I tasted this wine while on vacation last month at Gaffney’s Wine Bar in Encinitas, California. Although they could have used some air conditioning on the evening I visited, I found the wine selection to be quite interesting and service honest and efficient. Owners Donna and Robert Gaffney had a similar wine bar in Sonoma for several years before relocating down to the seaside town of Encinitas, just north of San Diego. Even though their business is on Hwy 101, this is not a place most tourists would frequent so the Gaffney’s cater to locals. They pick their wines only from very limited production wineries they have developed relationships with over the years and also sell everything available at the bar in their retail shop. The wines are served in the proper Riedel stemware at the correct temperature and each regular pour is a generous 6 ounces. I chose a flight of two half-pours from the Curtis Winery of Santa Barbara County.

Curtis is a Rhone specialist making Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Viognier, Roussanne and blends of these varietals. Winemaker Chuck Carlson shows his passion for Syrah and it’s terroir by making three vineyard designates: Ambassador’s Vineyard, Crossroads Vineyard and Vogelzang Vineyard. Gaffney’s had the Crossroads Vineyard Syrah from Santa Ynez Valley available for tasting of which only 597 cases were produced.

Tasting Notes:

Curtis Winery, Syrah, Crossroads Vineyard, Santa Barbara County 2003 ($32) - 100% Syrah aged 16 months in new and previously used French oak. Dark purple in color with rich plum, tobacco and vanilla aromas. Concentrated and layered black cherry, blueberry and plum flavors with some herbs and spices finishing with silky tannins and some heat from 15.5% ABV. Despite the high level of alcohol, I found this wine to be balanced by enormous fruit reminiscent of Pax Syrah. A delicious wine that proves that great Syrah can come from the Santa Ynez Valley of “Sideways” fame. I’d only like to see a bit less alcohol here.

15.5% ABV
Natural cork closure
Score: 90
Buy this wine online

It’s a new month and a Wednesday, so that means it’s time for another edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, our monthly virtual wine tasting. This month it’s serial WBW host Sam from Becks & Posh who picked perhaps the world’s most festive and celebrated sparkling wine, Champagne. That’s right, with a capital “C”; the real stuff from Northern France’s Champagne region, not Andre from Modesto. I have to admit I don’t drink a lot of sparkling wine, particularly in the middle of the week, but when I do it is almost always Champagne. There is something about the balance of flavor, minerality and, yes, mystique that surrounds this wine. I’ve had excellent sparking wine made in California but nothing seems to equal Champagne from a price/value relationship. So I thought it would be interesting to see how many true Champagne could be had for under $40 USD a bottle, as well as trying to get some of Sam’s “Extra Brownie Points” by staying away from the big houses. A bit of online research turned up a list of over 10 wines that appeared to meet this criteria and I was off to the wine store.

The first store I went to had a reasonable selection of Champagne including one on my shopping list, the Comte Audoin de Dampierre, Brut “Cuvee des Ambassadeurs“. I’m not sure if Comte Audoin de Dampierre would qualify as a small producer, as they export to almost 30 countries, but it is a family owned house with a 700 year tradition in winemaking. According the the history on their website, they have been making sparkling wine since the late 19th century. This wine is a 50/50 blend of chardonnay from the grand cru villages of Avize, Cramant, and Mesnil-sur-Oger and Pinot Noir from Bouzy, Ambonnay, and Cumières. It gets it’s special designation from the fact that it is served at many French embassies worldwide and the Elysée Palace (home to the French President) so it has the makings of a decent value.

Tasting Notes:

Comte Audoin de Dampierre, Brut, “Cuvee des Ambassadeurs”, Premier Cru, NV ($35) - Pale straw-green in color with vigorous and fine bubbles. Very pronounced grapefruit, fresh bread and almond aromas proceed nicely balanced and elegant citrus, yeast and mineral flavors finishing with lively acidity. A textbook Champagne, perhaps a bit dryer than most Brut, with enough flavor to match with a light entrée or enjoy with hors d’oeuvres. It’s also a great value.

12% ABV
Natural cork closure (very difficult to remove)
Score: 90
Buy this wine online

Thanks again to Sam for a festive theme this month and bringing mucho celebration into my midweek (thanks, I needed some of that). I’ll be searching for a couple more value priced Champagne for a podcast later in the fall.

I’ve been plugging away behind the scenes on my blog software to get ready for a relaunch the first of October. Some of the new features have been implemented such as the live chat on the right sidebar and audio comments on each post. Several other new community features are in the works and will be appearing here over the next couple of weeks.

I’ve also written a couple of podcasts to be recorded this week and will catch up my enhanced feed shortly. By the weekend I should be back to a more normal podcast schedule and look forward to continuing to bring you even better programming as I approach my 2 year podcast anniversary.

As always, thanks for your continued support.

Just getting setup to check out the live blog of the Apple announcements over at Engagdet and noticed they posted a story this morning about something called the iBreath. This is perhaps the most interesting yet ridiculous iPod accessory I have ever seen. As an added value, the unit offers an FM transmitter to broadcast your music to your car radio, so maybe this isn’t so crazy afterall. It certainly looks cool and might be the easiest pocket breathalyzer to use with those iPod-like buttons

Now let’s go see if Steve Jobs makes this thing obsolete…

Update: Seems the new iPods announced today still have the same dock connector, so the iBreath should still work with the hard drive iPod and nano models.

Acacia Winery, Pinot Noir, Field Blend, Estate Vineyard, Carneros 2002 ($45)

I’ve tasted several Acacia Pinots over the past couple of years and generally liked them. As might be deduced by the reader, I was in their wine club for six or seven shipments and have several more bottles in the cellar to drink. Their “Field Blend” is made from four clones of Pinot Noir planted together providing an expression of the terroir of their estate vineyard in the Carneros AVA. These blends are amongst my favorite in Acacia’s line up because they lay on the fruit, with enough Pinot funk to keep it interesting and finish off with sweet French oak.

The wine is a healthy ruby color with a salmon note on the rim. The aroma profile is of black cherry, forest floor and spice but it seems like the fruit is starting to recede more into the background than I remember my last bottle. In the mouth there is boysenberry and black cherry fruit with spice and vanilla from the oak. The tannins are still moderately firm and the finish is fairly long, but I like their 2003 bottling just a bit better. This is still a solid Pinot for current drinking that I would suggest you drink up given the synthetic cork closure.

13.9% ABV
Synthetic cork (very easily removed)
Score: 89

For a while now I’ve solicited your opinion about the numerical scores used here. As with earlier attempts for feedback the results are (fairly) conclusive to move to a 100 point rating scale. After careful consideration, I’ve decided to convert to Robert Parker’s version. This was not an easy decision for me but, in the end, it came down to not a decision between the vague 20 point system I sort of borrowed from Alder 18 months ago and the 100 point scale, but a numerical scale or just prose for my tasting notes. In the end, the decision to move to the 100 point scale wasn’t so difficult when looking at the situation in this way.

From now forward you will read and hear my wine ratings in a less vague numerical sense but I will continue to use more words in each review to provide the proper context. Hope you like the change…

In a bold move, preeminent wine critic Robert Parker has hired five new tasters and writers for his Wine Advocate newsletter. This is the first time Parker has opened up as many wine regions and so widely shared the reviewing duties since he started his newsletter nearly 30 years ago. The new writers are Antonio Galloni from the Piedmont Report who will cover all of Italy, David Schildknecht who will cover Germany, Austria, Central Europe, Alsace, Burgundy, the Loire Valley, Languedoc-Roussillon, Champagne, New Zealand and South Africa. In his spare time, David will also taste wines made in America’s Eastern and Midwestern regions, which Lenn and I appreciate respectively. Also joining the Wine Advocate are Dr. J. Miller, Mark Squires and a non-U.S. writer to be named later. Dr. Miller, a long-time friend of Parker and well respected East Coast taster, will cover the Pacific Northwest, Spain, Australia, and South America. Mark Squires will continue to look after eBob and also write about the non-fortifiled wines of Portugal (Dr. J gets Porto, Madera, etc). The most mysterious addition is a new “critic-at-large” position which will, “…represent a point of view outside the American perspective…”; Jancis Robinson, perhaps? I think not, but it certainly would make for interesting tension in staff meetings

I think these additions are the first steps in separating The Wine Advocate from Robert Parker’s palate and the first indication that Parker is thinking about retirement. For wine lovers this is great news as The Wine Advocate, a non-advertising supported wine publication, will continue well past Mr. Parker’s career. I would only be more pleased if Parker also announced his blog and podcast at the same time, but I’m sure those are planned for the future. Seriously, this is a turning point and the first time this wine lover will subscribe to The Wine Advocate.

As always, Alder of Vinography continues to set the standard for wine bloggers. This time it is regarding wine blogger ethics. It’s both inspiring, transparent and as thorough as you can get… I’ll be drafting a similar code of ethics to be posted here shortly.