Sebastiani - seems to age well

I've had two sublime bottles from Sebastiani in the last year. A 2001 Cab and a 2002 Merlot. Both were from the "Sonoma County" brand of wines selling for $12-15. In both cases the wines picked up an elegance and complexity unforseen by me. The Cab was soo smooth with great balance yet still very flavorful. The Merlot had the most intriguing flavors of smoke and chocolate, with a fruit and an herbacious element.

So I've decided to keep buy the Sebastiani wines and to stick them in the cellar for a few years. They seem to age very well. And at $11-13 a bottle, that's an investment I can make.

Note: I just bought 4 bottles of the 2004 Cab from Costco and thanks to a $10 coupon, they were $10 a bottle.

Four good wines in the last 2 days

In the last 2 days, I've had 4 nice wines.

1. Thorn Clarke 2006 Riesling - this WS 91 pointer was $10 at the Wine Club. I had it at a chinese restaurant with their $5 corkage. It had a lot of mineral and weight and was not too fruity which surprised me for an Australian wine. A nice food wine. My score: 90.
   
2. Some Spanish Pinot Noir Cava. This pink sparkling wine for under $10 was nice and refreshing. Again perfect with Chinese food. My score: 88.
3. Rosenblum 2003 Paragon Chardonnay. I've had this for a while and opened it up a week ago. I love big heavy buttery Chardonnays, despite what some of the critics say, but this was just too much for me. It is big, oaky, and thick, but there was an off flavor that reminded me of moldy oak. A week later, I tried the remaining 1/2 bottle and it was just super. A huge thick, almost oily, buttery rich texture with some tropical fruit. A hint of sweetness and acidity. But it was all about the texture. My score: 92 on the second tasting.
4. Tapestry 2001 McLaren Vale Shiraz. ($16?) I've stored this WS 91 pointer for 3-4 years. I'm making an effort to dig up the ones I've been saving, and start drinking them. It has a lot going on, with different flavors on each sip over time. Intense fruits (dark cherry, blueberry, purple berries) in a dark spicy frame with notes of tobacco and earth. My spicy sausage in tomato sauce with Trader Joes pappardelle dinner brought out some sweet berry notes. Medium thin body with a medium long finish. Low acidity; no tannins. (The Yellow Tail 2005 Reserve Shiraz is similar to this wine and it's $10 at BevMo now.) I can see this being 91 points. My score: 90.

Great food and wine for the price of corkage

A bunch of us needed to find dinner before the company holiday party. I choose my favorite Chinese (Sichuan/Shanghai) restaurant The New China Delight, which is big on flavor and low on ambience and wine quality. We wanted to have some wine, of course, so I phoned to see if they had a corkage policy. The woman had to check w/ the manager and it was ... $5 a bottle. I was all over that like white on rice.

It wasn't as big a dinner party as it could have been, but it turned out to be a splendid dinner. Everybody in a good mood, the food lived up to its billing and the wines went wonderfully. And with $5 corkage, we could open bottles with impunity. Half of the group was eating vegetarian, hence we ordered:

• Pot stickers - good
• Veggy dan dan mein - noodles in a Sezhuan hot oil... very nice and pretty hot
• Cold hot vegetables - root vegetables in a hot Sichuan oil
• Bamboo shoots in a green sauce - looked like pesto but it wasn't
• Ma Pau Tofu (1 with meat; 1 without) - they make one of the best versions I've had stateside, but tonight they seemed to be missing the numbing spice, which is integral
• Chongching spicy fish - some of the best fried fish I've had. The moist fish is in a flavorful batter. But you may miss this as it comes covered with whole red hot peppers, which are mostly decoration. But there is chopped up peppers clinging to the batter.
• Dry sauteed string beans - a standard at Chinese places, but B who perhaps hadn't had these before, really liked them. Nicely done.
• Fried tofu - very plain... deep fried tofu.

The wines I brought that were opened:

• Kim Crawford 2006 Pinot Noir - New Zealand is up and coming with their Pinot. And their prices are very attractive. This was young with a zesty cherry, a bit of stone and lots of acidity. It would be interesting to try this after a few years.
  
• St Claire 2006 Sauvignon Blanc - It didn't stand out, but was quite pleasant with standard citrus (grapefruit) and peach in a lively medium bodied finish.
  
• St Michelle ? Blanc de Blanc - I've had this for a while and with all the recent press on bubbly, I grabbed it. It went quickly without me having any, so I think it went well.
• Sebastiani 2003 Cabernet - this was the one big red we opened. Others did not care for its big jammy flavor, but I quite liked it. Notes of coffee, caramel, oak amidst the big ripe fruit. Much better than I remember it being.

I had a really good time. But the real kicker was the bill: $18/person after tax and tip.

A reversal of policy for 2008

No, this has nothing to do with interacting with a foreign country. Hmmm, well yes, it does in retrospect. Bear with me for a bit.

My recent entry Fettered expectation was the realization that expensive, premium wines were not increasing my enjoyment. After all, if you can spend $40 to $80 a bottle, you can get highly rated wine pretty much everytime with a bit of effort. But there's too much expectation and mental buildup. It's one thing not to like a $12 bottle, but a $50 bottle is something else. Especiallly if the critics have raved about it.

And then there is the challenge of the "hunt" to find great wines at great prices. With an open wallet to buy $40-$70 bottles, it's like using a shotgun. (With a wallet that can buy $120 bottles, it's like having a machine gun.) And what's the fun of that?

And while I may never get to anjoy a first growth Bordeaux, a top flight Burgundy or a super Tuscan, I'll still get to enjoy some pretty damn fine wines.

So, as of know, I'm done buy expensive bottles, which I'll arbitrarily define as over $36, except for very specific exceptions. And since most of these wines would have been from France or Italy or Spain, it does have to do with foreign policy.