, waves, and beaches."

Hey wait, does that mean my wine tonight is tax deductible? ;)

2007 Trivento Amado Sur - reviewed by Kerri

And we’re back!

Apologies for the radio silence on the blog. With the holidays and then some health issues, reviewing wine has proven a bit difficult in the last several weeks. Now that the second blizzard of the 2009-2010 winter season has hit our area, we’re happy to be snowed in with a bottle of wine, heat, and our laptops.

I picked up this wine from a local grocery store, so presumably it’s readily available in the states. I’ve actually purchased this wine a couple of times (Jonathan loves it, as I’m sure you’ll see from his review), but I have yet to drink it. I wanted to review this one in particular because Jonathan loves a Malbec and I’m notorious for hating them. So, with that as an intro, here’s my take.



My take:

There is quite a bit of intense fragrance on the nose. It smells purple-red to me. That in and of itself is a bit surprising to me, but I’ll get into that more in a moment.

A few swirl and sips later, I’d say it tastes dark purple and has most of its intensity and complexity in the middle. There is a nice subtle, yet mildly spicy quality in the middle. The finish is medium – not long, but not short either.

I’d say it’s medium bodied. And it’s not particularly dry, but it’s not velvety either. It’s too astringent to be velvety. A more velvety texture would likely develop with time, given the blend of grapes.

I’d call this one a good sipping wine, if you like the purple, maybe purple-black, end of the flavor spectrum. What I find most surprising is what it lacks. It lacks that gray ashiness that I usually get from Malbecs. Must be tempered by the Syrah and Bonarda.

The Bonarda is a grape with which I’m unfamiliar. A quick search online reveals that it is widely grown in Argentina and is the same grape as Italy’s Dolce Nero, or Sweet Black. That would certainly explain the darkness that I get from this wine. Similarly, the Syrah is undoubtedly moderating some of the Malbec’s gray and bringing it more to the red side.

In taking the photograph of the wine, I saw the Wine Spectator sticker on the label. Apparently the Wine Spectator gave it 89 points. All things considered, I'd expect this one to age well.

The facts:

2007 Trivento Amado Sur
Region: Mendoza, Argentina
Variety: 72% Malbec, 16% Bonarda, 12% Syrah

Price point: $13

2005 Concannon Limited Reserve Petite Sirah

The facts:

2005 Concannon Limited Release Petite Sirah
Region: Central Coast, California
Winemaker: Adam Richardson
Variety: Petite Sirah



This wine is one of our regular stand-bys. We almost always have it on hand and drink it pretty often. We first tasted it at the DC International Wine & Food Festival a couple of years ago. We wandered by a table that was tasting wines from Big House and Concannon. The guy who was pouring the wine told us the Big House wines are more popular, but we liked the Concannon Limited Release Petite Sirah better than the Big House wines. And yes, that is a mouthful (no pun intended). I’m saying “Limited Release Petite Sirah” deliberately because the Concannon winery makes more than one petite sirah. The Limited Release one is the only one we’ve tried, but they also produce a Reserve Petite Sirah and a Heritage Petite Sirah. I’m also deliberately spelling it the way they spell it – makes it easier for you to find online, should you be searching for it.

At the time, when we first tasted it, neither of us could believe there was actually a California wine that we enjoyed. Now, that could have had something to do with the amount of wine we had already consumed that day, so when we saw it at the grocery store (yes folks, even Safeway carries it), we decided to give it another try. And we were pleasantly surprised once again. So we tend to keep it on hand. I’d call it a good sipping wine – not one that requires or demands food.

So here’s my take:

The wine smells dark red, maybe a little purple, with just a bit of the stringent alcohol scent/sensation. Upon sipping, it’s spicy and more complex than I’d expect from a wine in this price range and I think it has a rather long finish. It's on the dry side and I might call this one full-bodied.

As an aside, I’d love to have someone in the industry give me a light-bodied, medium-bodied, and full-bodied wine one after the other so I can feel the difference. Maybe then I'd actually get it. I had an experience like that at the International Wine Expo some years ago, when a pourer perfectly demonstrated for me what oak smells and tastes like. Ever since then I've been able to smell oak on a wine and now I know that I dislike oak aging of white wines – especially American oak. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program....

Drinking the LRPS (that’s the texting shorthand for Limited Release Petite Sirah, heheh) with Italian food (red sauce) made it taste a bit more on the purple side than red and made it less dry; kind of mellowed (dulled?) it out a bit. It definitely seems less complex and less spicy after the red sauce.

Price point:
$10 - $14 per bottle

Cat Amongst The Pigeons - reviewed by Kerri

The facts:

2007 Cat Amongst the Pigeons – Alley Cat
Region: Barossa Valley, Australia
Winemaker: Mark Jamieson
Variety: 61% Grenache, 39% Shiraz

My take:

I ended up tasting this wine because I was lambasting Australian wines. (In general, I am not a fan of new world style wines - I prefer old world style wines.) Seeking out a glass of wine after a conference and before a dinner meeting, I went to New Heights restaurant, in Washington, DC. After perusing their reds by the glass, I opted for a Spanish wine and started talking with the bartender about wine.

After talking some smack about Australian wines, which I typically find too bold, too fruit forward, and too jammy, the bartener insisted I try the Cat Amongst the Pigeons. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. So much so that I made Jonathan come back to New Heights with me the following week to check it out.

The wine is much more mellow and subtle than I ever expected from an Australian wine. The wine smells a bit red (you’ll see after reading some of my reviews that I tend to smell in colors), maybe a bit dark or slightly on the purple side. Anyway..., it’s a soft, mellow wine. It’s not too dry, not overly tannic, has some depth in the middle, and has a relatively long finish.

It makes a good sipping wine for sure, but it also pairs well with food. I’ve had it with various cheeses and with steak and in both cases feel like it paired well. All in all, it’s one that I’ve sought out since I first had it – and I never thought I’d actually go looking for an Australian wine in a wine shop. If you’re looking for something unexpected, I highly recommend checking it out.

Price point:

After doing a quick search online, it looks to be between $14 and $20 a bottle.

Cat Amongst The Pigeons - Opined By Jonathan

The facts:

2007 Cat Amongst the Pigeons – Alley Cat
Region: Barossa Valley, Australia
Winemaker: Mark Jamieson
Variety: 61% Grenache, 39% Shiraz


“So I had a good Australian shiraz”

The words still reverberate through my skull…and quite possibly the echoes even might be heard from space one day. A good Australian wine? Is that possible? Sure, I understand on an intellectual level that people:

A: Like Shiraz (who am I to Judge)

B. Like Australian wines (I mean…I’m sure they are good…I mean, when I think of wine, visions of koala bears and platypuses are the first thing that comes to mind)

So given that you could see that, in fact, I was more than a tad dubious. I agreed to go check it out. In general, I’ve never been a fan a Shiraz, maybe a petit syrah (Concannon…. I’m looking in your general direction....) but a Shiraz? Good…sounds a bit strong to me.

“But it was” she said with conviction.

Now with that level of certainty in her voice and a good excuse to go drink some wine, I decided to give it a go. So we hauled ourselves up to New Heights to have a glass.

I asked for a glass of the Cat Amongst the Pigeons, and the bartender starts to wax poetic about it as well. Now I knew something was up, either the pod people had taken over or there was something to this wine.

He poured, I drank.

I’d like to now take a moment and apologize (well…somewhat) for the last 200 words besmirching the honor of this good wine. I was actually fairly impressed. Is it from the northern Rhone, no, is it a good wine, yes. The first thing I noticed was a nose, that while robust, didn’t punch me in the face with the smell of fruit. I thought it had a decent balance of scents, with and undercurrent of subtlety that certainly prompted me to explore it further.

Where this wine really shines for me is in the mouth (as it should). Pull a decent sip, and hold on to it for a moment, letting it wash over your taste buds. Its not particularly tannic, nor seemingly too young. What it has a nice rich velvety texture, but not enough so to write sonnets about, but certainly worth a haiku (minus the effort of getting the syllabic count correct).

I had two glasses of it the first night (for scientific reasons of course) and have subsequently bought another three bottles. For me the bottom line, is: Its tasty and drinkable. It’s a good drinking wine, pleasant; upfront what you see is what you get. Is it exotic? No. But it has a place in our limited wine fridge and is fantastic with tenderloin. Buy it and drink it proudly. This one doesn’t aspire to be anything its not, and certainly calls me back for a second or third glass.