Maipe 2008 Torrontes

Picked up this wine for under $12. It's very light in color, almost completely absent of a hay-like tinge. The nose was a gorgeous combo of peaches and pineapple. On my palate I found wet stone and pink grapefruit flavors.

The wine comes from Mendoza, Argentina. For some nice photos and background about the vineyard, click here.

I've had two torrontes so far and have really liked them. I've only recently begun to expand my white wine drinking, and this grape has already impressed me mightily. The aromatics are so exciting - your nose is filled with massive sweet fruit flavors as if you're sticking your face into a bowl of fruit salad. What's even more exciting is how different it can taste. So far, in my limited experience with the grape, the flavors on my tongue tend to be more toward minerality and stone than the massive fruit I got on the nose (though it's still there on the palate). If you have a chance, pick up a bottle of the stuff and take it for a spin, it's quite a fun ride.

Cru 2006 Two Vineyard Pinot Noir

The grapes for this wine come from the Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County, an AVA known for producing high quality, high priced Pinot Noirs. The long, cool 2006 season helped make this into a soft, acid-light wine, according to the Cru Website (looks like Cru is owned by the Mariposa Wine Company).

I tried this wine at a tasting, and found a little funk on the nose, leaning toward veggies/dried herbs. In the glass I got nice, light cherry fruit flavors and a touch of vanilla at the end. An easy drinking wine that for the price is pretty good considering what other Pinot Noirs out there taste like.

I generally avoid buying bottles of Pinot Noir for my everyday drinking because unless you're going to spend $40 or more, there's a good chance you'll be assaulted by a massive, overdone wine with posing as a Pinot. The Cru Two Vineyards is not one of those wines - it is more Burgundian.

Kenya - Kiandu, Muthecka Co-op

Grounds smelled like herbs, roots, maybe fresh cut grass. In the cup, I found a nice balance of acidity and body. Honey, chocolate and melon flavors on the palate. Slight cinnamon finish.

From the Nyeri district of Kenya, which is known for quality coffee. Roasted by Ritual, and provided as a sample. Can't find a link right now on Ritual's Website, so maybe they're sold out.

I found another coffee for sale with this name from Barismo in Arlington, Mass. Interesting description of the flavor they got from the coffee (yams!). See it here.

2006 Luna Beberide Mencia Bierzo, Spain

The wine was dark purple in appearance, with a nose of dried coffee grounds, basil and nutty to boot. In the mouth, I got violets. This wine didn't have strong tannins so it didn't have a big structure. Finishes with a little bit of heat. Overall, a nice sipper, but I didn't think it was anything too exciting. Paid about $13 for it.

The previous vintage received high marks all around from Wine Enthusiast (90 points) and was named a "best buy" by Robert Parker, according to the write up on K&L Wines.

The Bierzo DO is located in the northwest region of Spain, and the grape Mencia was once thought to be related to Cab Franc, but DNA analysis has since ruled that out.

Clover@Starbucks 2

After drinking too much wine Thursday night at a company party, I found myself feeling pretty awful on Friday morning (although I did discover a great Loire Valley Cab Franc, reviewed here.) Had a french pressed Colombian La Esperanza from Terroir Coffee, which I'll review later, but after lunch I was still feeling out of it, so I decided to hit up Starbucks again and try one of their other offerings from the Clover.

Last time I had the Tanzania Blackburn estate (review here) but yesterday I wanted something with a little more citrus, so I went for the Ethiopian Nardos. At first I didn't get much complexity, tasting the roast more than the coffee. As this cooled, though, the lemony flavors started to come out, and this became stronger the cooler it got. At one point I wrote down that I was getting a lemon jolly rancher taste. Sweet nose as well.

I liked this coffee overall, and if I was traveling and couldn't find a specialty shop, would probably get a Clover coffee from Starbucks. Doesn't need milk or sugar to make it drinkable. Still, while these coffees have been interesting so far, the company needs to roast these lighter to take advantage of the wonderful beans they are selling.

Maramonte 2005 Syrage Lot 7

The Syrage I tasted at Farmstead Cheese & Wine at one of their weekend tasting events was a cab/syrah/cab franc blend, retailing for $20. The grapes are from Napa and Sonoma.

The wine was inky dark in appearance, with a nose of strong spices such as cinnamon and cardamon. I was really impressed with how this wine smelt. In the glass I got lots of red fruit leaning on cherries. Overall the wine had a nice structure and seemed like it could age another decade in the bottle. Pretty good value for such a big wine.

The producer, Mara Wine Group, has released the 2006 version of this bottle, and it is a different blend - this time Syrah and Merlot.

I found this description of the wine I tasted from an online shop:

"Maramonte Wines created Syrage Lot 7 to go beyond the one grape/one wine philosophy. This allows our winemaking staff the latitude to build intense wines of balance to meet the consumer’s desires. Syrah is our pedigree, contributing balance with 18 months of oak aging from Sonoma County vineyards. By using the king of grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon, also from Sonoma County, we added structure, finesse and backbone with the royalty of Bordeaux origins. 20 months in small French barrels. The tight concentration of raspberry, cherry and violets from our North Coast Cabernet Franc gives Syrage our signature balance, as evidenced in our prior releases. 18 months in American and French oak."

2007 Catherine & Pierre Breton Bourgueil "Trinch!"

I discovered a great wine at a company party last night, a cab franc from the Loire valley produced by Catherine and Pierre Breton. The couple is known for their natural, organic wines, and this one had a stunning floral nose. In the glass the wine was light and fruity. In searching for more info about this wine, I read that they age it in steel vats, so this could be why the fruit shown through.

People who want to meet Catherine in person will have a chance next Thursday, Oct. 30 at Terroir Natural Wine Merchant & Bar (1116 Folsom St., San Francisco) from 4pm to 7pm. The event is co-sponsored by importer extraordinaire Kermit Lynch.

2006 Lacrima di Morro d’Alba, “Perbacco” Antica Cantina S. Amico, Le Marche

We celebrated my friend Liz's birthday last night at Eccolo , an Italian restaurant in Berkeley's fancy 4th street section near University Ave. The food was great (I got the spit-roasted Hoffman farm chicken with chanterelle mushroom bread salad for $16.00 off the ``recession specials'' menu - a nice touch given the economy). For wine, I was happy to spy a Lacrima di Morro on the list. I've had wine from this obscure Italian varietal at a couple of Bay Area restaurants, but have had trouble finding it in shops. Even specialty shops that have lots of obscure Italian wine haven't heard of this grape.

What I have liked about it in the past is exactly what I found in this particular bottle, the 2006 Lacrima di Morro d’Alba, “Perbacco” Antica Cantina S. Amico, Le Marche - a really bright nose consisting of grapefruit and blood orange scents. It's pretty profound, and I spent a good part of dinner shoving my glass in front of the noses of others at the party. Almost everyone was able to smell that.

That citrusy flavor was evident in the mouth, although not as prevalent as in the nose. Nice tannins, red berry flavors balance out the wine. Definitely try a Lacrima di Morro if you happen to come across one.

Sutton Cellars 2006 Carignane, Piffero Vineyard

I really like finding small production wines that are unique and affordable, and this certainly fit the bill. Purchased at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco for $15.99. Less than 300 cases were made of this grape that hasn't received much attention as a stand alone varietal. It doesn't have a good reputation and is known in France for its quantity and contribution to the country's "wine lake," but efforts recently have sought to bring out the best of this grape, also spelled as Carignan.

I had a bottle of wine from this grape last month (see review here).

This bottle was more complex that that one, and I got floral, sweet tar and violets on the nose. In the mouth, the flavors simplify a bit focusing on violets. It's a light wine, but very nice.

Cool label too - the bottle got recycled before I had a chance to photograph it, but it's a brown paper bag color with a drawing of what I'm guessing is a wine press. Here's the producer's Web site, which looks like it hasn't been updated in a while. Actually it says it was last updated in Autumn 2006.

Here's what the label says on the back of the bottle:

"Always a bridesmaid, never a bride...The often maligned Carignane grape has been planted in California for more than a century and mostly used for blending. When dry farmed and cropped low the grapes produces juicy, quaffable wines with flavors of coca, blueberry, and mulling spices reminiscent of the country wines of Spain and Southern France. This is such a wine... 268 cases made."

I found another bottling of Carignan from the same vineyard in Redwood Valley, Mendocino County, California, by Pellegrini. I'm putting some info here about it because it gives some background on the soil where the grapes were grown and how the vines originated there:

"Located on a rocky, reddish soil bench, the old head pruned vines were planted in 1934 by the grandparents of Ric Piffero. The vineyard is composed mostly of Carignan, but is also interspersed with Zinfandel and Barbera. It is dry farmed and averages a little over two tons per acre."

Clover@Starbucks

After reading ManSeekingCoffee's informative and extensive posts (part 1 and part 2) on his experience trying coffee made from the Clover Machine in Starbucks, I decided to head over today during lunch and sample it myself.

Background - the Clover is a super expensive, super precise machine created a few years ago to help better prepare a cup of coffee. Users of the $10,000-$15,000 machine could control the exact brew temperature and the exact time the grounds brewed to make a single cup. The goal was to give baristas total control over the brew process so they could ferret out the best way to exhibit each coffee's characteristics. In comparison, coffee brewed in a big pot that sits on a heater all day long seems barbaric.

Many specialty coffee shops loved the Clover and sang its praises....until Starbucks bought the company, and suddenly the Clover was a hated machine created by capitalist sellouts who used and preyed upon the loyalties of the specialty cafes so they could build up their company to the point where Starbucks had no choice to buy it (if you think I'm being dramatic, you should check out some of the comments on coffeed.com - actually, that comments page is locked now to outsiders. But trust me, some of it was vicious.)

Starbucks recently started selling select coffees from the Clover in some of its shops, and the big question has been whether the company would brew overroasted beans in the machine, thus negating the whole point of a device meant to highlight subtle characteristics of lightly (and freshly) roasted beans.

In terms of style, Starbucks seems to be going in the right direction. Customers order from a menu of limited micro-lot coffees with flavor descriptors. All coffees were the same price, except for one Kenyan that was a dollar more. The Clover device itself (at their cafe on California & Battery) was set off from the rest of the machines with its own grinder.

I ordered the Tanzania Blackburn Estate, which the menu said tasted like currants, cherries, with a citrus sweetness in the finish.

My server seemed to be glancing down at a cheat sheet to operate the Clover, and she was a little sloppy with it - spilling some grounds on top of the device when she went to dump them into the brewing crater. I asked her if she had tried any of the coffees from the device, and she said she had two of the five offered, with the Guatemalan Antigua Medina being her favorite. Looking at the board description, I asked her "So, did you really taste `silky coco and floral' when you drank it?" She looked back at the board, and said, "Um....sure."

I got my coffee (in a mug, to avoid it absorbing any flavors from the paper cup) and sat down on a comfy couch to take it for a test spin.

First impression was that it lacked the bitterness I usually associate with Starbucks coffee. Instead I got...pencil shavings. I've read in other sites that the flavor is an indication of beans that are aging, but there wasn't a roast date anywhere that I could see to check. Currants and cherries? Sort of. Very slight, with the cherries coming through in the after taste. As the coffee cooled, the cherry came through more on the nose.

When the cup was warm (as opposed to hot) this coffee grew more complex, as the acidity was more evident, although the body was much bigger. The cooler the coffee got, the more char I tasted. Not at any level close to their other coffees, but it was still there.

Overall, I thought this was a nice step for Starbucks. The coffee I tried won't blow anyone away, but if you're used to their regular stuff, you might notice some interesting things going on in the cup if you look hard enough. It's certainly the most expressive cup I've had from them.

Got to give the company kudos as well for putting together a nice site specifically for their Clover offerings, which gives some detail about where and how the coffees were grown and processed. Check it out here.