OTBN: Open That Bottle Night #8 - Feb 24, 2007

It's that time again... to open that special bottle for which there never seems to be a special enough occasion to open. Invented by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, who write the wine column for the Wall Street Journal, OTBN 8 (it's the eighth year of this tradition) is Sat 24. It is the last Saturday of every Feb. Here is an excerpt from last years column. (I read this years column in print, so I don't have an excerpt from this year).

I'm still pondering what to open but it will undoubtedly be something older. My cellar is still pretty young, so old for me is 2002.

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Excerpted from,

Tastings: Savoring a Storied Evening --- The Many Ways to Celebrate Open That Bottle Night; Sediment and Sentiment
By Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher
27 January 2006
The Wall Street Journal

(Copyright (c) 2006, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

We invented OTBN for a simple reason: All of us, no matter how big or small our wine collections, have that single bottle of wine we simply can never bear to open. Maybe it's from Grandpa's cellar or a trip to Italy or a wedding. We're always going to open it on a special occasion, but no occasion is ever special enough. So it sits. And sits. Then, at some point, we decide we should have opened it years ago and now it's bad anyway, so there's no reason to open it, which gives us an excuse to hang onto it for a few more decades. So OTBN -- which is now always the last Saturday in February -- offers a great opportunity to prepare a special meal, open the bottle and savor the memories.

To be sure, the real point of OTBN is that those bottles should be opened throughout the year, not just on a special night. But we understand that sometimes it takes a village to open a bottle and, indeed, over the years, OTBN has gotten bigger every year. At first, it seemed to be celebrated primarily by couples and intimate groups. One of our all-time favorite post-OTBN notes arrived the first year from a couple in South Florida who opened a prized Chateau Latour 1986 with pizza fetched from a sentimental-favorite pizzeria after a two-hour-and-15-minute round trip. "The pizza was great," wrote the husband. "The Chateau Latour was good, not great. But it got better toward the end of our meal, and much better as we entered the Jacuzzi with Mr. Barry White in the background."

Now, we're hearing more and more accounts of OTBN being the main event at large dinner parties with friends and family. It is also being celebrated at restaurants, clubs, museums, libraries and wine stores such as The Wine Store in Alpharetta, Ga. OTBN was even a question on "Jeopardy!" last year (and the contestant got it right, for $200). We're especially touched by the event in Rochester, which will include an auction and a dinner at which each couple will bring a bottle of wine to share with their table. The Bivona Child Advocacy Center says it "is looking to establish this event as both the signature event for the agency and the pre-eminent OTBN party in Rochester." The center, which opened on Aug. 1, 2004, and evaluated more than 600 children last year, hopes to raise up to $75,000 at its event at the Oak Hill Country Club. "It need not be old. It need not be rare. It need not even be expensive. Just bring the bottle, and we'll make it special," the invitation reads.

So, how do you participate in OTBN? First and most important, grab that bottle you are saving. Don't worry about whether it's over the hill. This event is about the memories, not about the liquid itself. As far as we can tell, just about every household in America has a bottle of wine saved from a trip to a winery, for instance. Now's the time to open it and remember the visit. If you don't have a special bottle on hand, think about buying a bottle of wine that brings special memories.

Rosenblum Open House Feb 2007

I've been a big fan of Rosenblum for about 3+ years now. Their quarterly open house was this past weekend on both Sat and Sun, whereby they open their Alameda tasting room from 12-5 for a tasting of many their newly released wines. They typically have 30-50 wines to taste, somtimes including barrel samples. It typically draws 400-800 people per day. The nice thing is that if you show up early there is time to taste (and spit!) as many of the wines as you can stand.
And after attending the ZAP tasting at Fort Mason in SF, I appreciate the much more leisurely pace of the Rosenblum tasting.

The Rosenblum style is huge ripe fruit with a healthy dollop of oak. Their signature grape is for the last two decades has been Zinfandel, but as of recently their Syrahs and Petite Syrahs have also become a serious force to be reckoned with.

In addition, sometimes the growers of their single vineyard wines show up as pourers. On this past Sunday, the growers of the Holbrook Mitchell and the Kick estates were present. In many cases, the growers are modest farmers who have been at their trade for years or even decades. They are modest and unremarkable if you didn't know who they were.

For the first time, I thought the Syrahs and Petite Syrahs were the best wines at the tasting. I bought 8 Zins versus 11 Petite/Syrahs.

My favorites at this open house, prioritized by value. were:

1. Hillside 2004 Syrah $25 - a lovely smooth wine. A good bit of this wine was from th Kick vineyards which had a even better wine but at over twice the price the Kick wasn't the best bargain.
   
2. Monte Rosso 2005 Zinfandel $45 - rich complex Zin.
   
3. Rominger 2005 Syrah $25 - a tasty solid Syrah.
4. Kick 2004 Syrah $55 - my first tasting indicated this was the best wine overall and tied for the most expensive. Very smooth with a rich body. A later tasting when my palate was more fatigued was not so impressive.
5. Rockpile Ridge 2004 Petite Syrah $45 - smooth fruit with minerals.
6. Lyons 2005 Pinot Noir $30 - a big Pinot, yet with the classic stony red cherry pit flavor with some acidity. This was at the same table I was pouring, so I had several tastings.
7. Base Camp 2003 Syrah $26 - Nose of vanilla and chocolate.
   
8. Richard Sauret 2005 Zinfandel $25 - ((The 2001 Sauret was the wine that hooked me on Rosenblum so I always will have a soft spot for the RS)). Not particularly impressive with a med body and a somewhat pedestrian zin flavor profile.
9. Lyons 2004 Zinfandel $45 - big tannic fruit. Needs a few more years to soften up.

The latest tasting notes through 2/2007

I've posted my complete set of notes as a Google Spreadsheet at:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=ppZGoEnMKMPZyifPyC39bcQ

I've also come to realize that long set of tasting notes just isn't that interesting so I'm pondering how to liven up this blog yet at the same time make the tasting notes my own internal core.

I do intent to start blogging more with articles. I realize a 2-4 week update of a spreadsheet just isn't that exciting.