California Barbera - blah, blah, blah

So if you are ever going to have a kid, don't be a night person. Even though I'm exhausted because my son woke up at 6:00 a.m. ever day this past week, I can't fall asleep. Therefore you get a rare weekend post from the Vigilante because my wine blog often makes me drowsy.

The only wine topic I have to write about is the 2005 Montevina Terra 'd Orro Reserve Barbera that I had with my home made spaghetti sauce last night. I would give it a B, B- ($18). The wine was actually pretty good if you drank it in a vacuum (which I would imagine would be hard to do without the air and all). What I mean is that if you ignored the fact that the wine was supposed to be Barbera, the higher than average alcohol, the lower than normal acidity and the over the top toasted oak might not bother you. The real problem was that I had opened it because I wanted something to go with tomato sauce and Barbera is one of the few red wines that pairs well with red sauced Italian dishes due to it's high acidity and low tannin ratio.

Well after about a half a glass it was clear that the food/wine combo was a bust so I did the unthinkable and cracked open a Bud Light. What did you expect me to do? Drink water. My wife and I still drank the Barbera after dinner while watching There Will Be Blood, which is probably the real reason I can't sleep tonight. Bowling pins scare me.

Friday Night SB

I think it's becoming tradition to drink Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc on Friday nights in the Mann Family. It's been a long time since I've had a bad New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc (yes even the Havens would receive a B-). But I think tonight my run has come to an end. Really it's just a classic mistake of trying to do too much with something that is already fine.

I'm refering to the label on the right which is the 2006 Cairnbrae Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough New Zealand. I'm going to give it a C, C- ($13). Now I know I'm not being nice, but this wine was rather hard to drink due to the residual sugar left in the wine. It's one of those wines where you buy it because it tasted good at a tasting, but then once you starting drinking it, the wine's no longer enjoyable. The balance is also way off on the nose with the tropical fruit flavors dominating the aromas, almost to a point of over saturation. I tried drinking it with dinner, but of course it over powered my Chili's Hamburger. Remember, I live on the edge of the Central Valley so that's our nicest restaurant.

I've really been shooting blanks lately with my wine selection so I think I'm going to get desperate and open something nice tomorrow night. Wish me luck because the way things are going, it will probably be corked.

Umm Okay

Okay, So I apologize for a week hiatus from posting. My wife says I apologize too much, but what the hey, I'm a nice guy. Anyway, the stomach flu spread through our house like a plague and got everyone, so I haven't had any wine in about a week. In fact, tonight was the first time I've consumed more than a glass since the dinner party.

And unfortunately that wine was Martin Codax Tempranillo 2006 with the big "ERGO" words printed on the bottle. This wine had hints of tempranillo, but overall it tasted like a processed bottle of over-oaked, uninspired Spanish bulk wine. I would give it a C, B-, simply because it was only $12. I guess it's still better than most of the California wines around that price point.

Just as a note, I'm posting this twice, once on vinovigilante.blogspot.com and once on www.vinovigilante.com. Why do this? Well I've had a request to make comments on the blog but I couldn't do that on Go Daddy. But then of course some people don't care about what other people have to say, so I'll still post the blog on my website :).

Dinner Party Repercussions

So on Saturday my wife decided that we were going to throw an epic dinner party since it is hard to go out somewhere nice in the Central Valley. And of course if she didn't become and MBA finance genius, she could have easily gone to culinary school, the meal turned out great. I got a little crazy and opened and extra bottle of wine, so it turned out to be 7 bottles for six people. Here is a run down of the wine we tasted:

2001 Poniatowski Vouvray Sec Clos Baudoin - B+, B+
2006 Hanna Sauvignon Blanc - B+, A-
Charles Heidseck Brut Reserve NV - A-, B+
2000 Heresztyn Gevry-Chambertin - A-, A-
2001 Pride Merlot - A, A
1990 Poniatowski Vouvray Moulleux Clos Baudoin - A-, A
1997 Silver Oak Alexander Valley - B-, C

So the wine of the night was a close call between the 1990 Vouvray and the Pride Merlot, but I think the Pride won (right James). It just kept on getting bigger and bigger as the wine opened up. It's too bad I was sloshed, otherwise I could have stayed up all night and just smelled that wine.