2012 Loring Wine Company Grenache Russell Family Vineyard

2006 Clarendon Hills Syrah Liandra

1994 Theo Schmitz-Schwaab Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Spätlese #3

2012 Byron Pinot Noir Santa Barbara County

2012 Loring Wine Company Grenache Russell Family Vineyard – $33.00

This is another of the non Pinot Noir wines Brian Loring has produced. Thus far, every one has been outstanding. This one is a Grenache from the Russell Family Vineyard in Paso Robles.

This has 14.9% alcohol and is sealed with a twist off closure.

Winery history

My name is Brian Loring and my obsession is Pinot Noir. OK, I’m also pretty crazy about Champagne, but that’s another story. While in college, I worked at a wine shop in Hollywood (Victor’s), where one of the owners was a Burgundy fanatic. So, my very first experiences with Pinot Noir were from producers like Domaine Dujac, Henri Jayer, and DRC. Needless to say, I found subsequent tasting safaris into the domestic Pinot Noir jungle less than satisfying. It wasn’t until I literally stumbled into Calera (I tripped over a case of their wine in the store room) that I found a California Pinot Noir that I could love. But it would be quite a while before I found someone else that lived up to the standard that Josh Jensen had established. I eventually came to understand and enjoy Pinots from Williams Selyem, Chalone, and Sanford, but I really got excited about California Pinot Noir when I met Norm Beko from CottonwoodCanyon at an Orange County Wine Society tasting.

I’d made about 3 trips around the booths at the tasting without finding a single good Pinot Noir. So, being the open minded person that I am (remember I passed him up 3 times), I stopped at the Cottonwood booth. I was BLOWN away by Norm’s 1990 Santa Maria Pinot Noir. After a few years of attending every Cottonwood event and asking Norm 10,000 questions about winemaking, he offered to let come learn the process during the ’97 crush. I checked sugar levels, picked, crushed, punched down, pressed, filled barrels, and generally moved a bunch of stuff around with fork lifts and pallet jacks! It was the time of my life… I was totally hooked. And even though I hadn’t planned it, I ended up making two barrels of Pinot Noir. That was the start of the Loring Wine Company. What had started out as a dream 15 years earlier was now a reality – I was a winemaker!

My Tasting Note

Bright red color with a slight ruby tint. The comforting nose has cherries, baking spices, white pepper, raspberries, roasted leafy herbs, licorice, and dried flowers. This has medium body, soft to moderate ripe tannins and good acidity. On the palate this is rich and lush with juicy cherries, berries and spice up front with raspberries and white pepper kicking in on the back end. The finish has nice length with roasted herbs adding some complexity. This is fairly ripe and juicy but with nice acidity holding everything together. I wouldn’t stash this in the cellar for too long, but it should drink nicely for at least the next 5 years. (91 pts)

2012 Loring Wine Company Grenache Russell Family Vineyard

2006 Clarendon Hills Syrah Liandra – $37.00

I was working on my list of my top 10 wines of the year and this wine may find a spot on the list. I remembered I still had a few bottles in the cellar, I decided to open one for Christmas Eve.

This wine has 14.5% alcohol by volume and the bottle is sealed with a natural cork.

Winery history

In 1990, Roman Bratasiuk embarked on a truly remarkable wine making journey. His vision: to create single vineyard wines equal to anything in the world. Quite simply. Working with old, dry-grown vines and performing every step of the process by hand, Roman sought to redefine the Australian fine wine landscape by solely conveying the imprint a vineyard forges on the varietal expression. Every year a pragmatic and calculated Clarendon Hills learns a little more about our vineyards and pushes a little further to propel each one of our 100% varietal wines to the pinacle of their capability.

Please join Roman and the Clarendon Hills family in celebrating our 19 single vineyard, 100% varietal wines.

My Tasting Note

The wine is a deep, dark, inky, purple color. The spellbinding nose has charred meat, blackberries, smoke, roasted herbs, blueberries, black pepper, vanilla, licorice, minerals, Asian spices, and dark chocolate. This has medium to full body, ripe and velvety tannins, and good acidity. The palate on this wine is out of the world with the berries, roasted herbs, and black pepper slowly giving way to spicy, meaty elements and dark chocolate. The finish is extremely long and highlights the spice, meat, and roasted herbs. This is the complete package. Outstanding! No hurry on this one, it has years of life ahead of it. (96 pts)

2006 Clarendon Hills Syrah Liandra

1994 Theo Schmitz-Schwaab Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Spätlese #3 – $23.74

We are BIG fans of nicely aged German Rieslings. The sugary sweetness these wines show in their youth melds with the citrusy acidity over the years to form a magical elixir that becomes a rich wine with just enough acidity on the back end to leave you grabbing the glass for another sip.

This wine has 8.5% alcohol by volume and was sealed with a natural cork.

Winery history

As is usual for a lot of the smaller, European wineries, not a lot of information seems to be available on the internet. I also can’t find anything on CellarTracker for this winery since the 1995 vintage. This leads me to think it no longer exists. I can recite Jon Rimmerman’s (from Garagiste Wine) silky prose, but I don’t want this to sound like a sales pitch. All I will say is, if you like older German Rieslings that have generally been in perfect condition, at really nice prices, check out http://garagiste.com/ and sign up for the list.

My Tasting Note

The wine is a bright yellow color with a slight golden tint. The rich and inviting nose has apples, white peaches, stony minerals, petrol, white pepper, honey, lime zest, and a touch of pineapple. This has a light to medium body, nice residual sweetness, and good citrus driven acidity to keep it in perfect balance. The finish is very long with the initial sweetness slowly giving way to a nice blast of mouthwatering lemon-lime acidity. At 19 years of age, this still seems to be on the young side. I look forward to enjoying my remaining bottles on the wine’s evolution over the next decade. (94 pts)

1994 Theo Schmitz-Schwaab Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Spätlese #3

For Christmas Eve dinner, we made our traditional dinner. This is a recipe from the New Orleans based “The Gumbo Shop”. It is called Crawfish and Pasta with Tasso Cream. It is very rich and slightly spicy from Cayenne Pepper.

2012 Byron Pinot Noir Santa Barbara County – $15.38

It has been a few years since I had a bottle of Byron wine. When I saw this 2012 Pinot Noir on the local store’s shelf for a touch over $15, I decided it was worth a try.

The wine has 13.5% alcohol and the bottle is sealed with a twist off cap.

The Winery

To conserve energy and natural resources, we’ve moved our production to our next door neighbor, Cambria Estate. Within their spacious cellars we’ve been able to reconstruct Byron. We have our own crush pad, our own individual barrel storage rooms and even our prized sorting table. Our focus continues to be high quality, hand-made, small-lot wines from Santa Barbara’s finest vineyards including our Estate Nielson Vineyard.

Byron will continue to produce balanced, opulent, and pure wines.

More information is available on the winery’s website.

My Tasting Note

The wine is a touch lighter than a medium ruby red color. The interesting nose has black cherries, raspberries, baking spices, earthy underbrush, white pepper, and violets. This is barely medium body with soft to moderate tannins and it has good acidity. On the palate the tart, spicy fruit jumps out first with nice earthiness coming in on the back end. The finish has decent length with a slight herbal note coming into the picture. Not a lot of complexity, but it is a very nice, week night Pinot especially if you can grab it for around $15. (89 pts)

2012 Byron Pinot Noir Santa Barbara County

Connect with me

You can follow me on Twitter for more wine info, potential food pairings, and an occasional recipe or two. Be warned, I’m also a sports fan and there are occasional Pittsburgh Penguins, Steelers, and Pirates tweets. I attended the University of South Carolina, so during football season, there will also be some Gamecock posts.

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Cheers!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOvQTeGR3-c

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Notes – I use the “official” Cellar Tracker name for the wines. I use Cellar Tracker to help manage and organize my cellar. I highly recommend checking it out at www.cellartracker.com. Loading you existing cellar is a lot less intimidating than it would first appear. There is a good chance 99% of your wine is already in the system, so you generally only need to enter part of the wine’s name and the system will find it for you.

Prices noted are the prices I paid at the time of purchase. I don’t shop around to find the best prices, but my local store is usually VERY competitive. I generally get case discounts, and since I work there part time, I get a 5% discount. Wines purchased direct from a winery do not include any shipping charges. None of the prices include the sales tax.

All wines that were sent to me free of charge to sample will be noted and I will show suggested prices when available.