YARD DOG WHITE - 2006

From McClaren Vale, Australia. White blend of 55% Chardonnay, 15% Sauvignon Blanc, 15% Riesling, 10% Semillon, 5% Viognier. 13.7% alcohol.

TASTING NOTES:

Pale yellow color. Fair amount of acidity. Light, smooth, dry and bright with citrus on the nose. Pear and melon dominate the mid-palate with honey on the finish.

SCORE & RECOMMENDATION:

85 PTS

Reminds me of an average Pinot Grigio. Drinkable and a solid value at $9 a bottle but not at all exciting. I wouldn't exactly recommend this wine, but I think it is pleasant enough to be enjoyed by many.

ARBOLEDA CARMENERE - 2006

From Chile with 14.5% alcohol. Predominantly Carmenere with small amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot blended in.

TASTING NOTES:

Rich purple-black color with chocolate/cocoa dust, charred oak, and celery on the nose. Blackberry/Blueberry on the mid-palate with hints of powdered cinnamon. Tart cherries, cranberry/goji berry on the finish.

SCORE & RECOMMENDATION:

89 PTS

An excellent wine with lots of complexity. A great food wine. Lots of tannin structure, a bit of chalkness to the mouthfeel. Flavors evolve and carry through to the finish. Retails for around $17 making this an easy bottle to recommend.

PETER LEHMANN BAROSSA SHIRAZ - 2006

Matured in French and American oak hogsheads for 12 months prior to bottling. 14.5% alcohol.

TASTING NOTES:

Dark red color with raspberries and strawberries and the nose. Plum, cherry and black fruit at its core is underscored by creamy vanilla oak. Bright fruit, soft with the alcohol integrated very well.

SCORE & RECOMMENDATION:

88+PTS

This is probably the most approachable Shiraz from Peter Lehmann in years. In the past, this wine has been concentrated and saturated but suffers from alcohol that is over-the-top and out of control. That is not the case here. There is a bit more restraint and simplicity, so it may have a little less complexity, but it makes up for it in mouthfeel and drinkability. I like this wine. The creamy oak is a tad on the artificial side, but this is still a very worthwhile effort. Suggested retail of $16.

PETER LEHMANN BAROSSA CABERNET SAUVIGNON - 2006

This Australian Cabernet was fermented on skins for seven days. The wine was matured in French and American oak hogsheads for 12 months prior to bottling. 14% alcohol.

TASTING NOTES:

Dark red color with aromas and flavors of black currant, spice and vanillin oak. Good saturation and tannin structure but also a good amount of heat is still present.

SCORE & RECOMMENDATION:

83 PTS

Soft, simple, but a bit boring and generic. Has a nice black fruit finish but the alcohol is out of balance. There's an artificial fake-vanilla-oak mid-palate that detracts from the enjoyment of this wine. Suggested retail is $16. I think you can find this quality of wine for half that price.

PETER LEHMANN EDEN VALLEY RIESLING - 2008

Australian white with 11% alcohol. The fruit was picked early, crushed, chilled and the juice separated immediately from the skins to enhance delicacy. Following cold fermentation in stainless steel tanks, the wine was clarified and bottled.

TASTING NOTES:

Pale color with rubber cement glue and sour apple on the nose. Lemon and lime on the palate underscored with minerality. Dry, crisp and clean with sharp acidity but a the fruit struggles to emerge.

SCORE & RECOMMENDATION:

85 PTS

I am fan of dry Rieslings. I believe this varietal doesn't always need the sugar to thrive. However, I think the fruit is suppressed in this offering. It leaves you yearning for a bit more. Definitely approachable and a decent effort but not competitive in its price category. For $16, I think there are better alternatives.

PETER LEHMANN LAYERS ADELAIDE - 2008

This is the first release of this wine which is a blend of Pinot Gris, Muscat, Gewurztraminer, and Chardonnay. Cold fermented in stainless steel tanks, this Australian wine with grapes from Adelaide and Barossa has 12% alcohol.

TASTING NOTES:

Golden color with floral aromas as well as lemon-lime and peach. Crisp, vibrant flavors of peach, citrus, candy banana marshmallows (aka Circus Peanuts) and honeydew. Incredible balanced, very smooth, solid acidity.

SCORE & RECOMMENDATION:

90 PTS

A terrific white meritage that hits on all levels. Great aromatics, mouthfeel, flavors, acidity and balance. Excellent varietal choices really round out this wine. Each grape is contributing and showing through. The alcohol is also low at 12%. A lot of white blends tend to inch up past 14%. At an estimated retail price of $15 a bottle, this is a winner!

BERGSTROM CUMBERLAND RESERVE - 2005

Oregon Pinot Noir from Willamette Valley.

TASTING NOTES:

Medium-red color with hints of smoke and wood on the nose. Red berries and cherry cola flavors are backed by minerality and leather. Never quite gets going as oaky fruit sort of sits there on the finish. The acidity is sharp.

SCORE & RECOMMENDATION:

88 PTS

This is a pretty disappointing Pinot Noir, especially for Bergstrom. I've been quite high on their wines in the past. I've tasted some pretty wonderful Pinots from them. This is not one of them. Concentrated yet unexciting. A well-made but boring wine at $43 a bottle. Skip it.

EMILIO MORO RIBERA DEL DUERO - 2004

Tempranillo - 100% Tinto Fino with 14.5% alcohol. Equal parts French and American oak.

TASTING NOTES:

Deep garnet color with cherry vanilla cream on the nose. Loads of cherry candy, Sweet Tarts, black currant, oak and cocoa powder with a tart finish. Black fruit and minerality at its core.

SCORE & RECOMMENDATION:

88 PTS

A very solid and well put together wine but it is really lacking a dynamic delicious factor. Seems to blend into the quality Spanish crowd in its price range rather than rising about and standing out. I think for $25 a bottle you can actually do a lot a better or even buy 2 bottles at this price.

MY TOP 10 WINE THOUGHTS - 2008

As 2009 arrived, I started to think about all the great and interesting wine experiences I've had in the last year.

There were plenty of forgettable wines, but many memorable wine events.

There were great gatherings of friends where we laughed while tasting through countless bottles.

There were tremendous wine bargains to be had, yet tons of overpriced and overrated wines to stumble over.

And of course there were wines that really impressed me, although there were a lot fewer of those this year than normal.

I rarely break form from review to editorialize, but I've been kicking around a lot of different thoughts in my head lately and so I decided to write them all down. Perhaps I will take the time to do so even more in 2009. So without further ado, here is my year in review, in list form of what I thought, learned and experienced in the world of wine in 2008.

MY TOP TEN WINE THOUGHTS FROM 2008

10. Buying wine on the internet is not nearly as fun as buying it in the store but it is a more intelligent way to buy wine.

With endless research available (ability to access critic scores, cellartracker notes, compare prices) it offers a distinct advantage over in-store purchases. However, nothing really compares to wandering through a wine store and picking up the actual bottles. The immediacy is still relevant to me. You can take that bottle home and put it in your cellar or open it that night. With free shipping offers and wonderfully informative and easy to navigate sites, places like Wine Library are making in-store purchasing less and less appealing. If I had free shipping all year I might never buy another bottle in person ever.

9. Portuguese Douros keep getting even better.

I remember when I first tasted some of the highly rated Douros at a Wine Spectator show many years ago. They were so distinctly different and wonderfully delicious that I ran out and bought a ton. There is still tremendous value in these wines and they are hidden gems that lots of people have yet to discover. The prices are going to inch up on them in the years to come. I can just feel it. Enjoy them now while they are affordable value wines on the low end ($8 -$10) and cellar treasures at the high end ($40-$50). Both price ranges could easily double.

8. Sideways effect: Pinot Noir + vs Merlot -

Enough time has passed. I don't want to hear anymore about this issue. Let's make 2009 the official beginning of the end. Let's close the door and move on and not waste anymore time discussing the impact of this film on wine. Pinot prices are out of control now anyway which should hopefully encourage people to experiment with other varietals.

7. Screw Caps

I'm not 100% convinced they are the perfect closure for long term cellaring, but I like them for ready to drink wines and I like the innovation overall. In fact, I like almost all of the alternative closures except for the plastic corks which have killed a couple of my openers. I am looking forward to even new and better closures that I'm sure will soon be invented.

I am 100% convinced that it will take a lot longer to get into people's minds that screw caps do not mean that the wine inside the bottle is cheap. It takes a lot of effort to keep lecturing on it (and it feels like a lecture when I finally finish venting and step down off my soap box) but I have to believe that people will get it eventually.

6. In pursuit of 100 Varietals...

I made a vow last year to go outside the norm and have been drinking a lot of unique varietals I've never tasted before. I've sampled everything from Lagrein and Fumin to Kerner and Croatina. If its something I've never had, then I want to try it. It has been a lot of fun and has led to some great wine discoveries. I'm not stopping in 2009 either.

The message to all is to try something new for a change. Stop buying 12 bottles of anything. I don't care how good it is. There's too much wine and too little time. Buy a second bottle if you love it that much. How often do you find that you get tired of a wine you've bought multiple bottles of? Buy mixed cases and sample more. Do you really want to watch the same movie every night or eat the same meal? Isn't it more exciting to go to a different restaurant?

5. Winemakers are pulling back from over-oaked white wines.

There are still a ton of over-oaked whites in the marketplace, but one thing stood out to me at Lauber's Grand Annual Tasting: there are plenty of alternatives. While some wines have pulled back on the oak, others are creating little or no oak whites. There seems to be a movement in the other direction creating a nice balance. That's what we want in the end. Something for everyone.

I've noticed that a lot of reds, on the other hand, seem to be plowing forward with tons of oak, candied fruit, and one-note over-the-top wines. Not to overgeneralize but I'm not liking this trend and it seems to be creating a lot of boring reds for my palate. I definitely am not looking for Australian fruit bombs when I'm buying reds from California, Spain and Washington State but I seem to be getting too many of them.

4. White Meritages - where have you gone?

There's always Conundrum, Pine Ridge's Chenin Blanc/Viognier and handful of other classics but fewer white blends are being carried by wine retailers. Are fewer of them being made? Is the demand so low? I love red and white blends. I think blended varietals often deliver more exciting wine experiences. I have trouble even finding stores with white Rhone wines in stock and those that do have very limited choices.

Treana kicked the door down, in my opinion, with a phenomenal white meritage that was one of my favorite wines of the year. I'm looking forward to tasting Peter Lehmann's Layers. I hope 2009 brings more of these exciting wines.

3. Bordeaux Futures from 2005

I've never been happier to have purchased futures. Seeing high Wine Spectator scores come out for wines I've already purchased...terrific. Watching the price of wine double before even taking delivery...priceless. With questionable Bordeaux years ahead and prices out of control I don't know if i will ever have that same experience again in my lifetime. I definitely enjoyed it and am thrilled to have wines in my cellar that wouldn't have been able to afford at today's pricing.

2. Wine Spectator's #1 Wine Of The Year is from Chile!

The Casa Lapostolle Clos Apalta was the WS choice for WOTY. This is a historic choice for several reasons. Due to 2005 Bordeaux being a tremendous vintage, everyone expected the top spot to come from there. It would have an easy pick to justify with several wines that could have fit the criteria, but WS had the insight and courage to look elsewhere.

Secondly, Wine Spectator has almost always chosen a wine from France, Italy or the US (California) for its' top honor. Choosing a red from Chile was a welcomed surprise. It not only puts Chile back on the map, it helps diffuse a bit of regional elitism. Unintentionally, the message year in and year out seems to be that the very best in wine can only come from 3 places in the world. Here's hoping Spain, Germany, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all eventually get their chance one day to grace the top of the list.

1. Ontario, Canada RED wines deserve some attention

Yeah, that's right. I said red wines. Niagra-on-the-Lake in Ontario is obviously famous for its spectacular Ice Wines. They are delicious, sweet nectars of the gods. However, I had the privilege of tasting through a dozen or more wineries this summer while in Ontario and I was impressed with what I experienced in the red wine category.

It had been about 7 or 8 years since I had last visited Niagra-on-the-Lake for some wine tasting. At that time my experience with red wines there was terrible. The wines were thin, out of balance and really poor imitations of California style wines. The climate just didn't make sense for them to try to emulate California and their future seemed bleak at best.

What I discovered last year is that most of the red wines being made there now are smartly trying to emulate Bordeaux or Italy. They are using some of the vegetal and earthy aspects they are getting from their terroir to create a more Old World kind of wine. And some of these wineries are doing it extraordinarily well.

Marrynissen in particular has made a stellar Cabernet-Merlot. The 2002 offering is exceptional and is a 90 point Bordeaux-esque wine with tremendous character to it. Pellitteri Estates has made a phenomenal Chambourcin that tastes Barolo-esque with tar, roses and finesse. These two wineries were clearly the stars of Niagra and had a lot of other offerings of merit. I'll be really interested to see what lies ahead for them in the near future.

And that's a wrap!

LEGRAS BRUT CHAMPAGNE BLANC DE BLANC

Happy New Year! 2009 Begins with a pop, as in Champagne cork.

TASTING NOTES:

Pale yellow-tan color with aromas of sourdough bread, yeast, and green apple. Toasted oak flavor components are accented with lots of lemon zest and apple. Very dry, with great acidity. Menthol flavors emerge very late on the finish.

SCORE & RECOMMENDATION:

91 PTS

A very round and polished Champagne. Bubbles on this one were still vibrant on day 3 and the the flavors were as sharp as when first opened. The alcohol was showing through on the nose at first, but settled down rather quickly as this sparkler opened up. Retails for around $40 making it a solid competitor in its price setting.