Arranmore 2005 Shiraz Last Row

Unlike many wine reviewers, I try not to post about wines that you cannot purchase because

• the winery is sooo small you have to visit it to get wines
• the production is soo small ... it is not clear if there is any left after the wine maker gets his/her allocation there is any left
  
• the vintages is long past so nobody, not even the winery has it any more

And yet, this is one of those wines. We got it on our trip to Australia on a wine tasting tour. It's a small operation run by an "old guy" who makes wine in his garage in the Clare Valley. He let me press some of the grapes and I felt obliged to buy a wine of his... the 2005 Shiraz Last Row, which was the best tasting wine he had of his four or five available for tasting.

It's been 2+ years, since I bought it, and it was time to open it. My wife said she wasn't in the mood to "scale such a monumental red". Ironic, as I thought it was a rather small wine, almost reminiscent of a Pinot (Noir) on first opening.

The wine was very interesting. It was flavorful and had a richness in a light body... much like the best Burgundies (or so I'm told).

As the evening wore on, the wine got bigger. More subdued rich dark fruit with some earthy spice in a small frame, with a richness nonetheless. Not tannic but a touch of acidity. The combo made a nice food wine and also a nice solo wine. Quite nice. My score: 90.

Just don't try to find a bottle.

A Beringer tasting

I was able to taste some high end Beringer wines and this reaffirmed what I already knew. Namely, (i) price is not related to what you like and (ii) what you like is not necessarily related to what others, esp critics or wine makers, like. Based on memory here is what I tasted with rough notes

1. 2007 Chardonnay Reserve ($35 ish): this is my style - big, oaky, ripe and .... the initial nose and first sip lived up to its reputation, on subsequent tastings it lost much of it's flavor.... Perhaps this is a great "scoring" wine but not an enduring wine over the course of a bottle. My score: 92 initially and 87 subsequently.
   
2. 2003 and 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve ($120 ish): This is one of their top end wines and they tasted smooth and silky and arguably "elegant" and ... not much else. It was hard to get anything on the nose or palate. Perhaps this is what "high-end" Napa wines taste like but I'll pass. My score: 87-88.
   
3. 2005 Merlot Bancroft Ranch ($75): the wine of the tasting by far for me. The first half glass was very nice with rich chocolate and fruit (90), but I got a glass of this "to go" and every small sip was velvety chocolate and dark fruit in a big rich, non tannic non acidic body. Perhaps it was savoring this last small glass but it was impressive. Final pour score: 92-93.
4. 2005 Cabernet Quarry and another single vineyard Cab ($90 ish). Better in that one had some tannic and acidic backbone, but still not something I would seek out. My score: 88-90.

The bottom line was I liked one of the least touted and least expensive high-end wines by a country mile. Trust your own preferences.

White wine of 2009?

I've mentioned this wine in a few previous posts, but my likely white of the year is the Souverain 2007 Chardonnay Alexander Valley. This $17 retail wine had this 90 point review from WS:

Complex aromas of citrus, pear, apple and honeysuckle, with touches of toasty oak. Full-bodied, rich and elegant, with a long, lingering finish. Drink now through 2011. 35,000 cases made.

I found it to have lots of sweet fruit with pear and apple with some spice and oak in a long lean finish. Wow, 92-93 points. As I mentioned, I inhaled the 2 bottles I got from the San Luis Obispo Costco for $10 a few months ago. I've been looking for it with little luck. I found it for $15 at the Wine Club and even more at Beltramos, but it wasn't at any local Costco or Trader Joes.

With bated breath I revisited the SLO Costco and thank goodness they still had it in stock (as well as the Jim Barry 2005 Shiraz Lodge Hill, another top 10 deal of the year). I had a few bottles with family and friends down in the SLO region, but it wasn't until I got back home that I was able to drink it in the quiet of home and put it through its paces.

Verdict: still amazingly good, with more toasty oak than I remember. I bought 20 more bottles and I'll likely buy more this coming weekend when I'm down there again at $10 a pop. A whole new style of Chardonnay to love. The first Chard to rival the landmark 2002/4/6 Columbia Crests. A few months back, I had gone to a higher end Chardonnay tasting of well regarded $30-60 wines and I'd take the Souverain over all of those (Landmark, Ridge, Neyers, Far Niente, the WS 93 Rodney Strong, and more) irrespective of price.

My vow to spend $13 on average per bottle is holding up pretty well and without compromise.

Great wines of late for less money than ever

Here's some nice wines I've found in the last 3 months in no particular order.

• Souverain 2007 Alexander (?) Chardonnay (WS 90, $10 CC, $15 elsewhere). The best chardonnay I've had in the last 4 months, and it's not especially oaky. A great, complex sweet fruit taste. Inhaled 2 bottles. My score: 92. I hope I can find more of this at my $10 price point (Costco San Luis Obispo).
• Sterling 2008 Chardonnay ($8 Costco, $6 with coupon). The 2007 was a WS 88 pointer but this was not available, so I took a chance and picked up 3 bottles of the 2008 and it is quite nice. Lemon and some oak. Flavorful, slightly rich in a medium body and medium intensity. At $6 I could drink this all day. My score: 89.
• Montes 2006 Syrah Alpha ($16 Costco, WS 91). This is/was my wine of the year 2008 and I had two bottles recently. One was very good and one was great. One of the most complex noses of any red and a complex palate of ripe sweet berry, hint of tobacco and spice. Smooth and rich but not too heavy. My score: 93-94 at its best.
• Fitou 2005 (?) South France Red ($8?, WC). I'm not sure of the region, but it is likely the Languedoc (south France coast, west of the Rhone). This tasted like a salty Rhone made with fresh dark-red fruit. Very refreshing. My score: 90-91.
• Zaca Mesa 2005 Syrah Santa Ynez Valley ($17 Costco Alhambra or SLO, WS 92). There is a new style of Syrah from Central California: big with notes of beef and/or a dusty ripe berry. It's a profile WS reviewer James Laube really likes, but I'm not that fond of it. My wife quite liked it. Here's the WS review:
  "Tight and beefy, with focused blueberry and wild berry flavors that are spicy and complex. Full-bodied, with a hint of stewed plum and wild berry peaking through on the finish"
  
• Can Blau 2007 ($15, RP 91). Needs some time, as the bottles I tried months ago weren't as nice but recently a solid red berry with acidity and some spice. Syrah and Grenache. Not minerally at all. My score: 89.
  
• Jim Barry 2005 Shiraz Lodge Hill ($13 Costco SLO, WS 90). Consistently one of the purest expressions of tart red raspberry with some sweet black berry. Some spice and oak, but it is the berry that knocks me over. Nice acidity in a medium body. My score: 91.
  

Resetting your price points

The old price points which went something like

• $5: basic wine, when you just want something called wine, can sometimes find good wines
  
• $10: might be able to get something good, but not likely. If you hunt, can find something very good.
  
• $20: if you know what to look for you can get something pretty nice and rarely something very good to excellent.
  
• $50: lots of very good wines and lots of not so very good wines are available, outstanding wines if you obsess and hunt for them
  
• $100: if you spend some effort, very good to outstanding wines.
• $100+: why the heck are you reading this blog anyways?

But two factors have conspired to lower these price points. One at least temporarily and the other somewhat profoundly.

First, we are in world wide economic slump, aka recession. And high-end wine being is a luxury item, takes a big hit. People who used to spend $15-35 are now spending half that. The market knows this and so prices have fallen. Apparently wines over $20 are in a no-man's land and don't really sell, unless there is well-established brand behind it. And during the boom, may insta-millionaires opted to open wineries and plant grapes and now they have to sell their product.

Second, the entire level of wine making has been raised with all these new energetic wine makers entering the market and all these new energetic countries entering the market. If the standard $10 wine is say an 84 points, and you are a new country with new wine makers and cheap land and labor, why you make a $10 wine that is 86 points. Let this news spread and pretty soon the whole world is making better wine. From 2002 to 2008, the tolerance for poorly made wine has pretty much disappeared from $10+ wines. All the big wine making operations are turning out clean wines without any obvious flaws, besides being somewhat "boring".

Say what you want, but all the low end Chilean and Australian wines are cleanly made. Even "Two Buck Chuck" is cleanly made, though not terribly interesting to my tastes. Granted these wines may not excite you, but a $3 wine today is much better on average than a $5 wine from ten years ago.

So what does this all mean? As a Wine Spectator score monger, I've noticed that if you know where and when to look, I'm seeing better than ever wines for lower price points. Such as numerous 92-93 points wines for under $25 and many wines hitting 94 or even 95 points for under $50. This was pretty much a rarity 4 years ago.

Case in point, I bought the 95 point Two Hands 2005 Bella's Garden for $60 at Costco a few years ago as this was one of the lowest priced wines at this score. Now I can find several 95 point Aussies at this same price. Second case in point, I'm seeing many 93-94 point California Syrahs and Chardonnays for under $40. This would have been unheard of 5 years ago.

And for the bargain shopper, $15 gets you some pretty decent wine these days. I've also gotten more into Chardonnay of late and the wonderful 2007 Calif vintage is producing some very nice ones at high production levels.

To summarize, the new price points go something like

• $5: basic wine, when you just want something called wine, can sometimes find good wines
  
• $10: can get something decent if it is the right varietal or the right country might be able to get something good, but not likely. If you hunt, can find something very good.
  
• $20: if you know what to look for you can get something pretty nice and rarely something numerous oppurtunities abound to get very good to excellent wines
  
• $50: lots of very good wines and lots of not so very good wines are available, outstanding wines if you obsess and hunt for them
  
• $100: if you spend some effort, very good to outstanding wines.
• $100+: why the heck are you reading this blog anyways?