If you haven’t heard, October is #MerlotMonth. So, it’s perfectly fitting that my Sip of the Week this week features one of my go-to Merlots for any occasion. The Gainey Vineyards Merlot is not only affordable, but an excellent quality red wine. And there’s no better time to try it than during the month of October!

Gainey Vineyards is located in Santa Ynez, California, just inland of Santa Barbara and close to the town of Danish-style Solvang. It’s one of the closest AVAs to where I live, so I consider it my wine country backyard! Gainey is situated on a beautiful property surrounded by rolling hills, and its décor is classic and elegant, just like their wines.

The Gainey Merlot is a great wine for the bold-red wine lover.

It features berry aromas with flavors of pepper, savory spices, and herbs on the palate. Like many Merlots, this one has a dry finish and pairs well with food that has a slight sweetness to it (we tried it with a seasonal pumpkin curry…it would also pair well with my pumpkin pasta sauce or roasted acorn squash). Give this wine a few minutes to open up after you pour and it will be sure to impress!

This wine is available at Total Wine & More for under $15 per bottle. The Gainey Merlot is affordable enough for a weekday glass of wine, and sophisticated enough to serve at a dinner party. I always love featuring small-production, family-owned wines in those settings, so use this Merlot to introduce some wine fans to Gainey Vineyards!

The details:

Varietal: 94% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc

Vintage: 2016

ABV: 14.1%

AVA: Santa Ynez (100% Gainey Home Ranch)

Barrel Aging: 14 months in 27% new French oak

pH: 3.54

TA: 0.68 g/100 ml

Cases produced: 3,098

If you want to pay them a visit, Gainey is located at: 3950 CA-246 Santa Ynez, CA

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If pictures are worth a thousand words, then this photo should tell you all about the beauty of the Alloro Vineyard 2018 Riesling.

Far too often, people associate the Riesling varietal with syrupy-sweet wines. While some Rieslings do run on the sweet side, there is so much more to the grape than that stereotype. The Alloro Vineyard 2018 Riesling, which hales from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, is a perfect example of what a Riesling can be: complex, acid-driven, distinctly flavored, and properly balanced.

The Alloro Vineyard Riesling is fermented in stainless steel, which creates a crisp, clean flavor on the palate. It is left with 1.4% residual sugar, giving it a touch of sweet in every sip. The Alloro Riesling’s most distinct flavor (in my opinion) is that of bright lime juice and lime zest, which balances the touch of sweetness perfectly. Floral aromas compliment these flavors, giving the wine complexity of both smell and taste. I would describe this wine as bright, zingy, full-bodied, and nuanced. Flavors and aromas dance around your palate with every sip, leaving you wanting more!

I decided I was going to pair my Alloro Vineyard Riesling with dinner this week.

The flavor of this wine begs to be complimented by citrus and spice, so I settled on a Thai-inspired dish of kebobs with grilled lime and a spicy peanut sauce. The juicy grilled lime paired perfectly with the tart qualities of the wine, while the creamy, spicy, and slightly sweet peanut sauce created a well-rounded flavor that enhanced the Riesling’s structure. The spice in the dish complimented the acid and subtle sweetness of the Riesling perfectly.

Alloro’s Riesling grape is grown on-site at their property in Sherwood, Oregon.

Alloro Vineyard falls in the Chehalem Mountains AVA, and sits upon loess topsoil with decomposed basalt underneath. The vineyard is completely dry farmed, meaning there is no added irrigation during the growing season. The vineyard is largely left to its own devices, and therefore the wine in each bottle is a representation of the vineyard’s terrior: the climate, topography, soil, and other natural factors that contribute to the distinct flavors of the grapes.

A core value of Alloro Vineyard is sustainability, and it goes far beyond their wines.

Vineyard Manager and Proprieter David Nemarnik uses his passion for agriculture and experience in the produce business to create an environment at Alloro that is self-sustaining and mutually beneficial for both the land and Alloro’s consumers. In fact, Alloro Vineyard is LIVE Certified, Salmon-Safe Certified, and seeks to employ practices that enhance biodiversity. This is a perfect example of how sustainable living goes beyond your day-to-day practices or food sourcing…it applies to your wine sourcing, too!

All in all, Alloro Vineyard is producing outstanding wines on their Willamette Valley property. Stock up on the 2018 Riesling before it’s gone. It’s a bottle of pure magic!

Details:

$30.00/bottle and can be ordered online!

12.0% ABV

100% Stainless Steel Fermentation

1.4% Residual Sugar

Chehalem Mountains AVA

Interested in learning more about the Willamette Valley? Check out my other blog posts about my visit to the area!

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If you followed my blog during my trip to Walla Walla, Washington last fall, you may remember my lunchtime visit to Armstrong Family Winery for a tasting with owner and winemaker Tim Armstrong. (Click here to read all about my visit to the Walla Walla tasting room!) The Armstrong label has stood out to me as a “Washington wine-must” ever since.

So, when our recent trip to the PNW took us to Woodinville, Washington for an afternoon last month, I knew there was one tasting room that we absolutely needed to stop at: Armstrong Family Winery! That’s right, in addition to their Walla Walla location, Armstrong also has a presence in the urban winery setting that is Woodinville.

Urban wineries, you ask?

Don’t expect to see rolling vineyard hills and glamorous views in Woodinville wine country. Expect, instead, to “wine hop” from door-to-door in a strip mall or industrial park. You’ll find over 100 wineries sandwiched into this small urban setting. There’s plenty of breweries and distilleries, too!

We popped into Armstrong unannounced, but were excited to find that they were in the middle of their 2016 Merlot release weekend. Not only that, but Tim and his wife Jen happened to also be in Woodinville for the weekend! We spent our afternoon sipping the wine lineup with Lisa (the fabulous and friendly Woodinville tasting room host), chatting with Tim and Jen, and enjoying a bottle of the 2016 Merlot.

The 2016 Merlot is a fantastic bottle of wine.

It is hearty and complex, balanced, can hold up to food, or can be enjoyed on its own (I opted for the latter during this visit). The Armstrong Family Winery Merlot is a “big” wine, perfect for a Cab- or Syrah-lover looking to branch out to other wines. And for the Merlot-doubters of the world, this bottle is a perfect show of what the Merlot varietal can be with the proper balance of skill, artistry, and finesse in the winemaking process.

For the Armstrong Family, this bottle brings their wine journey full-circle.

It was a bottle of Washington Merlot that first inspired Tim and Jen to take the leap to winemaking and uproot from Chicago to Eastern Washington. For Tim and Jen, producing this single-varietal bottle pays homage to their journey through the world of wine. In my opinion, it confirms that they made the right choice by taking the leap to Washington wine…this 2016 Merlot is a standout in their lineup!

The wine from Armstrong Family Winery speaks for itself in terms of quality. The kind, down-to-earth, and hospitable nature of the Armstrong Family further conveys the passion and dedication that goes into creating these high-caliber bottles and blends.

If you’re anything like me and enjoy supporting family-owned and operated businesses, consider ordering some Armstrong Family Wine for yourself. They ship to most US states in case you’re not located in Washington. And if you’re having trouble choosing a bottle (or two, or three, or four), you can check out my previous post with details on several of their wines. Just know that you really can’t go wrong with whatever you choose!

Thanks, Armstrong Family, for another wonderful experience enjoying your wines. I can’t wait to visit again!

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I recently had a day off of work, and as fate would have it our power was shut off that day, too. That meant no Netflix, internet (on my laptop), or any other techie ways to pass my time. I decided to finally open up a book that was given to me at Christmas called Cork Dork. I had been saving it for a time when I knew I could really dig in and enjoy it. This was that time!

I expected to find the book interesting, but I never expected to get sucked into it the way that I did. I read almost the entire thing within a day. It’s been years since I last did that with a book! Bianca Bosker, author of Cork Dork, takes her reader on a journey through her introduction into the world of wine. Her lighthearted writing style and philosophical approach to her journey is refreshing, inspiring, and exhilarating.

Here’s the general premise (no spoilers):

Bianca, a tech writer, finds out about the elusive world of wine by stumbling upon videos of Sommeliers blind tasting. Bianca’s knowledge of wine at this point is introductory at best…she mostly knows it as a means of getting drunk. How could it be that these savants on YouTube are taking a sip of red grape juice and identifying not only what grape it was made from, but also the exact location in the WORLD) that the grape was grown in, and sometimes the exact bottle and vintage of the wine? Bianca sets out on a personal quest to determine whether this Sommelier world is just a façade to a “bullshit-prone” industry (her term, not mine), or whether there is any trainable skill that can allow for this type of sensory detection.

Bianca gives herself one year to learn about wine and pass the Certified Sommelier Exam.

She throws herself at it full-force, documenting her experiences along the way. There are some definite characters in the book, but even more impressive is how much scientific research Bianca poached herself in in order to truly demystify this elusive wine world. From Harvard research studies, to Napa Valley flavor scientists, this autobiography-of-sorts gives a peek into all facets of wine in a humorous, entertaining, and easy-to-understand way.

While I had heard bits and pieces of what’s wrong with many of the affordable wines that are mass distributed throughout the US, Bianca’s book opened my eyes to information that (I assume) few are aware of. Think: additives, fillers, food colorings, etc. in the perceivably “pure” wine you’re purchasing for $12 at your local grocery store. Here’s a brief excerpt of what Bianca discovered in her journey to write Cork Dork (note: the following information will probably be disturbing if you’re a cheap-wine lover…proceed with caution):

“There is no fault [in wine] that can’t be corrected with one powder or another; no feature that can’t be engineered from a bottle, box, or bag. Wine too tannic? Fine it with Ovo-Pure (powdered egg whites), isinglass (granulate from fish bladders), gelatin (often derived from cow bones and pig skins), or if it’s a white, strip out pesky proteins that cause haziness with Puri-Bent (bentonite clay, the ingredient in kitty litter). Not tannic enough? Replace $1,000 barrels with a bag of oak chips (small wood huggets for flavor), “tank plants” (long oak staves), oak dust (what it sounds like), or a few drops of liquid oak tannin (pick between “mocha” and “vanilla”). Or simulate the texture of barrel-aged wines with powdered tannin, then double what you charge. (‘Typically, the $8 to $12 bottle can be brought up to $15 to $20 per bottle because it gives you more of a barrel quality…You’re dressing it up’ a sales rep explained).” (Bosker, 2017, p. 188)

That’s not all. Ingredients found in watercolor paints, anti-foaming agents, salt, chalk, cream of tartar, sugar, water, designer yeasts (to mimic “honey”, “cherry cola”, or “fresh butter”, for example), Velcorin (an ingredient that kills microbes that is known to be toxic…so only use it in small amounts), and MegaPurple grape juice concentrate (don’t kid yourself, an estimated 25 million bottles in the $20 or less range contain this magical concentrate each year) are just a few more of the commonly found ingredients in affordable wine. (Bosker, 2017)

More than 60 additives can legally be added to wine. Think about that…if you’re buying big-brand affordable wines, chances are you’re ingesting just a few of them.

To take it to a broader level, this is one of the reasons I feel it is important to support small, independent wine producers. They typically are not producing mass quantities of bottles, which allows them to control the flavor of their wines in natural ways (with naturally-occurring yeasts, barrels, and, you know, that thing called nature). Yes, more than likely you will be paying more for a bottle of wine at a place like this, but that’s for good reason. You’re paying for quality, and while there may be a few additives, they will be nowhere near the MegaPurple or Puri-Bent found in your $8 grocery store bottle.

I’ve been passionate about finding certified organic and biodynamic wines for a while now, and a big part of my drive for this is to ensure that there are fewer chemicals used in the grape-growing and wine-making process. There are a couple major certifications for bioidynamic wine, Wine Folly writes all about them. Looking for these indicators is another way to make an educated choice about the wine you’re consuming. A couple of my favorite biodynamic wineries are Troon Vineyard in Southern Oregon, and Beckmen Vineyards in Los Olivos, California. I’m excited to find more biodynamic wineries on my trip to Willamette Valley wine country in Oregon next week!

Whether you’re a die-hard wino or a skeptic of all the “notes” of peaches, tobacco, and wet soil that are supposedly sniffed in a glass of wine, Cork Dork is a book for you. I feel I’m a more educated wine drinker and purchaser after reading Bianca’s story. I also sort of wish I had thought of her idea to document a year-long, fully-immersive journey in the wine world first…ha!

Here’s a link to purchase Cork Dork if you’re interested: https://amzn.to/2DVduYT

Cheers!