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The Official Wine Thread!
- Thread starter gbg
- Start date
Went back to Clos des Amis last weekend. No tastings due to CV19 but bought more of his regular wines and some of his Alt label. The Rincon Point Pinot. Bruce helped plant that vineyard years ago. Puts it in a Bordeaux bottle just to ruffle feathers. Right up Bates. 
The Sangiovese is from Santa Ynez. Same simple winemaking process. Man the Sangio is bangin.
The Sangiovese is from Santa Ynez. Same simple winemaking process. Man the Sangio is bangin.
So good. 2018, Sannio. Short maceration time, stainless steel only, and very little tannins. Totally different expression of aglianico, which is usually 20+ days on skins and many months in oak. Sour plums and cherries, a little fennel. Drink chilled, as you can see.
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It used to give me headaches and then someone told me to drink French and Italian wines. No more headaches. Lower sugar, fewer chemicals added. Pick a French or Italian wine bottle that looks good at around $15 and see if that works.
They also don’t get picked as ripe and aren’t as overextracted as California wines, which probably leads to more histamines
Totally, and more complete fermentations. Less use of new oak, too. So many reasons to try something from Europe. Chile actually has pretty good rules about winemaking. California has none that I am aware of besides labeling rules.
Grapedrink, are there any rules as to what can be added to California wine? Is there a list of additives permitted and not permitted?
I imagine there are some additives that are not allowed, although there are several dozen that are allowed that do not require labeling. Since alcohol falls under ATF (or whatever alphabet soup agency) and not FDA they are not required to disclose the additives in the sense that food and medicine has to label ingredients.
As far as I know there are no California specific restrictions, although I’m not a winemaker or employed by a winery so I’m not sure.
As for Chile, their potential is through the roof but the farming is nowhere close to what it is here or even in Europe. I’m sure there are a few boutique producers that do it right, but it’s essentially wasted opportunity. They could compete on the world stage if they got their act together.
Pretty low alcohol on those, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but they look interesting. Could be pretty acidic though.
Eagle landed in the mail here today as well. These go in the special occasion only wine vault.
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Went to Italy and got way less headaches. They said there are less sulfites in their wine. Even the cheap stuff tasted good and didn't give much of a headache.
Btw, were any of your favorite vineyards impacted by the fires? Us tourists liked Castello di Amorosa and Sterling, which sustained some damage.
I was talking Sunday to a winemaker that said shipping wine without sulfates (natural wine?) can be sketchy so he doesn't make it. He said something like temp variations can increase volatile acidity and make it smell/taste like vinegar. Makes total sense if it stays close to home like those wineries in Italy that. But look on the back of the same bottle you buy in USA and it probably says "contains sulfites". (grapedrink to the courtesy phone)
Another big problem besides vineyards getting burnt is smoke taint. A vineyard can be spared fire, but the grapes can be screwed. People in those areas who picked before the fires are probably in good shape if their wine was already in tanks or barrels, and the others not so much. Smoke taint doesn't rinse off.
Cain burned completely. Iconic Napa winery.
It could be sulfites but that probably isn't it. Most people are not sensitive to sulfur, and there's more sulfur on a couple of dried apricots than an entire bottle of wine. Most likely something else.
Haha like I said not a bad thing, just unusually low. Looks interesting though. The only thing I'd be worried about buying that without tasting first is that it's likely super acidic.