Best of 2013: Reader's Favorite Red Wines

It's been a great year for exploring new and exciting wines. We've tried some red wines that you have been interested in.

Thanks to a quick trip to Philadelphia, we had a chance to try a wine from Pennsylvania, a Cabernet Franc from Blue Mountain.

Thanks to the New York City Wine and Food Fest, we had a chance to share a few Italian reds with you, and began exploring some on our own.

Quick Review: Duckhorn Merlot Part 2

US, CA, Napa, Duckhorn Merlot 2003
++ // Fruity // Blackberry, Raspberry, Herbs // Oak, Coffee, Strawberry // Full
Big, bright flavors, but the tannins were starting to come through and hint that they might overpower the fruit flavors.

US, CA, Napa, Duckhorn Merlot 2002
++ // Fruity // Prune, Dried Berries, Hay // Chocolate, Cherry, Oak, Forrest Floor // Full
This was a difficult vintage, with a hot summer that seemed to come through in some over-ripe fruit flavors.

US, CA, Napa, Duckhorn Merlot 2000
++ // Spicy-Earthy // Blackberry, Cherry, Nutmeg, Fig // Pepper, Chocolate, Berry, Oak // Full
This was a great example of how a great wine can stand up to some aging. The flavors were more subtle and blended than the 2005, but were still huge in the mouth. It was just a bit more difficult to isolate any single flavor note.

Quick Review: Duckhorn Merlot Part 1

US, CA, Napa, Duckhorn Merlot 2009
++ // Fruity // Berry, Peach, Cola, Brown Sugar // Earth, Cherry, Currant, Fig, Oak // Full
This wine was just released, and definitely needed to spend some more time in the bottle to tone down its more astringent flavors, but it showed some great potential.

US, CA, Napa, Duckhorn Merlot 2007
++ // Spicy // Floral, Cherry // Blackberry, Oak, Chocolate, Green Pepper // Medium
This one too seemed like it could stand a little more aging, as there was still some "spikiness" to the flavors.

US, CA, Napa, Duckhorn Merlot 2005
++ // Smooth // Hay, Coffee, Dark Cherry // Cherry, Coffee, Cinnamon, Earth // Full
Apparently this was the largest vintage they have ever produced, by volume, and a perfect season. It was also the high point of the tasting, for us, as it seemed to be the perfectly balanced wine; fruit and earth notes still balanced against a strong tannic backbone.

2012 NYC Wine & Food Festival: Duckhorn Merlot

As the last of our three tasting events at the New York Wine and Food festival, we were invited to a vertical tasting of Merlot from Duckhorn Vineyard in Napa Valley. Duckhorn was the first winemaker in Napa valley to focus on Merlot, while most everyone else was looking at Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. For the past 40 years, they have sourced grapes from the northern reaches of the Napa appellation, where the climate and soils are more conducive to Merlot.

In 1978, Dan and Margaret Duckhorn released their first Merlot, based on the Bordeaux style--more subtle flavors, with a balance of fruit and earth. Since then, they have been one of the premiere producers of Merlot in California. As demand for Californian wines grew, the demand for Merlot outstripped the supply...until the movie Sideways came along, and ruined everything. These days, the public's demand for Merlot has stabilized to be the second highest consumed varietal, after Cabernet Sauvignon, and Duckhorn continues to release a wide range of wines under a wide range of brand names (all focused on the duck theme), from simple table wines to complex and subtle single-vineyard wines.

We had a chance to try wines from one of their premier vineyards, the Three Palms vineyard, and from six vintages ranging from 2009 to 2000. Each was amazing in its own way, and we learned a few important things.

• These wines are made to be aged; they are held for 3 years before they are released, and will generally reach their peak in 3-5 years.
• Merlot has some big flavors, and pairs well with red meats; something simple with an older bottle, but big, strong flavors with a wine at its peak.
• They recommend we taste our wines from oldest to youngest, as the flavors get more subtle as the wine gets older and the young ones can kind of overwhelm the palette in comparison.

This was a great tasting for us, an opportunity to get a better understanding of what the best of Merlot can really taste like.

 

Quick Review: Gerard Bertrand Legend Vintages Part 2

1945 Rivesaltes
+ // Funky // Roasted Nuts, Salted Caramel, Cinnamon, Old Fruit // Honey, Cola, Caramel, Overripe Peach // Very Full
This one seemed a bit astringent.

1936 Rivesaltes
++ // Funky // Hay, Nuts // Bitter Chocolate, Caramel, Cherry // Very Full
This one seemed more "hot" than the others.

1929 Maury
++ // Funky // Hay, Brown Sugar // Bitter Cherry, Chocolate, Caramel, Grass, Cola // Very Full

The last two were our favorites. Maybe because we had been sampling such strong wines all morning, but lets assume its because there was a balanced complexity to the flavors.

Quick Review: Gerard Bertrand Legend Vintages Port Part 1

1974 Rivesaltes
++ // Sweet // Floral, Nutty // Carmel, Honey, Berries // Medium

1969 Rivesaltes
++ // Sweet // Nutmeg (subtle), Nutty, Brown Sugar // Cola, Cinnamon, Caramel, Sweet Cherry // Full

1951 Banyuls
++ // Funky // Flowers, Fruit // Bitter Flowers, Tart Cherry, Brown Sugar // Full

2012 NYC Wine & Food Festival: Gerard Bertrand Legend Vintages

The first thing that hit us when we walked into the tasting room was the smell. It was as if someone had filled the room with caramel and nuts, and the smell was so thick it felt almost solid. We darted into our seats, surrounded by glasses that looked like arcs of amber, anxiously awaiting the chance to try something truly special.

Gerard Bertrand is a cheerleader for Southern France. Despite the fact that the region, sharing the border with Spain, is the largest wine producer in France, it sees far less press and prestige than some of the country's other regions. The award winning winemaker is doing his part to showcase the unique potential of Southern France, so when a local winemaker stumbled across a lost cache of Port style wines, he jumped at the chance to distribute them as yet another way to show exactly what the region is capable of.

The region produces a rich dessert wine in the style of Port, crafted from the three styles of the Grenache grape: Noir (black), Blanc (white), and Gris (grey) Granache. The grapes are blended to achieve a desired flavor profile, and during the fermentation process alcohol is added to stop the fermentation process before the yeast consumes all the sugars, leaving a sweet, highly alcoholic wine that can stand decades of aging. Left to age in barrels and then forgotten, these wines have been aging for decades in wood, only transferred to bottles 18 months ago. To say that they were rich in flavor doesn't begin to do them justice.

Our host eschewed the usual tasting banter, the comparing of smells and flavors, to instead let us sip each wine while he regaled us with pop trivia tidbits from each vintage. As we delved into the a world of powerful smells and flavors, we were reminded of the world that each vintage grew in. The 1969 grapes were harvested the year of Woodstock and the first man on the moon. The 1945 vintage captured the end of World War II. The wine from 1929 survived through the Great Depression. Each liquid jewel captured a moment of time, from moments in history that most of us have only ever read about. It was such a treat to sample these wines, an experience that would be almost impossible to replicate anywhere. And it didn't hurt that they were amazing wines as well.

Quick Review: Fontanafredda Barolo Vigna la Rosa Part 2

The oldest three from the Barolo tasting with Fontanafredda.

1999
++ // Earthy // Dried Fruit, Leather // Tobacco, Leather, Sweet Cherry, Chocolate // Full
A full bodied wine, with some big flavors, but maybe reaching its peak. The flavors lacked the pop of most of the other vintages.

1996
++ // Fruity // Barnyard, Truffle // Dried Fruit, Tart Cherry, a hing of Leather // Very Full
A huge body, but a fairly subtle taste

1982
++ // Fruity // Earth, Tobacco, Mushroom // Cherry, Tobacco, Truffle, Chocolate, Oak // Huge!
And enormous flavor for such an old wine, but perfectly balanced between all the notes.

The older ones (on the right) went down faster...

Quick Review: Fontanafredda Barolo Vigna la Rosa Part 1

Three from the Barolo tasting with Fontanafredda.

2006
+ // Fruity // Petrol, Fruit // Cherry, Tobacco, Oak // Medium
A little astringent, heavy on the oak. Maybe could use a bit more aging.

2005
++ // Fruity, Earthy // Grass, Cherry // Cherry, Earth, Tannins, Chocolate // Medium-Full

2000
++ // Earthy // Truffle, Mushroom, Toast, Hay // Cherry, Mushroom, Leather, Liquorice // Full
Compared to the younger two wines, this was starting to reach its maturity. The flavors were starting to balance out.

2012 NYC Wine & Food Festival: Fontanafredda Barolo

In some ways, wine is a universal language. Our palates may be as varied as our languages, but like a Rosetta stone, a glass of wine can give us a starting point for conversation. At the 2012 NYC Wine & Food Festival, we had a chance to participate in a tasting with Dottore Giovanni Minetti from Fontanafredda in Italy, presenting us with a vertical tasting of some of their Barolo Vigna la Rosa. His English was as heavily accented as his wine was full bodied, but since we shared common ground in discussing the same wines, we had a chance to learn quite a bit from him.

Founded in 1858 by the first King of Italy, Fontanafredda was originally intended as the court wine until it was introduced to the public in 1878. Situated in the temperate climate of the Piedmont region, the 240 acres of vineyards produces 100% varietal wines. We were tasting their Barolo Vigna la Rosa, made from Nebbiolo grapes from the 21 acres of the La Rosa vineyard in Serrelunga d'Alba.

The presentation was very technical. The winemaker had worked with others in the region to develop a custom tasting wheel specific to their Barolos, with a scale of common descriptors. Some, like cherry and mushroom were easy to identify, while others, like brushwood, were flavors that we were unfamiliar with and couldn't really discuss. The wines were amazing, a selection of good to great vintages starting in 2006 and going back as far as 1982. One downside of this type of tasting: Barolo is a huge wine, with big, bold, and aggressive flavors. Each wine was balanced with fruit, earth notes, and tannins, but it was hard to pick out some of the subtle differences between each. And the pace of the tasting, with 6 wines spread out over about 45 minutes, left our tongues feeling battered and bruised by the end. But it was amazing to track these wines through decades, with a wine almost as old as ourselves still big, bright, and fresh. It showed how much some wines benefit from age, as the oldest wine offered the biggest flavor while being the most balanced.