The Spoken Grape

Turtle Ridge, Price Family Vineyard, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley 2007.

Firstly a massive thank you to all those folks who checked out the blog. I'll do my best to keep it interesting, fairly regular and relevant, evaluating wines without the bullsh*t that usually gets attached. So thank you, keep reading and I'll keep writing.

Turtle Ridge is a dream wine created by a fantastically nice couple, Tony & Connie price. The 2007 was crafted by Lars Rydell over at Raymond Vineyards. On  the nose the wine shows spice, cinnamon and freshly cut pine. The palate is more towards the cherry, plum, spiciness intermingled with oak. There's a sufficient length, no obvious alcohol, in fact the balance is rather good.This wine makes me think modern style Medoc rather than Napa. 7.6/10

Some interesting facts came to me whilst researching this wine:

i) The wines of Château Pontet Canet in Bordeaux are kosher. Tried the 2007 recently, very good.

ii) To created Kosher wine it has to be handled by strictly Sabbath-observant Jews, who must follow all the kosher ingredient rules. However, the restrictions on handling don’t apply to grape growing and picking(insert here the massive sigh of relief from Kosher winemakers in the Napa Valley).

Ok, random factoids over. From 2010 the Turtle Ridge wines will be made at Envy Wines up in Calistoga. 

Rocca di Castagnoli, Chianti Classico, 2006

As a New Year awakens I realise I've been successfully awful about continuing my blog. The high held ideas of three years ago have dissolved among the turns, switchbacks and cross overs of a permanent employment, grounded social life and general settling down in one place for more than just a vintage. The past four years spent working back-to-back vintages around the world tends to set your feet in motion so that every six months you feel it's time to move on, discover new wines, new wine growing regions,to get down and start another harvest,it's a bio-rhythm, that like like jet lag takes a bit of time to shake.

So enough with the procrastinating, enough with the mindless TV watching, here goes my blog.............and for anyone one who doesn't get it, I'm going to borrow the words of a writer who spent a lot of time not knowing where he was"Coppula eam, se non posit acceptera jocularum"

I bought this wine specifically to go with the Spaghetti alla puttanesca I was cooking up, a decidedly whorish wine to go with a whorish dish. The wine offers up a nose of crushed cherries, oregano and spice. The palette is initially silky, gentle and alluring, a second or so later you get treated to view of what lies beneath the soft plush fruit, a rush of firm tasty tannins that match so well to the wines natural acidity making you reach for the glass again. The finish is crisp and clean with a good 7 seconds longevity on the palate. The wine has aged probably a little quicker than one might expect, however that just means that it's drinking well now.  7.4/10