Tag Archives: Red blend

60 Second Wine Review — 2007 Efeste Final-Final

Published on August 22, 2018

A few quick thoughts on the 2007 Efeste Final-Final red blend from the Columbia Valley.

The Geekery

Efeste was founded in 2005 by Daniel and Helen Ferrelli, Patrick Smith, Kevin and Angela Taylor. The name comes from the phonetic pronunciation of an acronym using the founders’ last names, F-S-T.

In 2007, Brennon Leighton was hired as head winemaker on the recommendation of consulting winemaker Chris Upchurch of DeLille.

Leighton would stay on at Efeste for nearly 5 years before leaving in 2012 to join Charles Smith Wines. That same year he harvested the first fruit for his own label, B. Leighton Wines.

He was succeeded by Peter Devison (who also made the Sound Purveyors Cab we’ve reviewed). Mark Fiore, formerly of Beresan, Balboa Winery and Charles Smith Wines, is now the current winemaker for Efeste.

The 2007 Final-Final is a blend of 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 42% Syrah and 2% Mourvedre. Around 3000 cases were made.

The Wine

Medium-plus intensity nose. Still a noticeable core of dark fruit–blackberry and currant–for a 10+ year old wine but the bouquet is dominated by spicy and savory tertiary notes.

The savory, spicy character of this wine reminds me of a delicious lamb curry dish.

On the palate those tertiary notes still hold court with a lot of Indian spices like Garam Masala and meatiness that is amplified by the mouthwatering medium-plus acidity. The medium-plus tannins are still present but very velvety and soft as they hold up the medium-plus body fruit. Long finish ends on the savory notes.

The Verdict

While I’ve certainly enjoyed more recent releases of Efeste’s Final-Final, I honestly can’t remember the last time I was this blown away by the wine. It could be a combination of the wine aging well, the inclusion of Mourvedre (which hasn’t been used in recent vintages) or the differences in winemaking style from changing winemakers.

This wine is an absolute steal for folks who bought it on release at $23-27 and still have bottles. Even as a library wine, it’s still a compelling value for $40-45.

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Non-Alcoholic Wine — Because sometimes you have to

Amber LeBeau in General, Shopping for Wine, Wine Tasting

Published on January 26, 2018

When a friend of mine was pregnant, we threw her a baby shower. We figured that if Mama couldn’t drink, then neither would we. So we hit the local liquor store to buy an assortment of non-alcoholic wines to give them a taste test to see which, if any, were actually tolerable.

Much to our surprise, we actually found them to be not that bad. Well except for one that was just hideous.

How do you get Non-Alcoholic wine?

Wine Folly gives a good breakdown, complete with illustrations on the process, but essentially non-alcoholic wine starts out as regular, alcoholic wine with the alcohol later removed. This process is not 100% exact which is why these wines can’t be sold to minors (and why we didn’t let our mama-to-be have any). If you look carefully, you will see that the labels note that they contain less that 0.05 or 1% alcohol. Technically, these are “alcohol removed” wines rather than non-alcoholic wines.

The two most popular methods to remove the alcohol are reverse osmosis (used by Ariel and Sutter Home Fre with the later using a spinning cone for the process) and vacuum distillation (used by St. Regis).

The Line-up

Sutter Home Fre is made by Trinchero Family Estates. In addition to Sutter Home, Trinchero also makes Menage a Trois, Charles & Charles, A3 wines, Bandit, Joel Gott, Sycamore Lane and many more. In the Sutter Home Fre brand they make a non-alcoholic sparkling wine, Chardonnay, Moscato, White Zinfandel, Merlot and Red blend. We were able to taste all but the Moscato and White zin.

Both Sutter Home Fre and St. Regis highlight lots of “Mocktail” recipes on their websites that are worth checking out.

St. Regis is a Canadian brand produced by I-D Foods Corporation. The wines are made in Europe with the Cabernet Sauvignon coming from Spain, the sparkling Brut from France and the Chardonnay and Shiraz rose from the south of France. They also make a sparkling Kir Royal from France that we did not get a chance to taste.

Ariel is owned by J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines with their website claiming that they are sourcing their fruit from the same 3700 acres of vineyards used by J. Lohr in the Central Coast of California. They also claim to be the “World Best Dealcoholized Wine” with the website touting a gold medal won more than 30 years ago at the 1986 Los Angeles County Fair that saw their Ariel Blanc competing against alcoholic wines. While they make a non-alcoholic Chardonnay, we only had an opportunity to try the Cabernet Sauvignon.

The Verdict

First off, with all these wines you can certainly tell that they aren’t the real deal. Besides the muted aromas, the biggest giveaway is the mouthfeel with all the wines tasting very watery and light. The one exceptions were the two bubbles which I’ll discuss below.

Both of these were surprisingly good.

In tasting through the wines, the “house style” of the two brands that we had multiple examples of–Sutter Home Fre and St. Regis–quickly became apparent. The Sutter Home Fre was the sweeter of the two but not sugary sweet. In fact, they reminded several of us of the low-sugar kids fruit juices that you get at places like Whole Foods such as Honest Kids. In fact, the similarity of the Sutter Home Fre wines to the Honest Kids fruit juices were quite remarkable since none of the Fre wines had any real “winey” notes like oak. Even though these wines tasted like “healthy kids fruit juices”, I would never recommend letting kids try them.

The St. Regis wines tasted drier and more wine-like but they also tasted noticeably manipulated with the use of oak chips. Both the Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon smelled like “real” Cab and Chard but they smelled like real examples of mass commercialized under $10 wines made by large volume producers like Trinchero and J. Lohr which was a bit ironic.

So not a fan of the Ariel.

The worst of the bunch, by a loooooooooooooooooong ways was the “World’s Best Dealcoholized Wine” Ariel. It tasted like stewed fruit cooked in plastic Croc shoes. I had to (unfortunately) revisit it several times to try and discern if the bottle was flawed but it didn’t tick off any of the typical wine fault red flags. I couldn’t detect volatile acidity (VA) and overt oxidation notes that typically go with “stewed fruit” flavors–like if the wine had been exposed to excessive heat such as being in the trunk of a car. Plus the cork and bottle looked fine with no bulging or seepage.

While the plastic Croc notes seem in line with some of the 4-ethylphenol (4-EP) “band-aid” Brett aromas, it definitely was more plastic shoe than band-aid. The wine also didn’t have the mustiness associated with TCA. Though the threshold for determining cork taint is heavily influenced by alcohol content so who knows if the reduced alcohol was doing something weird.

The one wine from this tasting that I would encourage people to avoid.

Ultimately, I can’t completely say that the Ariel Cabernet Sauvignon was flawed or not but I can say that this particular bottle was one of the worst things I’ve ever tried. If this was a blind tasting, I would have pegged it as a really bad and light bodied Pinotage–and that would have been the nicest thing I could say about it.

Perhaps, again, it was just this one bottle but the 2 star rating and reviews on Amazon hint that perhaps it wasn’t. A 2008 review on CNET described a tasting of the Ariel thusly:

There were three reds, including a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Merlot, that were so weak and tasteless they were essentially undrinkable. The same was true of the Chardonnay. — Steve Tobak, August 23rd, 2008, CNet

Looks like not much has changed since 2008 since I would also describe the Ariel Cabernet Sauvignon as ‘undrinkable’.

In Summary

But, happily, that was the only one. While the other wines certainly weren’t spectacular, they were definitely drinkable and it really all comes down to personal preference. If you want something on the Honest Kids’ fruit juice side, go with the Sutter Home Fre. If you want something more “wine-like” (i.e. oaky) then go with the St. Regis.

But the stars of the show were the two non-alcoholic sparklers. Both the Sutter Home Fre and St. Regis Brut were actually quite drinkable and pleasant. They essentially tasted like drier versions of Martinelli’s sparkling apple ciders. The bubbles followed the trend of the house styles for each producer. The Sutter Home Fre was slightly sweeter and more “Martinelli-like” while the St. Regis was drier and more “wine-like” with even a bit of toastiness.

If I was having a party, I would happily buy both sparklers as a non-alcoholic options for adults. As for the others, I would be interested in exploring some of the mocktail recipes found on their sites. They weren’t bad on their own (except for the Ariel) but not anything I would be eager to try again.

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A Bordeaux Palette

Amber LeBeau in Bordeaux, Wine Knowledge

Published on October 10, 2016

Quick question: What is the point of blending?

Image by G4sxe at English Wikibooks. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under GFDL Self-published work

The tried and true “wine geek” response would usually go off into one of two directions. You can talk about the history of Bordeaux (and other European wine regions) who planted a variety of grapes that bud and ripen at different points as an insurance policy against nature’s follies.

A more poetic approach pictures an artist painting. Each grape variety is a different color on their palette. Instead of using just one color (one grape), the winemaker paints a more vivid, engaging portrait using a multitude of colors at their disposal.

So then, what is a “Bordeaux blend”?

If you’re quick with Google and quicker with a corkscrew, you’re probably rattling off in your head a list of red and white grape varieties that are used to make wine in Bordeaux.

It’s right, but it’s also wrong.

An eye-opening experience during my travels to Bordeaux was this realization of how far-reaching the concept of blending is among the Bordelais. It’s so much more than just blending grape varieties.

Let me give you the example of Chateau Haut-Bages-Liberal, a 5th growth estate in Pauillac.

Across 30 hectares scattered around the villages of Bages and Pauillac, they grow just two grape varieties–Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. So the blend each year should be pretty simple right? Grab a few beakers and graduated cylinders and see which ratio of Cab to Merlot works the best.

Not quite.

I'm sure the plot of Haut-Bages-Liberal that stands in the shadow of the tower of neighboring Chateau Latour gets LOTS of special attention

I’m sure the plot of Haut-Bages-Liberal that stands in the shadow of the tower of neighboring Chateau Latour gets LOTS of individual attention

You see much like the Burgundians; the Bordelais invest deeply into knowing every single plot of soil–its strengths, weakness and quirks. This is knowledge that is acquired over decades, if not hundreds of years.

Ch. Haut-Bages-Liberal has been around since the mid 18th century. Their many years of experience have led them to subdivide their vineyards into 42 different plots.

On our steep learning curve here in New World wine regions like Washington and California, we’ve also started to see different personalities emerging from different blocks. When identified, these blocks may be farmed and harvested differently than the rest of the vineyard. On wine labels, we see heralded blocks like Sheridan’s Block One Cabernet, Schweiger Vineyards’ Legacy Block, Rochioli West Block Pinot noir, etc.

At the Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classe estate of Fleur-Cardinale, they give each plot a name that captures the “personality” of that plot.

But at most Bordeaux estates, every plot is treated as a “heralded block”. Each given its own unique attention.

They will be fermented separately. Some in cement, some in stainless steel. Some in big oak vats, some in small oak barrels. A few plots will even be split into different types of vessels.

At several estates, I was taken back at how many custom-made cement tanks I saw with odd (but precise) volume sizes. Things like 21.6 hL, 23.9 hL, 58.2 hL, 61.9 hL, etc. It eventually dawned on me that each of these tanks was designed and made for a specific plot.

The plots are still kept separate even after fermentation. Here they are transferred to barrel with most estates using the product of 4 to 9 different coopers.

Each barrel adds its own “coloring” to the palate. Some may add more creaminess, some more spice. Others will heighten the attack of the wine upfront while another barrel may push it more to the mid-palate.

A Kaleidoscope of Flavor

An assortment of the unique fermentation vessels used at various Bordeaux estates.

Making the final blend, the winemaker is not dealing with a color palette of only five grapes. Instead, they’re dealing with a kaleidoscope of colors (and flavors). At their disposal is a hundred (or more) different lots that have taken a unique path from vineyard to bottle.

It is an art form in the most literal sense.

While there are many outstanding New World producers of “Bordeaux-style” blends, I have not come across many who take the concept of blending to the degree of the Bordelais.

The Bordeaux Blend is so much more than merely blending grape varieties. It’s about expanding the palette to include not only more colors but more shades of those different colors.

This expanded palette is just one way that the Bordelais has dazzled the palates of wine drinkers for centuries.