Often when you think of Napa and Sonoma, the big corporate winery showcases come to mind. Palatial wineries costing tens of millions of dollars surrounded by gardens that compete with Versailles and gourmet kitchens better equipped than three star Michelin restaurants. Yet some of California’s most exciting wines are not being made in such wine palaces.

Working in leased space, crammed in with other small producers sharing space and equipment, some young winemakers are making a dramatic new generation of California wines. Some of the most compelling wines I tasted during a visit to Sonoma last weekend were some bottlings of syrah produced by some low tech, but high passion winemakers. I say this is a new generation because these are not the huge raspberry fruit bomb syrahs with little varietal character you have come to expect from California. These are big wines, just as they should be, but layered in with all that fruit was real complexity as they exhibited that earthy, butcher shop character that defines the finest wines from this variety.

Morgon Peterson at Bedrock Wine Company is crafting some of the most fascinating American wines I’ve tasted in some time. He’s making a tremendous range of single vineyard syrahs and a dramatic sauvignon blanc/semillon blend. Neighbor Phillip Staehle is making some compelling wines under the Enkidu label. His Odyssey Russian River Syrah is proof positive that the best syrah is made in cooler climates than conventional wisdom has called for in the past.

In the picture above, Peterson presses wines using a muscle powered basket press. Yes, he really makes wine that way. There’s a growing group of young winemakers in California who are well educated not only on winemaking science, but on the traditions that made European wines the standard for greatness in the past. They are on the cutting edge of California winemaking not because of their use of the latest technologies, but by their return to the methods of the past. They are making textured, complex wines that don’t bury the characteristics of the variety under excess and manipulations, but that proudly and clearly show their California personality. For me, these wines were nothing short of exciting. As you might expect, very little wine is produced at wineries such as these. I’d suggest you get on the mailing list now.

One of the greatest experiences that a wine lover can encounter is a wine that stops them in their tracks. I'll admit that I'm excitable in general, but there's nothing that gets me quite so giddy as a schoolboy as when I stumble across a wine that truly bowls me over. Such wines are the closest I get anymore to the emotions of that first passionate kiss in a new relationship -- they electrify me. While the world slows down to a crawl around me, all I want to do is stick my nose in the glass and inhale slowly.

This is one of those wines. I was minding my own business, tasting away through a public wine tasting in San Francisco. As a matter of course, I marched up to the Guigal table, and tasted through what they had to offer, like I have done before at other tastings. I enjoy Guigal wines a great deal, especially their more exclusive bottlings.

But while I've had Guigal wines that have been great, even exceptional, I've never had one knock me on my ass in quite the same way as this wine did when I put it in my mouth.

Etienne Guigal founded his winery in the tiny Northern Rhone village of Ampuis in 1946. The vineyards he purchased to begin producing wine had been growing grapes for as long as anyone can remember. So long that some of the stone walls in the fields dated back more than 2400 years to Roman times.

The enterprising 32-year-old Guigal was no stranger to the wine business when he bought his first vineyard, having worked as a winemaker for several years before striking out on his own. By the time his blindness forced him to turn operations over to his son in the Sixties, he had personally worked more than 67 vintages.

The estate is now beginning its third generation of family ownership, and is widely recognized as one of the top wine producers in both the region, and the world. From its humble beginnings, the estate has grown to sizable proportions, or what amounts to sizable proportions in the relatively small appellations of the region. The estate now owns vineyards in Côte-Rôtie, Condrieu, Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, and Saint-Joseph, and buys a significant amount of fruit from producers all over the region.

I'm not entirely sure of the estate's current production levels but they are somewhere north of 340,000 cases, with the bulk of that being wines made from purchased grapes. The wines are currently made by Philippe Guigal and his father Marcel.

This particular wine is 95% Syrah and 5% Viognier, culled from some of the oldest blocks among 6 of Guigal's vineyards:

Le Clos "Côte Blonde",
La Garde "Côte Blonde",
La Grande Plantée "Côte Blonde",
La Pommière "Côte Brune",
Le Pavillon Rouge "Côte Brune",
Le Moulin "Côte Brune"

Some of these vineyards were planted in the early 16th century. Of course, they have been replanted over the ages, and the average age of the vines now is around 50 years. While the vineyards are not certified, they are essentially farmed organically.

The grapes for the wine are hand harvested, meticulously sorted, destemmed, and then undergo a cold soak for sometimes more than a month before fermentation is allowed to begin in steel tanks. After fermentation, the juice is transferred to the estate's own barrels (since 2003 the estate has run its own cooperage on the property) where it ages for at least 38 months before bottling.

Tasting Notes:
Medium garnet in color, this wine leaps out of the glass, grabs you by the scruff of the neck and drags your ass into a field in the middle of southern France and then stands back laughing as you stumble blissfully among sage, lavender, rosemary, and a small lake of fresh cassis. In the mouth the wine is equally explosive with an incredibly juicy core of cassis that is riddled with crystalline, granitic minerality. Perfectly balanced, with the texture of satin, and tannins that don't grip so much as they caress. And just when you think it can't get any better, the floral notes from the Viognier sweep in like valkyries to carry you away into the finish. Please, sir, may I have another? This is definitely the best current vintage of Côte-Rôtie I have ever tasted.

Food Pairing:
I'd love to drink this with a slow roasted leg of lamb with rosemary.

Overall Score: between 9.5 and 10.

How Much?: $130

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

What am I doing around 1:00 am EST almost every night? Checking woot.com for the latest woot item, of course!
Being a computer/tech junkie, I am always finding random good deals on woot. Now, they have made my life complete, with Wine Woot.

Every week they will be featuring a single deal on wine. Take it or leave it, but when they are out of stock, you are out of luck. If this turns out anything like the regular Woot.com, a good deal will be sold out in minutes.

The wine deal they have up there right now looks pretty good: St. Supéry 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot Sampler. Seeing as how these would fit the Cheap Wine Reviews rule of 15 bucks or less, I might give this wine a try.

When people find out that I enjoy cheap wine enough to devote a website to it, they usually ask me if I have been to Trader Joe’s. My response, until last week, has always been “No, not yet”.

Well, I finally caved and took a trip to Detroit, the nearest Trader Joe’s location for me here in Lansing. Ann Arbor might actually be closer, but as an MSU Spartan, I try to stay out of there.

I’d like to preface this review of Charles Shaw Cabernet with a synopsis of Trader Joe’s. If you have one near you, go there. If not for the wine, then for the thousands of food items that pack the small market. I spent 80 dollars, which sounds like a bit much especially for me. I ended up leaving with 2 cases of wine and enough food for a week. Fresh mozzarella, fresh gnocchi, fresh salsa (notice a pattern?), Guacamole chips, Trader Joe’s Marinara, soups, veggies…. I was in heaven. They have got all kinds of cheeses, breads, meats, micro-brewed beers, and their wine selection was out of this world. What a great store!

Trader Joe’s is the exclusive retailer of Charles Shaw Wines, better known to most as “Two-buck Chuck”. In California these wines sell for $1.99, which is just amazing. Here in Michigan, though, the price was $2.99.

Did we like it? Was it worth the trip?

Hell yes it was! For 3 dollars, I don’t think it could have been any better. The Cabernet was great. At first, I found it to be a little sweet, but looking back, I was actually enjoying the salsa with the wine, which probably wasn’t a great combination. Along with the Cab, I also purchased some of the Shiraz, Merlot, and Chardonnay (reviews coming soon).

Congrats to Two-Buck-Chuck and Trader Joe’s for achieving the highest rating available here on Cheap Wine Reviews. Hats off to you!

Rating: 10/10
Price: $2.99
Place of Purchase Trader Joe’s

Little kids go through a phase where they need to put everything in their mouth. I wonder what it says about me that I'm pretty much stuck there? I really enjoy trying out new wines and sakes, especially those that are well off the beaten path.

So when Beau Timkin, the owner of True Sake in San Francisco handed me this bottle and said "check this out" I couldn't resist. After all, it was the sake equivalent of....well.....(if you'll excuse what may be a somewhat obscure (to you) Japanese animation reference) Howl's Moving Castle.

This sake is:

1. Nigori - an unfiltered sake

2. Junmai Daiginjo -- the highest grade of sake, where the rice kernels have been polished to less than 55% of their original volume.

3. Nama sake -- unpastuerized, designed to be drunk very soon after production, much like Beaujolais

4. Sparkling -- yes, that's right. Sparkling sake. Not entirely common.

Can you understand my fascination? Even if you've never seen the phantasmagorical animation movie referenced above perhaps you can understand what a strange beast this sake would be.

Many people who enjoy sake even occasionally are familiar with the cloudy nigori sakes, as they are somewhat trendy and likely to be offered in most sushi restaurants that aspire to have anything more than just the standard hot sake on the menu. Nigori sakes are cloudy because minute rice particles (think flour particles) that are normally filtered out of the sake are left in. These bits of starch both make the sake milky white, as well as add a slight sweetness to the liquid because they contain sugars.

Most nigori sakes are considered to be somewhat rustic, harkening back to the beginnings of sake when, in fact, all sake was nigori sake, since no one bothered to (or had the technology to) filter it in the early days of sake brewing. Consequently nigori sakes do not tend to be premium sakes, which is to say that they are most often made from rice that has not been polished to the level required for premium sake.

So to see a Junmai Daiginjo nigori sake is quite unusual, both because it means that the brewer has gone to quite an expense to deliberately produce such a sake, and that the brewer is confident that such a sake merits such treatment, as the rice sediments that are left in nigori sake tend, on the whole, to mask some of the more delicate flavors and aromas that a junmai daiginjo sake has been made to possess.

Nama sake or namazake is the sake world's equivalent of Beaujolais Nouveau, or perhaps more accurately, fresh raw milk, which is unfortunately illegal in the US. Unpastuerized by heat, namazake has a different character that is cherished by die-hard sake fans as more rustic and "authentic" than commercial releases that go through the pasteurization and stabilization process.

And sparkling sake? Well, what can I say. Sparkling sake is just a oddball phenomenon. It has been made here and there by various producers over the last decade, but not with any regularity, nor with any real commercial strategy. It is perhaps best characterized as one big experiment.

If there is any brewery that isn't afraid of experimenting, it's the Tsuki no Katsura brewery in the Fushimi district of Kyoto in western Japan. One of the oldest and most regal of breweries in the area, it is single-handedly responsible for the fact that nigori sake even exists today as a commercial product.

As I mentioned, originally all sake was effectively nigori, as it went unfiltered. But sometime before the 19th century, many makers began to press their sake through mesh bags to filter out the sediment. When the "rules" for how to make sake were written in the 1800's and it became regulated by the government, filtering (or more accurately, pressing, as there is most often a final filtration after pressing) became part of the required regimen, and nigori sake effectively became illegal. One of the primary reasons for this was that the filtering process was when the government levied its taxes on sake makers. For perhaps understandable reasons, the government wasn't too keen on the idea of skipping that step for aesthetic reasons.

But nigori sake wasn't forgotten, and after decades of tireless lobbying, Tsuki no Katsura managed to convince the government to allow them to make nigori sake. How did they manage to get around at least two hundred years of precedent for pressing sake through a filter to remove solids? Well, in the end they didn't. They were still forced to filter their sake, but they convinced the government to let them use a filter that had holes in it about the size of golf balls. Apparently it took a couple of years of changing their production process so the government ministry that oversees sake brewing would approve, but eventually they did, paving the way for all modern nigori sake.

Today, Tsuki no Katsura is one of the largest producers of nigori sake in Japan, and is apparently breaking new ground by moving into the sparkling sake world as well. They also produce a range of standard sakes which are rumored to be decent as well.

Full disclosure: I received this sake as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Cloudy white to the point of being chunky, with a medium-strong effervescence, this sake has a yeasty nose with scents of bubblegum and malted milk. In the mouth it has a thick presence on the palate and about as much carbonation as some soft drinks. The flavors are cool and rainy, with a distinct flavor of wet paper, a light floral element, and a finish that is beer like with hints of yeast. I'm not sure if my sense of the beer-like flavor was influenced by the carbonation or not. Overall this is not a sake that does a lot for me, but it was a fascinating drinking experience and one worth trying just on principle, especially for those who are interested in sake.

Food Pairing:
Nigori sakes normally reward pairings with slightly more substantial foods than their lighter, more delicate filtered brethren. I'm not confident about it, but I might try pairing this sake with tonkatsu, the traditional breaded and fried Japanese pork cutlet.

Overall Score: 8/8.5

How Much?: $20 for 300ml bottle

This sake is not available for sale on the internet. You can give Beau a call if you're interested: 415.355.9555