Wine: 2002 Chateau Monbrison Bordeaux



Review: The great thing about the Margaux appelation is that I am always finding new treasures. This wine was rated one of the best wines under $50 and I agree. Laurent Vonderheyden has created an elegant wine, complex with hints of plum and a tobacco aroma. Not an intense wine, much more subtle with a medium palette

Price: $39

Grade: 90

Wine: 2003 Francoise Chauvenet Volnay



Review: This wine is from the Côte de Beaune area, which is in the southern part of Côte d'Or. It is a lighter Burgundy, but with a deep ruby color. The wine had a hint of mint and was very earthy, not very tannic. Overall, a good every day wine, but not exceptional.

Price: N/A

Grade: 80

Despite living so close to it, I had never visited Chrysalis. Part of the reason for that is their affinity for the Norton grape, but more than that it just hadn't been on my radar. Well, I finally corrected that a few weeks ago.

Their setup is a little unusual for a Virginia winery: The tastings are actually held in a large building that is separate from their "tasting room". The tasting room is very small, so this arrangement makes sense. They have three tables set up in the building where they do the tastings and they run group tastings at set times during the hour. So, you get your tasting ticket, go the table where the next tasting is going to start and wait until the appointed time.

Their wines make heavy use of Norton, so if you love that grape you need to visit this winery. In my case, I was impressed with their Petit Verdot and their Tannat, both grapes that are not seen often in Virginia and both excellently done.

I also enjoyed Sarah's Patio White and Red, excellent summer wines.

I haven't done any restaurant reviews recently mostly because while I've been places where the food/wine selection was good. I haven't really been blown away. Now, I have two to do.

The first is Il Fornaio at Reston Town Center. The menu has a great selection food including an incredible Ravioli Alla Lucana and mouth watering Pennoni Alla Vodka.

Their wine list is lengthy and it includes several Il Forniao-labelled house wines. We had the Chianti Classico with dinner and it was a good complement with a medium-bodied, earthy wine with hints of cherry.

The second is my new favorite wine bar, Vinoteca. If you are a DC native, this is a little out of the way -- though still conveniently located a block from the U Street / Cardozo Metro station. The wine bar is in an area that is being revitalized and it is really nice.

The wine selection is diverse, I especially enjoyed the Tamari Malbec Reserve:



A very intense wine in both taste and color with a strong spicy taste and flavors of blackberry and plum.

Their menu is also very good, they have 4 different cheese flights all of which are excellent and their sliders sandwiches are great. The atmosphere is cozy, not too loud, but bright and warm. The bar is a good size, and there are tables in a separate area if you want a more intimate experience.

Thanks to a good friend I became a big fan of Lost a couple of years back. If you watched it tonight you probably saw the commercial for Fish Eye Wines and the Fish Eye Wine Cask:



I like the idea of taking a "box wine" and calling it a cask wine -- I realize this is just marketing, but it will be interesting to see if they can shed the bad image boxed wines have. You can get your boxed casked wine in Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Merlot, Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc.

Looking to celebrate St. Patrick's Day at your favorite winery this weekend? You are in luck. Veramar is celebrating St. Patrick's Day with live entertainment and Irish Faire. On Sunday, you can go to Bluemont Vineyard has their Celtic Celbration on Sunday (and they should be releasing some new wines this weekend).

Whichever way you go, enjoy!

I've made some minor changes to the site. I've removed some blogs that haven't updated in a while and expanded the winery section. While I am rearranging, if you have a blog you want me to link to, just drop me a note.

I am sure you all have have heard the story that Amazon may start selling wine. Others have posted analysis of this, so I won't. But I was curious about this line:

'The US wine market is around $25bn, and only a small percentage is purchased online,' Bergsund said. 'There is plenty of room for Amazon as well as specialty retailers like wine.com.'

I know I may be an anomaly, but I purchase almost as much wine online as I do at retail locations or wineries. I'd be curious to know what percentage of wine sales are done online.

Speaking of Amazon and Winecast, I like the idea of Wine Book Club and picked up the book, I'll post my review as soon as it is done.

Finally, speaking of Amazon and wine books, local author Miles Lambert-Gocs has written a book entitled Desert Island Wines. It is a series of essays about wine, many of them look to be very funny. I'll let you know all know what I think after I have read it

A new winery is opening over Memorial Day weekend later this year. The winery is Barrel Oak, and like any good winery they have a winery dog (two of them actually).

They also have an impressive list of initial releases, including:
Merlot
Cabernet Sauvignon
Norton
Reserve Cabernet Franc
Reserve Petit Verdot
Chocolate Lab Infused Dessert Red
Late Harvest Viognier Dessert
Seyval Blanc
Viognier

Chocolate Lab Infused Dessert Red? Is it possible that this wine is as good as it sounds?

If you want to find out about the opening and get more information on the winery visit their website and click on Contact Us.

On Saturday Veramar had a library tasting. We got to compare different years of their Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc and Norton as well as highlights of some of their other wines.

Justin Bogaty, the winemaker, and Jim Boagarty, the owner, led the tasting and gave the attendees insight not only into the wine but also into their style of winemaking and how it has changed over time. They were great about answering questions and it make for a very intimate experience. It really helped that they limited attendance to 20 or so people.

They did spend a lot of time trying to convince me that Norton can make a good wine, and Jim even suggested a recipe that I should try with the '06 Norton. So, I am going to give it a try and see if I can be converted.

Last week Kris and I went on a winery tour with some friends from work. We hit several of the old standbys, so I thought I would give you all an update:

We started off at Breaux. I've mentioned them enough recently, that I don't havbe anything new, but I do want to thank Jen at Breaux for arranging an area in the bottling room for us to eat lunch -- it was a great way to start the tour.



Next, we jumped over to Doukenie where we got a special treat, we were able to sample the next release of Hope's Legacy (formerly, their Raspberry Merlot). It is scheduled to be bottled on the 11th, and I would recommend picking some up as it is even better than previous vintages.

Our last stop was going to be Hillsborough, where the 2005 Garnet has aged really well and is a nice Brodeaux-style blend.

We finished up around 5:00 and no one was in a hurry to head home, so we stopped at Loudoun Valley Vineyards.



Loudoun Valley Vineyards was recently purchased and we got to meet the new owner/winemaker Bree.



If Bree looks familiar, it is because she was the winemaker at Unicorn Winery. Well, now she is on her own and she has a lot of great ideas going forward. I know Loudoun Valley has a bad reputation in some corners, but it sounds like she is really going to turn it around. And the 2006 Vinera White was an excellent end to the day.

This morning was the first time in 32 years that I was able to wake up, roll out of bed and see what time it was on the clock without putting on glasses. It is a very strange feeling. Like most people, I was nervous when I went in for my initial consultation, but then I found out that my care was going to be managed by Dr. Bourrdeau and I took it as a sign (it is spelled differently, but pronounced the same).

Everything has gone well so far and yes, I did send her a bottle of her phonetical namesake wine.