Battle of the Blancs

So I decided to do a side by side tasting and open 2 bottles of sauvignon blancs at the same time and compare them. We decided on 2 random bottles we had, a Kato New Zealand one and a Cameron Hughes wine from the Russian River Valley. Stephen poured us each a small glass of both and we tasted them. The interesting part is that I didn't know which glass was which. Here were my thoughts:

Wine #1:

• pale yellow
• bad smell
• watery flavor, not very good on first taste
• more of an alcoholic burn
• more drinkable though, like a watered down lemonade
• could possibly be confused with a pinot grigio
• after drinking it a bit, I prefer this one since it's simpler

Wine #2:

• dark, bright yellow
• green pepper smell
• very strong taste - maybe too strong with food
• very distinct sauvignon blanc
• smells like a pickle, vinegary

Wine #1 turned out to be the Cameron Hughes wine, and Wine # 2 was the Kato. I definitely liked #2 a lot better, which just goes to show that not all Cameron Hughes wines are terrific. I must say though, that we both tried these wine a day or two later and I thought the CH one was better than it was on the first day. 

Nautilus Sauvignon Blanc

Now THIS is a wine. I have had this wine a few times before, once at McCormicks and Schmidt, and another at a wine bar. Perhaps even a third time at House Wine, I don't remember though. I finally bought Stephen a bottle for his birthday last May and we just got around to drinking it. To me, it is the perfect sauvignon blanc. Sauv blancs are tricky, because sometimes they taste like the infamous cat pee, or green peppers, or water, or occassionally a wonderful blend of citrus. This wine has wonderfully balanced fruit flavors and goes well either with food or completely on it's own. For $17, I will definitely be getting this wine again.

Kono Sauvignon Blanc

I have wanted to go this book and wine club for months now and finally found the time to go this week! I was trying to think of a refreshing white wine to go with the hot weather so brought the Kono Sauvignon Blanc I bought at a Specs tasting last month. It was just under $10 and fairly light. I actually liked the wine a lot, and thought it was a great easy drinking wine! Its crisp, and of course citrusy, although I wish I would have had it a bit colder. I still have a bit left and might try it on ice with lemon, like I had at Cork and Co!

The book and wine club was really cool! I was the new one there, but everyone was really nice and friendly. It was a bit different from Wino Divino, because people just brought their own bottle of wine and pretty much stuck to that – they didn’t all drink everything and rate them like we do. I want to actually read the books and participate in the discussions more next time!

Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc

I went downtown for a Flaming Lips concert (which was AMAZING, by the way) and we were a little early, so stopped by a bar to have a drink. We went to Ginger Man, which is pretty cool if you like beer since there are tons of beers on tap there. Unfortunately, I hate beer but they also had a pretty decent wine and port menu. Lately I've been getting into sauvignon blancs because I've found a few I haven't hated, so decided to go with the Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc for $7 a glass. I looked this up on Specs just now and its about a $15 bottle, so their prices are NOT BAD considering it was a bar. The wine itself was just ok... it was pretty dry and bitter to me like most sauvignon blancs I've tried, but it definitely was drinkable. It tasted a bit watery to me, but I would have liked to try it with some food. I'd give it maybe a 6/10.

Yali Sauvignon Blanc

Ewww, ewww, and ewww! I hardly ever buy wines I haven't tasted before, just because I go to so many tastings! So I actually wanted to buy a completely random wine and take my chances and this is what I got. This sauvignon blanc was on a display at Whole Foods, and as you can kinda see, is from the "winemakers selection", which I guess I thought meant it was really good or something.

Sauvignon blancs can be really good, or taste like cat pee and although this wasn't pee-like, it was definitely bad. Here's the rundown... it smells like nail polish remover (and pear) and tastes like watered down wine. There is a bit of citrus, but its not distinguishable and overall its very blah. I don't think its undrinkable, but its close and I would DEFINITELY not get it again.

However, not everyone shares my opinions!

Specs Wine Tasting

Wow what a tasting! Last month I went to Specs I didn't end up getting anything but this time was an absolute goldmine. There were so many amazing wines this time I had a hard time choosing.

The winner of the night was the Helfrich Pinot Gris. Normally I don't like these types of dry whites, but this pinot gris was very fruity and sweet in the middle and dry at the end, making it very refreshing without being overwhelming. My other favorite was the Castello del Proggio Moscato. As I've said before, Im starting to really love moscatos. I used to really like rieslings because they were so sweet and refreshing and have taken the next step in moscatos since they are even sweeter without being overly fruity. I ended up getting both of these wines for about $12 each.

Tonight was really cool because it seemed to be an unofficial Spanish Tempranillo night. There were FIVE tonight and since I love this type of wine it was really cool to try so many different ones almost side by side. The wines ranged from $7 to $17 and my favorite ended up being the Arzuaga la Planta, although I can't say exactly why. Just a personal preference perhaps, but I didn't end up getting it because I had too many other things and all were so good it was kinda hard to choose.

The wines I did NOT like were only three - 2 California chardonnays that tasted very unoriginal and blah and one African Shiraz that was just weird. On top of the 3 I really liked and the 3 I really didn't like, were about 10 other ones that were very good. I decided at the last minute to get one other wine because it was pretty good and only $3.73! It was a sauvignon blanc fron Chile and although it was not fantastic, it was solid and still delicious and definitely worth the few dollars I spent on it. These types of wines are good to have on hand for a super casual night or even as a second bottle of the night :o.

As always happens at wine parties, you get to chat with some really cool people about wine. We ended up talking to this guy about the moscato and he recommended I try a vouvray so we went to look at some and Specs ended up not having the one he was talking about. That brought me to an employee and we started talking about rose's and he had some great recommendations for me. I almost got one of those too, but seeing as I already had quite a few to buy and the rose was not one of the featured (and on sale) wines, I decided to wait. It will probably be the next bottle of wine I get though.

Now for the cheese!

The cheeses here are always interesting to try and I usually get a few. There was a cheese with fenugreek seeds in it that tasted like maple syrup which was really cool but not really my thing. One of the cheeses I ended up getting was a trucket and was really good and wanted to sample it further. Probably the most bizarre cheese was a cheese that had coffee and lavender flavors and when you first try it you think WHOA... but as you keep eating it you keep wanting more and more. So I got the trucket and the coffee/lavendar cheese and found a Parrano that was for some reason 50% off so got that too.

Hooray for Specs wine nights being back on track! Id say 75% of the wines were either good or great, which is how it should be in my opinion!