For this Argentina wine review, – 92 point rating – we must start with the bottle. You may get tired of me starting to write a wine review and begin with some sort of description of the packaging. But Tikal Patriota is one that I just can’t help myself. The big dark bottle weighs in at 2.8 lbs—-yes, I weighed it! It seemed like 40 lbs. I did a random sample of other wine bottles (empty) and they were coming in a 1.3 or so. So why the heavy glass? Must add something to shipping. Is it necessary to keep what’s inside the bottle in check?
Tikal Patriota 2006
Tikal Patriota (Patriot) is an Argentine wine blend of 60% Bonardo and 40% Malbec. The color is an inky, dark purple. There is probably some fruit here. Black cherries, raspberries, blueberries. I get some sort of berries but this is an Argentine wine without a lot of subtlety or nuisance. This BIG…a powerful 13.9% alcohol but dense and ripe fruit that is intense and jammy.
Argetina Wine that’s Perfect for a Summer Barbeque
This Argentine wine yells out for steak or barbeque or something meaty on the grill. If you like this modern style of powerhouse wines, especially ones at a good price, this could be the wine for you. I had steak with this wine but as much as I wanted to love Tikal Patriota 2006, ranked 92 in Wine Advocate, I didn’t.
The wine was big, balanced and I guess my style is one that is more layered. Perhaps it was young and will improve with age. I should buy another bottle of Tikal Patriota 2006 and put it aside to check that out.
Zinfandel Wine Review for a Classic California Zinfandel
Where to start with this California Zinfandel? Perhaps with the minimalist label that was written on a label maker — you know the ones. They make labels in strips perhaps a half an inch wide on plastic tape that has a peel off sticker on one side. That’s the front label – just the word “Saldo”.
You have to go to the back label to find out it’s a Zinfandel wine made by Orin Swift Cellars in St. Helena, California. And that’s the appellation, California zinfandel with a 15.5% alcohol.
In a previous blog entry, I mentioned that the wine tasting experience begins with the packaging. This bottle of zinfandel wine was big, heavy with lots of glass. It looked very inky and with that minimalist lettering “Saldo” on purple plastic tape, I just knew it was going to be a big, jammy zinfandel.
Zinfandel Tasting Notes
When I opened the bottle and poured it into the glass I knew immediately it was a zinfandel. It had a bright purple on the edge and while the color of the wine was a deep purple, it was not trying to overpower you. A classic zinfandel nose with cloves, violets and berries, strawberries, black cherries and raspberries.
It is a style of zinfandel I particularly like. It had bright fruit, lots of depth and a pleasant, lingering finish. Good acidity there to support the fruit. Not overpowering, the winemaker seemed to let the fruit do the talking. Yet this is a wine that I think will continue to improve with time.
Inquiring minds wanted to know more about this wine so a Google search later, I find out that this is the first vintage for this wine and it made up of zinfandel (85%), Syrah (10%) and Petite Syrah (5%).
California Zinfandel Wine from all of California’s wine regions
The winemaker must have scoured every California appellation that produced Zinfandel because the wine comes from the all of the following California wine regions:
Sonoma (54%),
Napa (16%),
Mendocino (15%),
Amador (9%) and
Contra Costa (6%)
And the meaning of “Saldo”? It means balance and that could be a more succinct and accurate descriptor for this excellent Zinfandel.
All wine dinners purport to have one thing in common; the wine pairs well or uniquely to the food it is paired with. There is always the presumption that somewhere along the way of planning for the event, the chief and the sommelier (or the persons in charge of food and wine) actually met and discussed what they proposed pairing and how they complemented each other.
I also assume, probably not with a lot of confidence, they may have prepared actually proposed dishes, selected some possible wines and tried them together. What the cost of a reasonable wine dinner these days? $55-$85 ++? Yes, I understand that the consumer gets their money’s worth, but so does the restaurant. The wine dinner menu is prepped for known number of people, and it brings people to a restaurant or event in good numbers. I am sure I could list other benefits, but I am not a restaurateur and this is a wine blog, not a food blog.
Much Experience with Wine Dinners
I have been drinking wine more or less seriously for thirty years or so and have been going to wine dinners for, let’s see…..thirty years or so:
I’ve been to wine dinners and sat next to real winemakers. I still remember sitting next to Tom Rinaldi and Dan Duckhorn when their wine was being introduced into Florida.
I’ve been to wine dinners featuring the wines of a single winery.
I’ve been to wine dinners focused on a specific varietal of wine.
At some dinners the wines are all pre-poured at your place. Some our poured as you go. There are probably as many variations on how to do wine dinners as there are restaurants, sommeliers, wine directors, chiefs, distributors and winemakers combined. But the end result is that the food and wine parings are suppose to knock you out of your socks.
The Art of Pairing Wine with Food
I went to a wine dinner recently:”Napa vs. Sonoma: Cross-Valley Rivals Go Head-To-Head.”
After some bubbles as a greeting wine to open up our palets, we sampled one Napa and one Sonoma Chardonnay which were paired with a crab cocktail and citrus relish. The wines were (from Napa Valley) Merryville, Napa, 2006 and (from Sonoma) Picket Fence, Russian River Valley, 2006.
Both wines were very enjoyable, but in my judgment, neither went with the food exceptionally well. The food didn’t give the wines a chance to show themselves and did not bring forth either wines best features. The citrus relish and crab tried to be the star over the wine, but as a dish it too failed pretty miserable. The wine did not make the food taste any better at all and the poor crab did need some help.
Matching Wine with Food: take two -Cabernets
The Napa Cabernets were paired with a filet mignon and wonton crusted Ahi tuna with a Cantonese mushroom sauce. Both foods are strong and heavy with protein, usually a strong contender for a Cabernet to stand up for itself.
In this case of food wine matching, the wines paired were not on an equal footing. The Napa Valley Freemark Abbey 2004 has something else going on; Merlot, Petite Verdot, Cabernet Franc and Petite Sirah. On the other side, the Sonoma wine contender, Rodney Strong Alexander Valley Reserve 2005, was a different vintage plus an 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.
As part of this wine dinner, we were handed sheets with tasting notes, probably from a review or perhaps winemakers’ notes. A statement of what each wine brought to the food pairing was included for those who did not, I assume, want to think too much or perhaps to suggest what they were attempting to do with the wine and food paring. A scoring sheet of 1-5 on Aroma. Taste, Finish and Pairing was also part of the Wine Dinner kit. After the second food pairing failing, the wine dinner notes were doing little to impress me.
Cute Gimmicks do not make up for poor wine and food parings
At this point, suffice it to say, this would not have been my favorite wine dinner, but it gets worse.
The sommelier and waitstaff were dressed up in referee uniforms; the ever so classy zebra shirts. They had “contests” to see which table could get the most trivia questions right. The crowd became louder and louder and eventually I would have thought we were in a bar in downtown Orlando watching the Magic beat the Lakers in Game 6.
I adore fine food with well pared wine and I use to really like wine dinners, but after this experience, it might be awhile before I can be convinced back to a wine dinner any time soon.
A South African Wine that Wine Merchants can be proud to sell
When South African Apartheid ended in approximately1994, the market opened up the US wine merchants began to import South African Wines. Soon after, I recall tasting my first South African wine. Wino friends who had been buying and tasting South African wines longer than I, assured me that South Africa was a great wine growing region. Although it might take a number of years for the South African wines to find their way back in the US marketplace, I assumed many wine drinkers would have to reacquainted to these wines. Others, myself included, would have to discover South African vintages for the first time.
I tried. I mean, I really tried to like the South African wines, but ultimately came to the conclusion South Africa must be an acquired taste. The wines were too rough, one dimensional and just not pleasant to me. Was it the Pinotage? Wasn’t that supposed to be their best? Perhaps I’m just a California guy. So over the next fifteen years or so I never really went back to seriously drink of buy South African wines. Occasionally I stumbled across a wine merchant with a South African wine that was a good wine. I recall a South African Sauvignon Blanc, Sincerely, that I liked a lot for awhile, but overall, South African wines were not doing it for me.
Revisiting the “No”, South African Mulderbosch says “Yes”
Then, someone encouraged me to buy the South African wine: Mulderbosch’s Faithful Hound 2005. This Bordeaux blend come highly rated with a Wine Spectator rating of 90 points and sells for $20ish. It says it’s 43% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, 12% Petite Verdot, 7% Malbec and 6% Cabernet Franc. Sounds pretty much like a Bordeaux blend to me.
Time to Review: Faithful Hound 2005 from Mulderbosch
I opened a bottle of Faithful Hound wine for dinner the other night. Missing was all that roughness that found unpleasant 15 years ago. What I found was a really interesting wine. It was not trying to be a Bordeaux, but rather let the forward fruit speak for itself. Great spice on the nose. Berries, boyensenberry, red currents, perhaps a little clove. A little hot when it was first was opened, but some of that blew off as it sat in the glass and got a couple of good swirls. Granted, I wanted a steak instead of my pork loin, but even with that, I found the finish on this really enjoyable and long.
Even the name “Faithful Hound” has a great connotation and it inspires art!
Faithful Hound has me hooked and I promise to return to buying South African wines sooner than another 15 years. For me, I am sold again on South African Wines and will be looking at the Wine Merchants for more. Mulderbosch Winery needs some more investigation!
We have a house on a barrier island and getting there is never easy. You have to load up the car, drive a long time, charter a boat, load the stuff onto the boat, off load the stuff onto the dock, carrier it to a car we keep on the island, load the car, drive to the house and then take the stuff up two flights of stairs.
Of course, one can not consider sitting on the porch at the ocean without a glass or two of wine to complete the experience. Hauling a case or two of wine all that way is not easy. It takes up a lot of room on all those transports, is heavy, and then there is the issue of disposing of all that glass in an environmentally responsible way.
One day I decided, what the heck, why not try a 3 liter of a box wine?
So I purchased a Bota Box Shiraz and it wasn’t bad. Ditto for the Bota Box Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio.
Box Wine Bladder Failure equals Bad Box Wine Review
On a recent trip I decided to try a Turning Leaf Pinot Noir in a box. When I opened it, it was nasty. I thought it was oxidized, but then wondered about that since box wines are a “closed” system. They use a bladder which is one of the pluses of a box wine and the wine will keep for a month although I’ve never tested that theory. But this box-o-wine was bad and there is no returning a box wine for credit.
Box wines are worth considering in another venue.
When taking a cruise, we are always like to have wine in the cabin as it is cheaper than running up those cruise ship tabs. Box wine is perfect in that kind of situation. A 3 liter red and a 3 liter white is good for two of us for a week. And if you have to throw some of away — well, there is no guilt.
But here is the problem for me—there just aren’t many decent box wines. Surely this might be an option worth considering for all that juice that can’t make it into a winemaker’s primary bottling. Of course, there are the distributors, wine merchants and the public who view box wines as a step below jug wine, but great breakout box wine may find a market niche and start to change the bias of the wine drinking public.
Black Box Wine looks to be grabbing that market!
While I haven’t tried Black Box Wine yet to review, yet they have quite a bit of buzz around them for a wine in a box! Not only is there a Black Box Merlot wine, but they have a reserve merlot and a reserve Chardonnay as well! They even say that the Black Box wine is from grapes all over the world’s best wine regions.
So while I will never, ever leave the glory of a fine wine in a glass bottle behind, sometimes there is actually a time and place for wine in a box!
