Tasting at Farmstead

Farmstead Cheeses & Wines is a nice little shop in Alameda that specializes in artisan cheeses and boutique wines. They have a wine tasting every Saturday that's $3 for a flight of some interesting and different wines, with the fee waved if you buy a bottle.

Here are my notes from the tasting yesterday:

Lazy Creek 2007 Anderson Valley Rose of Pinot Noir
sweet nose, honeysuckle (I also smelled petuli, but it could have just been someone's perfume next to me). Tasted like strawberries, nice light fruit.

Talley Vineyards Arroyo Grande Valley Chardonnay
A little oak on the nose, not heavy though. nice sweet and tart fruits in the mouth. The guy pouring the wines said it had minerality, so of course after hearing that, I tasted it.

Lang & Reed 2006 Cabernet Franc
Strong black peppercorns and fresh green peppers on the nose. Great fruit in the mouth, black cherries, lingering tannins.

Moliss Barbera D'Asti 2004
This wine had a certain funk on the nose. Sort of like blue cheese mold. Not a bad thing, I like blue cheese a lot, so this was attractive. The server though didn't seem to like this description. He poured some, sniffed, and called it ``sweaty.'' Maybe it was more earthy than funk, I said. He seemed satisfied with that. In the mouth this wine tasted a bit like cranberries, with other dark red fruits. Long lasting tannins.

He also poured the 2005 version of this wine, and it tasted completely different. If I had tasted it blind, I would have thought it was a Syrah. Much fruiter in the nose and in the mouth. No funk at all.

Red & Green 2003 Tip Top Vineyard Syrah, Napa Valley
Strong burnt rubber on the nose. Overrides the fruit. In the mouth, loads of cherries.