Ghost of 413 Columbia Valley 2006 Syrah

Bottle #12: Ghost of 413 Columbia Valley 2006 Syrah

Price: $15

Running Tab: $157

My uncle has this friend in the wine biz who he's sworn to hook me up with, for questions, future jobs, etc. My uncle has a lot of friends... And that was a year ago...

One of his "good friends" is world-class winemaker and entrepreneur Mark Ryan McNeilly, known for his big, biting and barking red wines.  

I had no idea the Ghost of 413 Columbia Valley 2006 Syrah was one of McNeilly's babies he parented with fellow winemaker Chris Gorman when I grabbed it off the shelf at the pricey PCC Market. Still don't know why I buy wine there.

But the ghastly raised stenciling on the mysterious white label drew my attention with its creativity. I think I was also being rushed on my purchase decision and that bottle stuck out in my head. That's good marketing... And I'm pretty predictable.

And so was this wine!

A simple toasty nose with oak and dark fruits in the backlight over a lovely (yet almost forceful) center stage vanilla and cedar. To give a visual, Vanilla was the mob boss, Cedar was its hitman and the other aromas were the posse of "yes" men... Not a wood fan? Not a Ghost Syrah fan. Thought the aroma was a little faint in general, except for that vanilla and wood. 

What made it a predictable yet still tasty wine was a mouthful of black cherries, raspberries, tobacco, tannins and oak characters. I think it was the amount of wood in the nose that made it so oaky on the mouth as well. And that would had been fabulous if Ghost had any character and complexity... It was so Casper that the flavor was transparent as well. It finished with a bitter little kick in the pants too. Not very nice.

I don't know if I'm getting snobbier (probably) with my wine-ing but this just didn't do it for me. Ghost is such a young wine too, despite its deep purple color that conceals its rawness, it really does show potential to ripen in the bottle and become quite a tasty wine. 

Save it for another year or two and try it again. A little bitter and immature but has good intentions, sweet smells and looks pretty. Similar to most of the guys I've dated...

Score: 6.5. 

Waving Tree 2005 Columbia Valley Barbera

Bottle #11: Waving Tree 2005 Columbia Valley Barbera

Price: $15

Running Tab: $142

One of my bad tasting habits is that I drink wine alone. That makes me sound really sad - I don't drink alone, but I drink the wine by itself. I've learned that's an American matter of course with wine as opposed to, say, Italian culture where they down more wine than most small-stature, suspender-wearers would seem like they have the physical capacity to do so... But they do it with food. It's all about what wine goes with what food.

Keeping in my mind, I went with a Barbera, an Italian varietal, and drank it with some crackers. Baby steps. I've been trying to find a Barbaresco and/or Barolo for less than $50 around here but that's near impossible (nice Italian varietals being imported from the Motherland don't come cheap) so I settled with a grape that sounds like the other two! 

I found the bottle as a "new release" feature from this artsy and quaint little cellar I decided to scare the car behind me and abruptly pull over to check it out as I was on joyride last week. The label caught my eye because the colors were pretty. I'm deep. After speaking with the sommelier about the wine, he thought very highly of the deep southern Washington vineyard as well as the winemaker who was in the shop the previous week. 

I've been on a decanting binge because I'm so proud of that recent purchase even though I doubt it was too necessary for this 2005 wine. However, I've found letting the wine take a couple deep breaths of oxygen before consuming is never a bad idea. 

Nothing about this wine was a bad idea. Move over Robert Mondavi, I've found my new flavor of the week. The Waving Tree 2005 Barbera was simply delicious. The rich purple color in the glass was as rich as the nose coming from crystal. The aroma was everything it should have been for this young varietal - red ripe raspberries tossed with fresh blackberries and possibly some blueberries, a little reminiscent of a sweet sangria. A little toasted scent from being aged in oak for a year or so gave it some good body and tamed the intense fruit bouquet. 

On my mouth, the wine was complex but not too overwhelming and had a wonderful balance of tannins and fruit with a little acidity and alcohol giving that heat/burning sensation down my throat that I've always loved. And then for my sweet-tooth, I found a little bit of vanilla in the glass too.

I was SO impressed by this $15 bottle and I recommend it mostly to people who are iffy about wine. This will make you fall so hard you're head will ache in the morning because you'll finish the bottle off solo - as in by yourself, without food. Love hurts.

Score: 9.5

Greenstone Point 2004 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc

*Bottle #10: Greenstone Point 2004 Marlborough, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc

*Price: $14

*Running Tab: $127

I have this conviction that all good Sauvignon Blanc comes from New Zealand. I haven't been proven wrong yet but then again, I'm new to the white category. To test this thesis, I bought a bottle of the juice from a local PCC (yikes, pricey supermarket) because of its origin.

The Greenstone Point 2004 bottle sports a simple label but it was the review the store gave of this wine as "fresh and lively" that fit my expectations of a Sauv Blanc. Considering the weather in Seattle has been far from the wine's descriptors, I thought this could work as a good pick-me-up. 

In the glass, the wine had a solid golden straw color - in a very Rumpelstiltskin-esque manner. I think that means it was of good-drinking-age (4 years - I did the math for you). 

My take on the nose of the wine was full of spices, green bell peppers and green beans. A very vegetal aroma that I believe is typical of Sauvignon Blancs. That was a strange start for me with this wine but after a couple swirls, I was able to get some fruit aromas that were more familiar like some mango and pineapple. 

The back label of the bottle said the bouquet consisted of "gooseberries and capsicum," in which my response to reading the fact sheet was: "What the hell is a gooseberry?"

With the help of my good friend Wikipedia, I was able to see a gooseberry (ironically enough looks like a green grape) and pinpoint that capsicum is related to peppers... Lightbulb!

And the gooseberries taste like gooseberries - seemingly acidic on the initial impact with little heat down my throat (not remarkably low alcohol - 12.5% - but not a lot) and a short finish that didn't want to hang around on my palate for long. Maybe I had bad breath.

I was able to detect a pear/apple flavor to the wine making it enjoyable but overall found the taste of the wine to be of fair and simple quality - a little flat and a little hollow. Not a lot to this PCC-organic-overpriced grocery store wine and I don't plan to blow my pocket change on this again. 

Score: 4. 

Substance Wines 2006 Malbec

*Bottle #9: Wines of Substance 2006 Walla Walla Valley Malbec

*Price: $18

*Running Tab: $113

I have a fiscally-irresponsible habit of purchasing many Seattle-area publications and never reading them. Well, in this slightly rainy month of April, Seattle Magazine released a food and wine award issue and I was all over the inside of that cover. I flipped through the pages, recognizing a lot of local labels and winemakers' names when I stumbled upon something of "substance."

The final and probably oddball award ("Coolest Wine Label") was given to Waters Winery and Gramercy Cellars' joint configuration, Substance Wines. The label was a periodic element symbol, allotted for more than two dozen different varietals from Walla Walla Valley in Washington. Voila - www.winesofsubstance.com. 

A pretty awesome idea (and an innovative, interactive Web site) so I thought footing the $18 bill would be worth it to keep the "cool" bottle alone. I chose Mb - the 2006 Malbec. 

Considering this was still a young wine and it is a brand new release, it's sold old (to stores) with their Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon still in stock and a '07 Pinot Gris and Chardonnay to follow later this year. I felt special to get my mitts on the original limited vintage. 

This Bordeaux-style varietal was attacked by one "old-world" winery (Waters) and one "cutting edge" cellar (Gramercy) to give it its flair. I haven't quite been able to put my finger on what Bordeaux-style wines are supposed to smell and taste like, but this Malbec threw me for a loop.

My experience with Malbecs have been hit or miss - understandable because the style and quality of this grape depends on its origin (Argentinean Malbec vs. Californian). For some reason, I thought they were comparable in characteristics to a Syrah but not here. With Syrahs for me, I get a hefty mouth-full of spices, peppers and bacon or tobacco. The Malbec had none of the sorts (or anything like a Syrah) but had more of a fruit-forward effect than the Chiquita Banana Lady.

Substance brought deep plum color with a further plum aroma and topping it off with the most sharp fruit flavor as plum. Whodathunk. Beyond the fruit, there were soft and ample tannins, giving the wine a complexity and edge so that it wasn't merely grape juice.

I liked this wine, it just didn't send me skipping over the hills, hand-in-hand, to devote the rest of my life to it.

Score: 6.5 . 

Barnard Griffin 2005 Fume Blanc

*Bottle #8: Barnard Griffin Columbia Valley 2005 Fume Blanc

*Price: $9

*Running Tab: $95

Today, I've opened a new book in my life. Literally... Several hours ago, I began my winemaking certification program at a community college and I dropped a dime on three teeny books with pretty pictures. Pseudo going back to school. It's fun to learn again and then I remembered why I graduated... School is hard!

So now I'm going to offer a much more knowledgeable and scholarly approach to my blog. Maybe by next month when I've learned more than flashy wine vocab and I stop swallowing the tasting wines I'm to spit out.  

With my fresh comprehension on wine, I've taken on a local big-boy, Barnard Griffin and their Fume Blanc. A little ironic background on this week's guinea pig: Fume Blanc is the brainchild of my last week's boyfriend, Robbie Mondavi. It was his way of dodging the negative rap Sauvignon Blanc held in the 70s (too sweet and lacked texture). 

Let me tell you, this is "dry Sauvignon Blanc" (BG labels that as the translation). So dry that when I did a soft smell (as in did not even swirl my glass), I coughed from the astringency. I kind of got punched in the face. After I shook off the initial sting, I was able to sense a distinct floral aroma, similar to the spring flowers that are trying to bloom here in spite of the hail storms of late. Very fresh fruits tossed with vanilla sticks. 

Flavors were crisp, just right ripe fruits - melons, passionfruit and maybe some more spring sensations like fresh cut grass. Great acidity and left my mouth watering which, today, I learned means it has high alcohol content! It was tasty and had a decent lengthed finish that stayed in my mouth. It complimented the blackened salmon and fresh salad I shared it with for dinner. The cookies I had to follow, it did not.

Score: 6.5.