1999 Abadia Retuerta Seleccion Especial

Last Sunday I decided I should open up a good Spanish wine in honor of the country's triumph at Euro 2008, and the choice was Abadia Retuerta's Seleccion Especial. This wine is from the Castilla y Leon region of Spain, just outside the Ribera del Duero DO. The wine is made from mainly Tempranillo, with some Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. I actually bought this a few years back for just $20, and for a wine of this age, wasn't sure how much life it would still have. I was quite surprised then to find that there was plenty of flavor right from the start, and very little fading 2 nights later when the bottle was finished.

I was really quite stunned by how good the wine was, and wish now I had more. I've had this winery's low-end offering, Rivola, on numerous occasions and found it to be a nice everyday wine, but this certainly was much more. I highly recommend searching for the most recent vintages of this wine, especially if the price is still so reasonable. It's a great example of the sort of quality available from Spain these days at a very reasonable price.

2005 Turley Pesenti Vineyard Zinfandel

The weekend before the 4th I went out to dinner with a group of friends and decided to bring along a bottle of Turley (usually a good choice for BYOB since its extremely rare to find restaurants with Turley on their list). The 2005 Turley Pesenti was one that I had 2 bottles of, so I figured I could check in on it and still have one left for the future, and it did not disappoint. The 2005's aren't considered a great Zinfandel vintage, and this was not the most powerful of Turleys, but it still possessed plenty of fruit and muscle. It's that very fruit-forward style that makes Turleys a fun choice to taste with novice wine drinkers - they are almost always amazed at the power that the wine brings. Of course, the wines aren't the easiest to get, so it's tough to recommend them to people since they won't find them on retailer shelves. My hope is that they can at least turn people on to what Zinfandel can be, and maybe they will check out something from Ridge or Biale or another top-notch producer that is easier to find.

2002 Thorne-Clarke Shotfire Ridge Cuvee

Over the weekend, I finally drank the last remaining bottle from the first case of wine I ever bought, the 2002 Shotfire Ridge Cuvee from Thorne-Clarke. This wine was one of those Robert Parker stunners a few years back - a sub-$15 wine that earned a ridiculously high score (93 or 94 points I think). After finding one bottle and enjoying it, I immediately went for a case purchase when I was able to locate it in Charlottesville (the '02 vintage never made it to Atlanta, only future years). This wine has changed its blend over the years, and '02 was really a very Bordeaux-like wine with no Shiraz component, instead blending Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdot. I decided to work through the case slowly to see how the wine evolved, and managed to actually see it through a dumb phase before a somewhat well-aged wine came back around about a year ago.

This final bottle came about 5 months after my previous tasting, and the wine was about as I remembered - no longer an Aussie fruit bomb, it had softened up and had some more nuanced flavors. Unfortunately to me, the Cabernet Sauvignon really had dominated the other components at this juncture, and that's not really a great high point for me. Overall, the wine had become just a decent older Cab, nothing more. It's a good wine, one that I'd give 87-88 points, but certainly not the high flyer it was originally rated years ago.

What I'll remember most about this wine was the evolution I got to experience in having so much of it so that I could really track and see how it aged. It's the first time I was really able to do that, and for that reason, this was a great wine experience for me.

2005 Tua Rita Rosso di Notri

Tua Rita is a winery that has become very well known in wine-circles over the last decade or so mainly due to it's high-end Redigaffi Merlot (retail price: way more than anything I can afford), but I recently discovered that they also produce a reasonably priced IGT as well. The 2005 Rosso di Notri is a blend of predominately Sangiovese, along with Merlot, Cab, and Syrah. As 2005 is shaping up as a great vintage in Tuscany, I didn't hesitate to pick up a bottle when I found it recently, and I wasn't disappointed with the wine.

The Rosso di Notri is exactly what I'm looking for in a good mid-range Italian wine - it offers some nice forward fruit flavors with a little weight, but isn't a heavy, concentrated "international" style either. It went perfect with pasta and my homemade tomato and meat sauce (actually made with veal). I immediately made sure to go pick up another bottle over the weekend. It's about $20, but is worth it in my mind - it's similar to a good Rosso di Montalcino, and priced accordingly.

2004 Ridge Nervo Zinfandel

Ok, so first let me say for anyone out there checking this out I haven't stopped blogging - I just went on a 2-week vacation to Austria for Euro 2008. I did not drink any wine on the trip either, as this was strictly a beer-drinking event (and there was a lot of it).

Anyway, back home now, and back to the wine. I went with BBQ chicken as my dinner choice to start the week, so that of course meant Zinfandel. I chose one of the Ridge bottles I got when my friend Loudoun and I were on their ATP mailing list (we've since stopped for now due to all the Zins we've accumulated), the 2004 Nervo Vineyard Zinfandel. I've rarely met a bottle of Ridge I didn't like, but this one really tested me. Coming in at 15.2% alcohol, this was one of those times where you weren't surprised at the high level. Over 2 nights, the wine never really seemed to settle and integrate fully, always carrying just a bit too much of the alcoholic heat on the palate. You could tell there was some nice fruit in there, but the wine just never fully came into balance. It was drinkable, but overall a disappointment for me compared to the levels I usually expect from Ridge. You always fear this with some of the Zins that creep up into the 15-16% range, and unfortunately this seems to be one time that the formula didn't work out.

2004 Feudi di San Gregorio Rubrato

Feudi di San Gregorio is probably one of the best-known wineries in Southern Italy, but mainly for their white and their Serpico red. Last summer in Amalfi, I discovered this lower-end Aglianico and have been pleased to find it some in the States. The 2004 Rubrato is really a great wine, certainly unique and showing what potential there is from the region and the Aglianico grape. The wine isn't a heavy, full-bodied fruit bomb, but it possesses more of an elegant flavor with just a bit of bite. I loved it even with the lighter pasta dishes of Campania, and drank it this week even with a light herb roasted chicken and penne with pesto. It can work with those dishes or something heftier. For anyone looking for something different from Italy, I highly recommend this wine, especially for the price (around $18).

2004 Palazzone Rubbio

Over the weekend I opened up an Umbria IGT I had picked up for about $18, and was quite pleased with what I got from the 2004 Palazzone Rubbio. The Rubbio is a Sangiovese wine, but delivered a lot more body than what I was expecting for something that was priced like a decent Chianti. The color definitely showed a more serious presence, and there was lot more dark fruit than expected. Overall, this was the type of wine that I love to find becasue it certainly overdelivers on the price and is also somewhat unique (in a good way - it's not an international-styled wine). I've got one more bottle already that I'm going to let age a bit, but I'll probably search out more for current drinking as well.