2003 Domaine Merieau Sauvignon Blanc, Touraine, Loire Valley, France

We have reviewed the more prominent Sauvignon Blancs of the Loire before, the wines of Sancerre and Pouilly Fume here on winecommando. Together these represent a spectrum of Sauvignon Blanc wine making style in this region. There are others, though, that offer both the quality and characteristics of these wines, but at a better value. We picked up this Loire Valley wine for $14.00, which is an excellent value. What makes this wine distinct is that it is aged on the lees, meaning that it is left to age for a time with the materials that collect at the bottom of the vat. These materials are the dead yeasts and residual yeasts that occur during the wine making process, and this process, called sur lies in French, adds a quality to wine that can be pretty incredible. In the case of this Sauvignon Blanc, it softens greatly the sharpness of the citrus and grapefruit flavors and adds a creamy, yeasty component. This is the difference between a Sauvignon Blanc that is an excellent apertif wine, and one that is a great food wine. This Domaine Merieau is great with food, having more depth, complexity and structure than is typical. The nose is full of fragrant lavender, honey and hints of grapefruit. The palate is round with pear and sharp green apple, balanced by the softness of honeydew melon. The finish is rich and lush, which we find fairly unique as compared to the majority of French Sauvignon Blanc. The minerally qualities are still there, as is the tradition of the soil of the Loire, but they are part of a bigger picture in this wine. This bottle was a very pleasant surprise and more of it will find its way into our cellar for the summer.

cost - $14.00

winecommando rating (1-10) - 9

2003 Domaine Lafage Cote Grenache Noir, Roussillon, France

I think that a lot of you will agree that there is something especially exciting about finding a great wine that is also a great deal. Cat and I try wines across a fairly tight price range, typically in the $10-$40/bottle, as this fits our budget best. That, and this range is full of tremendous wine of all varietals and styles. It is when we get close to that $10 mark and find a wine that compares with those that are much more expensive that we feel we have discovered something.

Sometimes you are just in the mood to try something different. I was walking around a local wine shop known for its excellently diverse selection, and happened upon this one. We love Grenache, the wines of Gigondas being among my favorites. On the back label Eric Solomon is listed as the importer. What I know of Eric Solomon is that he is incredibly picky about what wines he will import, and having his name on the back is an enormous stamp of approval. Then there is the price... $12.99. I bought it.

By way of background, the Grenache grape is a major contributor to the blends of southern Rhone wines. I mentioned Gigondas, and we reviewed the E. Guigal earlier, and in the Kaesler Avignon review we discussed the beauty of GSM's, like Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Grenache not only adds a velvetty and dark fruit quality to blends like these, it makes a terrific stand-alone varietal for winemaking. The Domain Lafage is made by the husband and wife team led by Jean-Marc Lafage. They also make wines for wineries in Spain and South America, working with the importer mentioned above, Eric Solomon. Their homebase is in Cotes de Roussillon in the south of France. The Lafage style is to sometimes disregard convention, and in the case of this wine they chose to vint it without oak and to bottle it unfiltered. The results are a smooth, approachable medium bodied wine. There is plum and dark cherry in the nose, with a little bit of pepper and spice. On the palate the wine has great structure and is incredibly versatile, able to pair with a variety of foods. The flavors in the mouth are more plum, cranberry and a little earthy truffle-like quality. Very balanced with soft tannins and a longish finish. We found this wine to be a pleasant surprise and quite delicious. This is another example of a very well priced house wine, something that you could drink often with dinner without breaking the bank.

cost - $12.99

winecommando rating (1-10) - 8.75

2003 Comtesse Thibier Graves Blanc, Bordeaux, France

As I stood there looking at this bottle at the local wine shop my instincts were telling me not to buy it. There's the grandma's upholstery look to the label, there's the back label... and I quote:

"At the turn of the century, I began riding my bicycle through the Bordeaux countryside getting to know the grapes that makes premium wines. Today my family continues the tradition of carefully selecting the best grapes. Our aim is perfection."

Despite that little piece of poetic heaven on the back of the bottle I bought it and brought it home. We've hit a bit of a dry patch with Graves, as of late, and just have not had that classic gravelly, lemony Bordeaux blanc experience. Maybe this one will be different. Maybe this one will live down the floral drapery.

As you can guess, we did not find it to really work out all that well. This wine had a light, almost non-existent nose. There was a little pine, some citrus, but so faint as to make you strain to pick it up. The palate was also light, and weak missing both the traditional mineral qualities and the clean, refreshing fruit indicative of these wines. The finish was non-existent. So... I feel mean here but I am being absolutely honest. This wine did not deliver on the Graves blanc promise.

cost - $9.99

winecommando rating (1-10) - 2

2003 Ridge Lytton West Syrah, Dry Creek Valley, California

After having such a terrific experience with the De Lisio shiraz we were excited to keep the momentum going with non-French syrah. I found this one by Ridge and didn't hesitate picking it up. Though Ridge has produced a syrah since the mid-1990's, those were only for sale at the winery and this is the first vintage to be released outside of the winery. That's pretty cool. I have tried several of the zinfandels from Ridge over the years, and they consistently rock. We aren't drinking much zinfandel these days, but when we do the Ridge Geyserville, Pagani Ranch and Lytton Springs zins will be top of my list. But I digress.

We'd not tried the Ridge syrah, but figured that they would bring the same quality, intensity and attention to detail to this wine that they do to their zinfandels. We were correct in that assumption. This wine was absolutely fantastic and it stunned us. But first, a little history...

The Ridge vineyards date back to the 1880's, which in the American wine industry is a very, very long time ago. In 1885 Osea Perrone (viva Italia!) purchased about 200 acres of land along the Monte Bello ridge (monte bello is Italian for beautiful mountain). I'm seeing a connection between Italians and great syrah here... but that's just me. Osea terraced the land and planted the first vines himself. He built a small winery and set about making his first wines under the name of the Monte Bello Winery. Fast forward to today and the land has changed hands a couple of times, various parcels have been acquired or sold off and have had a variety of different vines planted across it. This original vineyard has also become a key vineyard property in what is now Ridge Wines. In terms of their techniques, Ridge has always been somewhat of a rebel and has made wines with approaches very different than their other Californian neighbors. Oddly, this has a lot to do with Prohibition, which cleaved Californian winemaking from its historical roots. Post Prohibition, many winemakers experimented by collaborating with the agricultural universities and worked to technologically change winemaking. Ridge did not subscribe to this approach, and during the sixties began focusing on a winemaking process that is natural and eschewed technology. This approach is really pretty simple and starts with creating the best fruit, fermenting in small lots with naturally occurring yeasts and nurturing the wines along throughout the winemaking process. It is an approach that is passionate, intense and laborious. Their wines consistently show the benefits of these efforts.

The Lytton West Syrah is no exception. It is intensely dark with a full, enticing nose. There is lots of fruit (strawberry... like strawberry preserves) in the nose, but all of it is balanced by an earthy quality. Both of us said "Wow!" out loud as we were smelling it and before we had even tasted it. Cat was wide eyed. We drink good wine, but this is really, really good wine and we both knew it. On the palate this syrah is rich and complex, though still medium bodied. A perfect and flexible food wine, I could see this with beef or pork tenderloin, Moroccan cuisine, or even a spirited salmon prep. The wine just kicks ass. The palate, while full, has a fantastic finish. Not cloying or over the top like many Californian syrahs, it finishes quietly with just lingering hints of the fruit and a little bit of spice. Interestingly, this wine is also made with 9% viognier - a white Rhone varietal. This may be what keeps this syrah from being over the top. For a wine that is such a powerhouse it finishes with subtleness and elegance. Delicious? Yes. Well-rounded? Yes. Memorable? Definitely. Both Cat and I loved this wine and highly recommend it. We also love the label design and find it to be classic, like it was designed by Pentagram.

cost - $36.99

winecommando rating (1-10) - 10 (solidly!)

2003 Jean-Philipe Marchand Gevrey-Chambertin "Clos Prieur", Burgundy

This being the inaugural post on winecommando it seems fitting that it would be a Burgundian. This is for two reasons. The first is that the Burgundian style of pinot noir is a favorite for both Cat and I. The second is that we have been working our way through the wines of Burgundy for the last several weeks.

We decanted this wine and allowed to open for about an hour or so. It was still very restrained when we tasted it after this time. However, over the course of the next hour it opened up really well, and was good. Definitely an earthy pinot noir, light in body and with an apparent, but subtle, fruit. I tasted cherry and a little bit of licorice. It had a distinct, but really nice, vegetal quality as well. Cat can't remember what she tasted. Honestly, as a 2003 this wine is a tad young to be drinking. In all fairness, in about 4-6 more years this bottle would be very different and probably excellent.

cost - $34.99

served with - slow cooked chicken with roasted vegetables, marjoram, lentils and a vidalia onion sauce

winecommando rating (1-10) - 7 (will improve with age)