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Over the past decade the Benziger Family Winery has converted their estate to biodynamic farming. Their flagship bottle is the Tribute, which really shows off the earth and climate of their property in Sonoma County, CA. This wine is fabulous, however it’s produced in limited quantities [read: more difficult to find] and goes for about $90 a bottle. Although I highly suggest you find this wine, it’s a little out of our league for the Wine of the Weekend.

Instead I suggest the 2005 Benziger Syrah, sourced from the North Coast of California. This wine has nice dark fruit flavors of black cherry and ripe plum. It has the right amount of tannins allowing it to stand up to most dishes. Plus, all the grapes for this wine are sustainably farmed.

Pair this wine with anything you can slather in barbeque sauce and throw on the grill. If you don’t feel like cooking drink this with a good mushroom pizza.

With the Pats winning all the time, sports bar celebrations are starting to break the budget.  So for warmth this weekend and for the game on Monday, grab a bottle of Bodegas Viñas Zamoranas’ ‘Los Zorros’.  This is a fat and ballsy Tempranillo in a Zinfandel’s body from the Castilla y León region of Spain. This wine was crafted specifically to warm the blood and pair with football, nachos, and wings.  Its big blueberry and cherry fruit is fantastically complemented by vanilla, cedar, a whole lot of spice, and crayon wax all for ten bucks.

This is a mind-blowing value Chianti for about $19 retail. It has full-bodied raspberry and cherry fruit that saturates your palate, but at the same time, has enough acidity to make it feel light and not overbearing amongst all the fixings at the table. As you keep sipping it’s flowery aroma and rich vanilla flavors will only steal the show from the food if you let it.

This is our first $20 white wine of the weekend, but what the hell. You don’t want to look cheap, and this is totally worth it.

For those that only want white at their tabletop this Thanksgiving, pick this Oregon Seductress. This white will dazzle you with beautiful peach and cantaloupe fruit before it leaves you with an almondy, spicy finish. There’s enough of an acid backbone to stand up to the dirtiest of gravies.

As I am writing this, it is 34 degrees outside and an uncomfortable 60 in my apartment.  Winter is coming and that means that we aren’t drinking for fun anymore; we’re drinking for warmth and body heat. When it’s cold out you need liquor and spice to warm the blood as well as a little smoke in honor of the fireplace you wish you had.  The 2005 Bodegas Victoria ‘Pardina’ from Cariñena, Spain has all those qualities and more.  The spicy combo of 90% Tempranillo and the rest Cabernet Sauvignon delivers black currant liquor with some cedar and smoke leading to a long toasty, vanillin finish.

Pairs perfectly with a recipe I found for Garlic Lamb with Mushrooms.

GO RED SOX!

Even though the trophy has been in The Bay State for close to a week now, the city has yet to recover.  You can find remnants of the parades as traces of confetti are still blowing around Boston.

Keep the celebration going with a RED, or at least red-ish, sparkling wine, perfect for celebrating any time of the day or night.  The Lucien Albrecht Brut Rosé Crémant d’Alsace is a great sparkler coming out of the Alsace region of France.   This 100% Pinot Noir wine has flavors of cherry and strawberry.  Pour it into a flute or drink it right out of the bottle.

Congrats to the 2007 Red Sox on a GREAT win and a FANTASTIC season.

Vintage stuff is in.  Clothing, posters, all the way down to vintage guitars and camera equipment.  I just bought a pair of vintage hockey gloves because Paul Newman wore the same pair in ‘Slap Shot.’  Old stuff is cool, especially when it’s old looking and alcoholic.

May I present to you the 2005 Mas de Gourgonnier from Provence, France. This wine pours out of its circa 1760s shaped bottle.  Though it looks a little like a jug, it’s all part of the charm.  This particular farm (mas) is situated in a particularly windy climate that naturally protects the vines from pests, so they have no trouble keeping organic!

On the nose the fruit is intense but there is also a light and fresh vegetal characteristic.  On the palate the red currant and pine from the nose is joined by blackberry, petrol, and stone.  The finish was hot with alcohol, really bringing out the pine.  This is a very tasty, big, blend of Grenache, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon made for your next slab of meat. I’m thinking lamb.

Have you ever had a Grüner Veltliner? They’re awesome right? So why aren’t there more Austrian wines around? Basically it’s because Austria is too frickin’ cold! Austrian wine makers have trouble ripening grapes and protecting vines from frost damage. That is until Fritz Zweigelt engineered an unstoppable SUPER-GRAPE! Zweigelt is very early ripening and frost resistant, making it the ideal grape variety for places with harsh winters and hot summers. Zweigelt’s invincibility has not only made it Austria’s leading red grape but it is also catching on in Canada, Belgium, and even Japan!

The 2005 Salzl is my Zweigelt of choice. It comes in at about $13 and really delivers some great medium-bodied cherry fruit with licorice, a bit of minerality, and spicy white pepper. It’ll go great with the pizza or wings you’ll be eating every game the Sox stay alive.

So I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks, chalk it up to the insanity of harvest.  A rush to bring in all of our best fruit before yesterday’s rain lead to 13-14 hour days, and not much to do but work and sleep.  Contrary to what I thought, it does indeed rain here, but rain does not stop winemaking!  Yesterday it steadily rained all day, and throughout this rain we still crushed 30 tons, mostly cabernet sauvignon and our last small lot of merlot.   

Harvest has been in full swing for the last two weeks, and I have finally witnessed first hand the craziness that is working a crush season.  When things are in full swing life is nothing but a blur of incoming grapes, outgoing stems and pomace, with the aromas of fermentation in the air EVERYWHERE (seriously, all of Napa valley smells like fermenting wine right now…).  Work dominates your life, and the random day off is a blessing to be able to do laundry and food shopping - the things you once took for granted.  But if you’re passionate about wine, the whole experience is worth it just to be able to taste and smell everything throughout the fermentation process.

The peak of harvest is just about over here at Chappellet, and with our last fruit scheduled to come in this week we should be back to more managible work hours.  So expect weekly posts again, each one giving a small insight into the art and science of winemaking!

Here you go, an oldie but a goodie. The 2005 Castano Monastrell. Monastrell being Spanish for Mourvèdre. I was first introduced to Castano with the 2003 vintage. It was incredible and only 6 BUCKS! Since then its popularity has increased and now it’s $9.

Even with the price increase it is so worth it. In fact you should be ashamed of yourself for only paying 9 dollars. We wish there was some sort of digital, Paypal tip jar for the farmers in Yecla, Spain that have enabled us to get rich, juicy, blackberry, chocolaty, meatiness in a medium bodied bottle of red for $9!