2007 Giovanni Almondo Roero Arneis Bricco delle Ciliegie

Fall’s coming in Chicago, & it’s time for red wine, so this will most likely be my last summer white – the 2007 Giovanni Almondo Roero Arneis Bricco delle Ciliegie. Whoa – long name! But it’s an Italian white, so there’s a lot of info there – let’s break it down:

Giovanni Almondo is the winery (& its owner) in the Roero region of Piedmont Italy, right across the Tanaro river from Barbaresco.

Arneis is the white grape from which this baby is made. It means “Little Rascal” and gives up gobs of apricots and pears.

Bricco delle Ciliegie, or “hill of cherries” is the wine’s name, coming from the fact that the vineyard is planted on an old cherry orchard.

A well-chilled glass of this will refresh your butt right up after sitting in the late Summer heat watching your kid’s football practice or maybe watching the cheerleader tryouts. All from a grape you’ve never heard of, from a region you’ve never heard of.

In the glass, it’s greenish gold and immediately reminded me of something famous Chicago PIMP Bishop Don “Magic” Juan always says, “Green is for the money, and gold is for the honey”!

First sip is POW -  the neighborhood fruit stand just got backed into by Bishop’s honey wagon. Then a nice mellow crisp mineral finish like you’re drinking it on the rocks – cold stream rocks. Just like one of Bishop’s lovely ladies, this wine is refreshing, sexy, tasty and of the utmost quality for the price. Drink it with grilled shrimp or down a few Circus Peanuts with it.

2007 Laurel Glen Reds – $10

One of the first wines I ever hand sold and fell in love with was Laurel Glen Reds 1993 Vintage.  It was there inaugural vintage and it was spicy and jammy, concentrated and full bodied, yet elegant.  It was everything you could want in a wine.

Last week I tasted the 2007 Vintage and it harkened back to my younger days.  It’s so hard to find a wine that is jammy and concentrated, yet is elegant on the finish.  This wine delivers.  It is a blend of 60% Zinfandel (40-80 year old vines), 30% Carignane (118 year old vines), and 10% Petite Sirah (20 year old vines).

Lots of bang for your buck here! Buy this one by the case. Enjoy!

2007 A to Z Oregon Riesling – $12

Sourced from 4 vineyards, two in the higher altitudes of Southern Oregon and two of the oldest vineyards in the Northern Willamette Valley. No malolactic fermentation (Wine Fact: Malolactic fermentation gives the wine a full lush mouth feel and imparts a buttered popcorn nose and a green apple flavor to the wine.) Fairly small production of 2,733 cases.

The color is a very light golden wheat yellow. The nose is tangerines, mineral dust and key lime pie. The flavor is soft orange blossom honey, delicate, not tart citrus. The finish is soft ripe peaches, again very delicate. A seductive wine, it does not hit you over the head with flavor, but it sneaks up on you, it wraps itself around your taste buds.

The A to Z has nice acidity, but don’t pair it with food that is too spicy. The soft honeyed citrus and fruit would better accompany lighter meals and dessert.

2007 Snap Dragon Cabernet Sauvignon – $8

Had an interesting wine at my local P.F. Chang’s last night, where they do a little something different for their flights – they offer a “build your own” flight of three.

I went for the 2007 MacMurray Ranch Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir, (reviewed here a while back), the 2007 7 Deadly Zins Zinfandel, and the awesomely easy-to-drink 2007 Snap Dragon Cabernet Sauvignon.

Dark burgundy in the glass, chocolate covered cherries on the nose, medium body with raspberries and blackberries up front give way to a smoooooth toasty vanilla spice and toffee finish.

Winemaker Jason Dodge sourced his fruit from the best vineyards in California, creating this affordable, approachable, great at twice the price cab that will go well with BBQ, grilled steak, roast beef, pizza or spicy pork dishes.

CheapWineFinder’s Expedition Into The Bordeaux Grand Cru Jungle

Cheapwinefinder somehow got invited to the Chicago stop on the 2007 Vintage Grands Crus de Bordeaux Trade Tasting Tour. You would have thought they would have noticed our name and said “these guys really don’t belong here”, but we managed to get in.

In talking to “Wine People” before the event we kept hearing that the 2007 vintage was nothing special and that the makers of the highest rated wines didn’t make the trip. Everyone we spoke to was blasé about the whole event, like it was every day you get to taste 75 Grand Cru Bordeaux wines.

We were not blasé, we ran into the tasting room like puppy dogs wagging their tails, we were kids in the candy store. But I have to admit to tasting fatigue, all the red Grand Crux wines are blends of 3 or 4 grapes, with either Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon in the lead and Cabernet Franc as the other main grape. The wines were all variations on a theme, really good variations on a theme, but after awhile the wines start to taste very similar. Now, our efforts to try to taste every single red wine in the room might have had something to do with our palates giving out. Maybe there is something to having too much of a good thing.

As we started to wear down and wear out at the very end of the tasting, we were rejuvenated when as the room lights were being flicked off and on to signal the end of the show, the representative from Chateau Pape Clement handed us a bottle of Red wine and a bottle of White wine to take home. We were like kids that had just won the bean bag toss at the grade school fun fair, we left with our trophy’s proudly on display.

So, what did we learn about Grand Cru Bordeaux Wine? Well, it’s really excellent stuff, made to the highest standards. Several of the Chateau’s upon seeing our name-tags told us that they do have a second line brand of wine, all sourced from their vineyard, that was in the cheapwinefinder price range. Grand Cru is out of this websites’ reach, but Bordeaux wines can be affordable. You know there is alot of good wines out there, just waiting for us to discover them.

2007 Les Traverses de Fontanes – $15

This is a delicious and unusual bottle of wine, and an amazing deal at under $20.  Although it is Cabernet Sauvignon, it pours out bright purple and has a lot of vibrant fruit.  It has raspberry and strawberry and a hint of cocoa.

It honestly is one of the most unique Cabs we have ever tasted, and we really liked it.  It is a must try.

2007 MacMurray Ranch Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir – $18

Each time I’ve lunched at Biaggi’s – one of my favorite lunch spots – I’ve enjoyed a glass or two of the Fred MacMurray Pinot Noir. The “Sonoma Coast” label is their sub-$20 version of the $35 “Russian River Valley” label, which is a bit more refined and soft, if that’s what you’re into.

Unlike the translucent and Kool Aid-ish Pinots from Burgundy, this wine is bold, burly and intense! First of all, it’s dark opaque red – almost black! Black cherry and raspberry on the nose and black pepper, spicy vanilla and cola in your mouth. A long chewy mouth-coating woody finish has plenty of acidity to go with beef stew, grilled chicken, turkey or bacon.

2007 Byron Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir – $20

Estate bottled Pinot for $20 out of California‘s Santa Maria Valley!

Winemaker Jonathan Nagy knows that Pinot Noir is a touchy grape that needs to be handled delicately in order to preserve the fragile essence of its fruit. What I thought was cool about Byron – they’ve designed their environmentally-sensitive winery from the top down, utilizing gravity rather than pumps throughout the winemaking process. They use old-world natural techniques to gently move the grapes, juice and wine along, which allows them to produce wines that are balanced, elegant, pure and true.

Their 2007 Pinot hit me with smoke ,earth and rose petals on the nose and more smoke and cherry cola on the palate. It has a nice smooth, silky and smoky finish.

Drink with salmon, pork chops, grilled chicken or a Smoke Daddy’s pulled pork sandwich.

2007 Spellbound Petite Sirah – $15

Spellbound means a lot of different things to me – there’s the Siouxsie & the Banshees song, the AC/DC song (both from ’81), the Hitchcock movie, the Paula Abdul album. For you geeks there’s the spellchecker for Firefox and the video game. But last night, it meant nothing but this rich approachable Petite Sirah from Lodi. That’s in California, folks.

But get this – because of its simple but effective black label with a moon on it (pictured) – to the chick next to me at the bar, it meant she should enjoy some too, because it made her think of the movie “New Moon” in theaters Friday as they say (yes, she was younger, thanks for asking).

It’s murky crimson like a Romanian lake and on the nose reminds you of, well same said lake. Actually, she said it reminded her of her home aquarium when she opens the lid to feed the fish.

Up front, this wine has  some nice structure – decent backbone and supple tannins. The mid-palate is “floaty” and hovers at the top of your mouth, but then the finish disappears like a vampire in a Polaroid.

Mondavi’s grandson Rob is the vampire behind this line. Drink it with pizza, steak (stake, get it?) or turkey chili. And drink it with your vampire or werewolf friends.

2007 Columbia Crest Riesling – $7

The number one question we get asked this time if year is, “What wine would go with my Thanksgiving turkey dinner?”

Well, a lot of wines compliment turkey, but few quite as well as Riesling, and since Thanksgiving is an all-American holiday, give the German Riesling a rest and go with Riesling from Columbia Valley. Plus it IS among the best.

So, here comes Columbia Crest. Enough fruit for a harvest farm stand – apricots, pears, peaches and melons all getting together at the house this year.

Throw the coats on the bed, have a seat and take a sip of this crisp, refreshing white. Not too sweet, it’s terrifically tongue-loving. All those fruits present on the nose come back to party one more time in your mouth. Fine by itself, but wait ’til you sip it after a bite of Thanksgiving turkey! Its clean acidity, pure fruit flavors and mild alcohol (11.5%) bring a nice counter-balance of lightness to the feeling of heaviness as the dinner progresses.

Ever notice you never get any on Thanksgiving? Must be all the coats on the bed.

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