The VelvetCigar Wine Blog

>ead of focussing on one wine, I’d like to pass along my thoughts regarding a winery in California that I have found to have enjoyable red wines at a price that doesn’t bust the wallet.  Vina Robles sources the majority of its grapes from three vineyards in the Paso Robles region located in the Northern part of San Luis Obispo County.

The appellation is geographicaly diverse with numerous soil types and elevation changes providing a diverse area of climates and sites that yield high quality production of a diversity of varietals, notably reds. Wow, after reading this you might think I’m an expert … actually this information was conveniently provided by their web site but from what I’ve had, I believe every word.

I was first introduced to this winery after ordering a sampling from wine.woot.com back in 2006 and ever since, I’ve always kept an eye out for any offerings carried by local wine shops.  From what I can tell you can only find Vina Robles at Haskell’s here in Minnesota.  My past experience has been with the Petite Syrah, Syrah and the Red4 blend with ALL being very enjoyable. La parte de la gerencia de dinero en línea del компютриpoker está pudiendo tomar una rotura.

When did the Captain of the Enterprise find time to make wine?

Elvis gave me this bottle about a month ago. I know he blogged about this one and if I remember correctly he didn’t like it. I’m waiting to reread his blog after I have finished mine.

It was a warm and windy Mother’s Day. I had celebrated the previous day with my Mom and my sister’s family. We gathered at my place to enjoy Lasagna and the fixins’. There wasn’t much to do, so I laid around most of the day and played computer games and caught up on the show 24.

Jack Bauer how are you going to get out of this pickle?

Originally Elvis was to come by this evening, where we would record our 2nd podcast for The Velvet Cigar, but he had come over last night and we finished off the Dynamite Merlot and opened up a bottle of 10 year old scotch by Glenmorangie. Fine stuff.

I decided on wine tonight. But what wine? Again I was in a light mood and most of my bottles are Cabs, so I thought maybe a Syrah would be light for my tastes. I opened up the bottle and poured it in my glass. It has a dark grape look. The nose has a dry smell. Slight grape scent, but not much else.

The taste is very unique. I don’t know how to quite describe it. The beginning has a strong alcohol taste, the middle is smokey and the end it quite dry. Wow is it dry.

Hands up who likes dry wine! Oooo Oooo me, me pick me!

The wine has a hint of smoothness, I think if this wine were to sit in the bottle a few more years I think it would really smooth out and lose that bite in the middle.

I have to say even though this is a French wine and we all should hate the French,but lets wait they have a new Prime Minister.

I probably would not add this to my collection, in fact I don’t have a collection, I just drink my wine.

Tonight I had some time and some catching up to do.

I was finally going to get around to dictating my Bahama’s Day 2 journal notes.

I decided to go a light tonight with a wine. Last night I went out with Elvis and his brothers and we enjoyed beer and scotch. Last night was weighing heavy on my brain today. I didn’t get that looped, but I had a headache most of the day.

My wine tonight was a Merlot from Dynamite from 2003. This is the North Coast version. I picked it up a few weeks ago at Costco for $7.99. Wasn’t sure if that was a great deal, but i’m so in love with the Dynamite Cabernet from 2003 I couldn’t pass this up.

I typed in my journal notes at www.velvetcouch.net and opened up the wine. The first nose was very fruity and bold. You could smell the dryness.

I took a sip and my senses were flooded with cherriness. There really isn’t any juiciness to the wine, its dry from the first sip and it gets dryer on the way down. I love it! There was an ever so slight alcohol taste, but that didn’t take away from this wine.

I needed a glass of water to quench my thirst. I enjoyed this wine for about an hour as I went through my notes and didn’t light my Trilogy Exotic Maduro until I was done with writing my journal.

This a very enjoyable wine from Dynamite. I have yet to have a poor wine from their vineyards.

Hey there wine lovers!  Where’s all the bloggers?  Holianda?  Luanda?  Iron?  Dogbite?  I know you guys are drinking vino on a nightly basis. Maybe nothing has caught your tongue lately enough to write about. 

Well, tonight I sampled three…count ‘em….three amazing wines that are worth laying down some coin on and they can all be found in your local liquor store….no need for fancy wine stores or online gurus here!

Iron came over for his weekly visit. We lit up some fine stogies and sunk deep into the recliners for some average wine as we are wont to do.  But we got way more than we bargained for and in fact, didn’t want this Sunday to roll over into the painful Monday ahead.  First, I cracked open a Pinot Noir that this crazy local liqupr store owner told me was flying off the shelves.  It might be hard to find because of this, but it was called Three Thieves and the store stocked it on special request. I guess it’s made by three guys and they have their initials on the back of the bottle. Damn…this was a really drinkable Pinot. Really light and no dryness or bite at all.  It had a lot of fruit the moment you took in a sip and then quickly faded away…like…umm…3 thieves or something.  No finish at all, but the Kool Aid like smoothness without the sweetness made this an A- wine I would buy again and again to enjoy on its own or with any dish.

The second was a Robert Mondavi 2005 Cab.  This was a bit bolder and you would think after a Pinot of any nature, this would zap your palate and wake it up.  It did not…this was a light easy going Cab but still worth singing about.  For around $10, this is maybe the perfect middle class Cab…I would be proud to offer this to any crowd with any meal…especially a grilled dinner… brats, burgers, steak, etc. 

The 3rd wine we didn’t mean to break into…but my wife returned from a late shift job and had vino on the brain.  So,  she had sampled a glass of each of thie first two wines.  As you all know, two bottles of wine among three friends, does not equal out to much per capita consumption.  So, we left it to the hands of this feminine wily coyote.  And of course she grabbed the corkscrew and took it to one of the spendier wines in our meager collection.  This was the best wine of the night and her almost cat-like instincts revealed the winner.

 This was a 2004 (a GREAT year for almost any California Red) Hess Select Syrah.  Wow…one sip and it was like the night’s previous wine didn’t exist.  This was in-your-face fruit with a bite and a long finish.  It made my mouth come alive and made it feel completely coated with a velvety completeness.  Wow…what a wine!  At $15 per bottle, one would expect greatness from this Syrah since you don’t run across many.  But I was blown away.  I might consider buying a case of this wonderful stuff.

All in all an amazing night with even more amazing wine offerings!  And no wine was over $15…pretty good middle class drinking if you ask me!
 

So lately I’ve been really researching fancier, more expensive wines because I’ve grown tired of hitting and missing at my local liquor store.  I’ve had fun researching many new online stores I’ve found and comparing prices and discounts and shipping, etc.  I’ve been real close to spending a few hundred bucks to get a healthy supply of wines that I know are excellent and to possibly put a few away for special occasions.  But I just can’t find that one perfect wine store online that combines the 3 or 4 wines I want a couple bottles of with enough of a price break to make it worth buying online instead of shopping around locally for the same thing.  One of the wines I want to stock up on is Dynamite Vineyards Cab…and with shipping, the best I’ve found is $15.60 a bottle.  Pretty good since the best around town is $18.    But to get it down to that price, I need to get 12 bottles and some of the other wines I want aren’t the best price around.  So my search continues….

In the meantime, I need some wine on hand!  So, I was forced to stop at a local place again.  And since I’ve been researching lately some of the wines I saw tonight jumped out at me a little more and I know a little more about them.  So, I made a couple nice $15 bottle purchases on some things I’ve been wondering about, but through research I know they are supposed to be good.

This annoying older woman at the store asked me what I was looking for and I told her Syrah and Pinot.  She had some recommendations and to be nice, I bought a couple of her cheaper suggestions and in turn she gave me 20% off my purchase of 4 total bottles.

Anyway, after a night of some hard labor in the yard, I decided to open up one of these cheaper bottles to drink alone.  I popped a wine I’m sure most of you have tried, but I never had.  The Little Penguin Shiraz….2005.  This is a South Eastern Australian wine and honestly, those are so plentiful on the shelves, but they are also always decent.  This one was $6.99.  I poured a glass and let it sit for 20 minutes or so.  The first sip blew me away.  It was very heavy feeling in the mouth.  It seemed very thick and very full of flavor.  I can’t remember a wine seeming so syrupy…but in a really good way.  There’s a bit of sweetness, but it’s more of a fruit flavor….perhaps that’s what wine experts mean by “jammy”.  The label says this is a spicy wine which many Shirazes are.  I don’t get any bite at all with this, and only a tiny bit of dryness.  This is a very drinkable wine on its own, but I wouldn’t pair it with a robust meal or anything.

In any case, a very nice surprise for the money and the perfect enjoyable end to a busy day.