no posts for a while, sorry about that

sorry, i have been a bit reluctant to post lately because of an excessive level of political correctness. i am on vacation, so it is "safe" to put one up. there have been a plethora of great wines over the last few months; i hope over the next week to hit at least several of them.

first, here is a great tasting i put together to emphasize that california whether they get it or not is actually starting to express terroir. clare luce abbey 2006, gott 6 2006, j lohr carol's vineyard 2006, and caymus 2006. yes, this was all about cab. the flight expressed the soils and "climat" of napa, everything from the hot valley floor with alluvial soil to the cooler hillsides. aside from the caymus, the other 3 are under the $25 dollar price point. clare luce abbey was sold after the 2006 vintage, i addressed this in a previous post. if you want to play wine games and learn a bit about soils, this is nice grouping and it is entirely reasonable to replace the cla and caymus with other wines, just focus on valley floor, hillside, and how far up the napa valley the source is located.

at the moment, i am sipping a 2010 tavel domaine des carteresses. this appears to be a private producer who vinifies at the tavel commune winery. i have tried several bottles of this and there seems to be some bottle variability. that said, this is a nice tavel from a great year. i would recommend it. courtesy of guillaume at chateau trinquevedel i had the opprotunity to taste 2010 from the tank in january and taste the grapes in the vineyard in september. my impression is that 2010 tavel will absolutely be the "greatest pink you will ever drink." i am looking forward to my september trip and hope to do a massive tasting of 2010: look for trinquevedel and the other top producers to shine in this vintage.

now to the purpose of this post, a celebration for jill's taking the cfa level 3 exam today. i have ruminated over the wines for tonight for weeks; jill has had indigestion over the arbitrary level 3 test for months. as i write, she is half finished with the afternoon session.

dinner tonight is at spring mill cafe in conshohocken- google it and check out the menu. this is our go to french option and it NEVER fails. i have gone to spring mill since it opened, it only gets better and i highly recommend it. never have i had a less than exceptional meal there.

ok, so i have put a long lead out into the wines for tonight. i have opted to go with some old stuff. when we get home (i will pick her up) we open iron horse 2007 wedding cuve; this is a really nice california sparkling wine which seems to have a good potential to age over the short term. for dinner we will have a 1990 dom perignon followed by a 1998 reserve chateau st michel chateauneuf du pape which i brought back from our january trip. the 1998 vintage in cdp, in my eyes, was a turning point in style for cdp. the year was hot and the grapes were optimally ripe. stylistically, i think this is when the "modern" cdp's really began. the st michel is a nice intermediate between a totally modern wine and the traditional style, and based upon what "madame" at st michel has taught us it should be wonderful (for the cdp, always age at least 12 years). the option was 2005 chateau pignan, the second wine of chateau rayas, which i viewed as infanticide.

so, that is it. in the cellar is a great tasting (done) of provencal rose which i will post. also coming is a neat mix of sauvignon blanc tastings: the funk in this is the concept of pyrazines which give that nasty or maybe unique hint of green pepper. look at rambling california sauv blanc, benzinger duel canopy management, a stony sancerre, and a new zealand sauv blanc. maybe pyrazines are not always a fault (we did a cab tasting where the most novice of the group sniffed and said, "green peppers and i hate them," it was from chile and a wonderful pick up).

no pictures today, sorry. look for the wines and the pairings. i will post the old wines from tonight (no, not doing the ancient krug this evening).