Renwood Winery - 2011 Zinfandel (California)

Today's wine offering is a rather delicious California zinfandel from Renwood Winery, located in Plymouth, CA. The wine was recommended to me by none other than Charles Bissell of Charles Fine Wines in Glastonbury. I was looking for a red wine that was appropriate to sip by itself, but also one that had some strength to it. I usually drink jammier, smoother French reds and I admit, aside from my expeditions to Napa wine country and a few glasses here and there, I don't have much experience with domestic wines (especially domestic reds.)

Anyways - the wine. 

The nose is of alcohol - a bit astringent with no discernible flavors. As you can see, the color is a pleasant deep red which turns pale purple when held up to the light.

This wine took me off guard because it's so smooth. I was expecting something with more tannins to it, perhaps more sour and acidic, but it's really quite mellow and delivers great fruit flavors. Look for nice tastes like raspberries and blueberries. It's damn good. It's crisp on the finish with good fruit flavors on the way out. 

I got this for Christmas afternoon at my father's, so we didn't pair it with dinner...I was looking for a wine that can be enjoyed on its own and this is definitely it. If you want to pair it with dinner, don't overpower it with heavy Italian meals or curry dishes - maybe roast pork, some lighter chicken fare, or unsauced pasta is in order.

Berkshire Brewing Company - Dean's Beans coffeehouse porter

Due to some apartment mishaps (it flooded recently) I've been a bit quiet in regards to my blog. Sorry about that! Lately I've been enjoying 21st Amendment Brewing's Sneak Attack saison (introduced to me by colleague and friend Dave Slavick) as well as some tasty West Coast brews sent to me by my brother Dan. But now that I'm at my mother's house in Connecticut for the holidays, I can turn my attention to blogging tasty things, including nice wines.

Today's beer is from Massachusetts-based Berkshire Brewing Company, or BBC. I've had their stuff before and enjoyed it. I'm not sure how far they distribute, but it's pretty common up in here my native New England. They have about a dozen beers, all of which come in bombers and are reasonably priced. I'm reviewing their 6.2% ABV coffeehouse porter, "Dean's Beans." The beer is actually a mixture of another of their beers, Drayman's Porter, mixed with some coffee sourced from Orange, MA-based Dean's Beans coffeehouse.

Please excuse the poor quality of photos - I'm using my phone's camera since my DSLR is back in Washington.

The beer pours nicely, with a dark color much as you'd expect a porter to be. The beer is dark, with some odd suspended particles. Looks like yeast remnants. Odd - but I'm not worried. Some beers have lots of sediment in them, as does wine. Having your beer chunky isn't ALWAYS a bad thing.

The taste is nice - the beer is sweet, a bit watery, with big coffee notes. There's a little bit of chocolate in there, but predominantly the taste is toasted malts and coffee.

This beer is smoother and sweeter than some other coffee beers I've had. Maybe it's a function of it being a porter and not a stout (as many coffee beers are,) but it's nonetheless tasty and good. I think it also could use warming up a bit - I served it very cold and I think I prefer it to be a little warmer. So in short, I recommend this beer. I think this it would appeal to novice beer drinkers, since it's more approachable and not has heavy / burnt as some of the darker coffee stouts. Coffee is a common ingredient in beers this time of year, and I think Berkshire does a good job in marrying an unseasonably-light porter with coffee tastes. It's also not terribly expensive, so it's fine to drink often. 

For all your wine lovers, stay tuned - now that I'm in Connecticut, I have access to my wine cellar that I've cultivated since 2009. So there will be (hopefully) quite a few posts coming this week reviewing some fine, aged wines. 

Beer Flash: Sam Adams Merry Maker gingerbread stout

Picked this up for Thanksgiving in Baltimore and really enjoyed it. I've never seen a gingerbread beer before, so I figured - what the hell. And it was great! I just bought another one, which I am drinking right now. Tasty! Smooth stout with gingerbread, roasted malts and spice flavors. Give it a spin, I think it's worth trying. 

How-To: Wine Tasting

Hi everyone,

A couple of my readers have approached me both digitally and in person to ask me to do a segment or two on wine etiquette, beer tasting, and collection building. These "lessons" will feature some advice about how to taste wine, what to do, what not to do, and some general guidelines and clarification on oenophilia. I know that some terms can be confusing, and I hope by clarifying them here, you all can be better tasters and can follow along more easily.

So let's talk today about tasting.

When you think of 'wine tasting', what comes to your mind? Probably a bunch of snobby French guys in dinner jackets sitting in a mahogany-paneled room remarking on the wine's "notes of sandalwood and tannins" and then spitting out their wine. Well, that was my initial thought as well. And there are certainly people out there like that. But several years ago, I traveled with my folks to Sonoma and Napa Valley in California, where I attended several wine tastings at vineyards like Coppola and Mondavi. In retrospect, these visits showed me that wine tasting can be informal, casual, and most of all enjoyable. In fact, you don't need to travel to an overpriced winery or fancy party to have your own tasting - I'll show you how.

Don't be this guy. Be normal.
Source: intoxreport.com

My philosophy on beer and wine is simple: drink what you enjoy. If you like a certain kind of beer or wine, drink it and don't let anyone tell you not to. BUT - the most critical thing - is to know WHY you like it. Be able to back it up. The most crucial step to enjoying something it so be able to identify what you like and why you like it. What tastes do you like? What flavors and textures appeal to you? The only way to know these things, and by extension, the only way to know WHY you like something, is to try it. Be adventurous!

This guide will help you in the future to make educated recommendations to others and will help increase your own enjoyment of the wine or beer. Wine tasting and beer tasting are similar, but different enough to spend time on each. Today we'll talk about wine tasting.

The goal of wine tasting is to identify flavors and scents and the elements, but unless you're doing it professionally, the evaluation of its characteristics should not supersede your enjoyment. In other words, do not let your analysis of the wine prohibit you from enjoying it. Your main goal here should be to get to know your wine while also enjoying it!

To do this correctly, you don't need to know fancy words like "mouthfeel" or "evolution of palette." Those could come in handy later, but for right now you just need to know how to describe what you are tasting. When you start, you may not be ready to detect "notes of sandalwood" or "vanilla bean" or "crisp blackberry." That's okay. That will come in time. Focus on general descriptors at first - dry, fruity, acidic, alcoholic. As you get more familiar with things, you will be able to more accurately describe what you're tasting.

You will also need to start with a few things. They are:

1) Wine, appropriately prepared (i.e. chilled or not.)

2) A glass. Any normal looking wine glasses should be fine. My go-to wine glasses are Riedel Vinum bordeaux glasses.

You don't have to spend that much on glasses, but having a good-quality stemware is important. You will also notice that some retailers sell fancy stemware especially made to somehow enhance the specific characteristics of a particular kind of wine. While there is some truth to that, for our purposes I would largely ignore this.

3) A white piece of paper.

4) A positive attitude and an open mind.

So once you have these things, you can begin to properly taste your beverage. You'll want to be on the lookout for three main things as you taste: appearance, smell, and taste. Your senses are your best friend and will tell you a lot about what you're drinking even before tasting it.

So first you have to get the wine optimal for tasting. This can be done in several ways, all of which involve exposing the wine to air. Here's my method for tasting wine:

1) Refrigerate white wine for 2 hours before drinking or red wines for 10 minutes.
2) Take out wine 10 minutes before serving.
3) Open the wine carefully and set the cork aside.
4) Pour out an inch or so of wine in your glass. Replace the cork in the bottle.
5) Hold cork securely in the bottle and shake vigorously for 15 seconds.*
6) Set wine back down and take out the cork. You may now pour desired amount in to your glass.
7) Let the wine sit for 10 or so minutes until you're ready to serve.

*According to friend and wine merchant Charles Bissell, this is something that should not be done for wines with significant age or with visible (and desired) natural sediment. This could hurt the wine...but in general, for most wines we'll be drinking, shaking is fine.

Once you've done this, you are ready to start.

First, there's the appearance of the beverage itself.

After your pour it in a glass, what does it look like? Is it murky? Clear? Any carbonation? What color is it? Try holding it up to the light. What do you see?

Hold it at an angle to check out the colors and the light.

Now put your white piece of paper behind the wine and put it in the light. Does the color change? Check out your wine from all angles and notice any differences.

 All these things are important to note because as you become a more experienced taster, these visual cues will help you anticipate and evaluate your wine. Once you get to know the particular characteristics of a beverage in terms of its appearance, you can then begin to evaluate it next time you have it. For example, let's say you like Cotes du Rhone, like I do. And every time you drink it, hypothetically, let's say you see it's a deep red / purple color. Maybe you pick up a new bottle from the local store and find that it's a bright red. Hmmm, you may say. Since you've paid attention to the color in the past, you may deduce that something is different. Then, you'll be on the lookout for something different in the taste.

Or even better - let's say a friend of yours finds a bottle in their cellar of your favorite vintage and opens it, and it pours out brown, or dark yellow. Having paid attention to the color in the past, you can now immediately see that this wine's color is not like all the others. If your wine looks like that, you should do the following:

Source: both WineZag.com and most Dickinson parties I went to

These colors should raise some concerns that the wine has gone bad. Also, if the wine has any serious chunky particles in it (outside of the usual sediment, which is natural in some vintages) that should be a signal to take care. Not always - as some particles can be OK. But for the most part, any serious hunks of junk in there are bad. The particles would be very evident when you pour it out.

Secondly, the smell of the wine - also called the "nose" or "aromas."

This step can be done concurrently or immediately after the appearance phase. Much of our tasting sense is affected by smelling, so this step is crucial. What does this beverage smell like? Is the smell strong? Spicy? Is the nose bitter or sweet? Does it have an alcohol sting to it? Does it have a pungent aroma or is it clean and odorless?

The nose of a wine develops properly after being oxidized - and you did that when you shook the hell out of it - but you should also be aerating it while tasting. This process, also called "volatizing the esters" is going to help keep your wine happy in the glass. You do this by swirling the wine around the glass.

With your glass firmly on the table, try gently holding the base and making small circles or a gentle back-and-forth motion.

See how the wine inside sloshes around? That right there is your wine mixing with the air. This is a good thing. Keep volatizing throughout your tasting experience.

Last of all, the actual taste itself. 

Start by taking a small sip. As strange as it sounds, I actually sip a little bit and suck the wine into my mouth like I'm drinking from a straw. That once again volatizes the wine and stirs up those esters.

As you drink - pay attention to the basics. Is the wine dry? Fruity? Is it acidic? Sweet? Is it tasty? Write down your first impressions on the pad of paper. First impressions are important and will help you later.

There are actually several "steps" to a gulp of wine. Basically, there's the first sip, then there's the taste as it sits in your mouth (also called 'development', where the wine's flavors develop and mature on your tongue), then there's the finish, which is the flavors imparted on your throat as the wine passes through. Finally, the aftertaste, which are the flavors left in your mouth after you've swallowed.

Pay attention, at first, to this four-step process. Write down your notes for each step of the way. Are there any changes? Refer back to your notes from the first sip. Tracking how a wine behaves as you enjoy it is critical for forming a good snapshot of a wine and its taste. Some questions to ask yourself as you are tasting are:

1) How does the flavor change?
2) What am I tasting in each step?
3) Is what I am tasting pleasant?
4) How does this wine stack up against others I've had of this vintage?

You don't have to know fancy words or spit out your wine to be a wine tasting pro. You just have to have an open mind and a bottle of wine. Once you know what you're looking for - color, taste, smell, appearance, and flavors - with a bit of practice you can really start to pick out what you like in a wine and what you're tasting. As you take notes, and as you try more and more wines, you'll begin to draw some conclusions about what you like and what you don't like. This will help you narrow down what flavors you enjoy and what vintages are your favorites.

Next segment, we're going to talk about how to use the knowledge you gained here to then choose a wine for dinner. This is not as daunting as it sounds, and will really add to your enjoyment of both wine and meal. 

Wells & Young's Breweries - Banana Bread Beer

In the spirit of reviewing fun, flavored beers, I'd like to introduce you all to a beer I tried a long time ago. I first had this probably in 2009 or so, and enjoyed it. I haven't had it in probably 3 years, and when I saw it at Whole Foods, I figured I should try it again and review it for the blog. I think you all should know about it. It's a beer made with bananas. Yes, bananas. Brewed by Bedford, England-based Wells & Young's Breweries, this beer is 5.2% ABV brown ale. Let's take a look.

The pour, as you can see, is smooth and thin.

There's lots of puffy white foam that clings to the side of the glass. The beer has a light brown color to it. It's golden brown when held to the light.

I let the beer sit for a minute or so before smelling it. The nose is one of overt bananas and spices, which is really quite aromatic. There is also a slight smell of alcohol to the beer.

The first sip provides a strong and powerful banana flavor, with a rather straightforward banana taste and very little else. Unfortunately, the flavor dies away quickly. What's left is a rather thin finish accompanied by a warm aftertaste with a hint of spice. One positive thing about the beer is that it's very drinkable - there are no harsh flavors or strong alcohols in there to stop you from drinking it as a session beer.

Admittedly, it has been quite some time since I tried this beer. Probably four years, at least. So I was a little let down when trying this, because I expected the flavor to be stronger and more pronounced. The beer is rather light in terms of alcohol content, and I think the flavor suffers because of it. Just like I mentioned in my pumpkin beer reviews, I believe that to really drive home unusual flavors in beers, you've got to ramp up the alcohol content and the gravity of the beer. Lighter beers that try to introduce those flavors don't really do it for me, and I'm sorry to say that the Banana Bread Beer falls into that category squarely. If Wells and Young's were to perhaps brew the beer at 10% ABV and sell it in a bomber format, my opinion of the product may be different.

In conclusion, this beer is worth trying. It's not without its shortcomings, most notably the watery aftertaste with no serious flavor retention, but the novelty of a banana bread beer combined with its serviceability as an ale makes for a taste worth investigating. I believe the four-pack cost me $12.99, which is probably a little too much for what you get.

Beer Flash - Southern Tier on Tap at D'Vines!

At long last, Southern Tier's Imperial Pumking is on tap at D'Vines in Columbia Heights. Come get more before I drink it all!

Southern Tier Brewing Co. - Imperial Pumking ale

For Halloween, I thought I would review a beer that is appropriate for the season. This is one of my most favorite beers on the planet, and I don't say that lightly. And today is the perfect day to review it.

I'm talking about Southern Tier's Imperial Pumpkin pumpkin ale. It's a rare, limited-release 8.6% ABV imperial pumpkin ale made with 2-row pale malt, caramel malt, 19-degree plato hops, and pureed pumpkin.

I am always on the lookout and will buy every bottle I find. For example:

As you can imagine, I've traversed the beer universe (and the country) and have had many, many pints along the way. I've encountered delicious beers like Orval Trappise, okay beers like Yuengling, and awful beers like Hooker Watermelon or Corsendonk. But nothing quite strikes my fancy, nothing quite says "unique," nothing quite delivers the peculiar, amazing, delicious taste as Southern Tier's imperial pumpkin seasonal, the Pumking.

I am not the only one who feels this way. Let me describe to you the level of desirability this beer has. The first year I encountered it was 2009. I bought one bottle, on a whim, and drank it. Wow! So I went back to the store and couldn't find it again. I didn't think too much of it until next year when I saw Whole Foods was carrying it. So I grabbed a bottle, remembering I liked it. Since then, I've only been able to find a handful of bottles here and there. Most places admit they sell out within days. That fact, coupled with the fact that Southern Tier only makes a limited run of cases per year, makes this a rare find indeed.

A few months ago, I happened to be perusing the beer aisle at Whole Foods on P Street when I find one bottle, hanging out in the back next to the weird mead bottles. I grab it immediately. I look behind all the others, and don't see any other bottles. I've scored the only one they had!

But then a thought occurred to me. What if it WASN'T the only one they had?

Sometimes, when you're looking for a rare beer or wine, it pays to simply ask around. I find an employee, whose name tag read "Howie." I asked Howie if they had any other bottles. He didn't know, but he says he's going to look in "the back room." The "back room" is probably not as expansive as I imagine it to be, but I hold hope.

What I imagine "the back room" to look like. Matte painting courtesy of Lucasfilm, Ltd.

About five minutes later, here comes my man Howie. And Howie is clearly a baller because Howie is carrying in his hands, Edward Scissorhands-style, six bottles of this precious nectar. Six! How the deities of orange gourd beer have smiled upon me, their worshipful son. I ask if they're all for me, to which he gives me The Nod.

From several feet away, a hipster couple was watching this exchange. These two beacons of hipsterdom, these Princes of U Street, looked impressed at the bottles I had in my basket.

"That's an awesome beer," the guy quipped. Damn right.

And so I took pity on them, for I had scored all that was to be had. So I offered to give them a bottle to buy. They smiled and declined, instead saying that they "weren't there to buy anything." They actually left the store immediately after without purchasing an item. I'm not even making this story up.

But let's get to the beer.

The pour is smooth and fast, the color of the beer a very light and clear orange. There are no bubbles to the beer, and when poured, it produces a thin white head that dissipates quickly.

The nose: this beer has a VERY strong pumpkin and spice smell. It's one of the most aromatic beers I've ever had, and I really like that. I let it sit for 5 minutes, just enjoying the smells.

The taste is excellent. It's bright, full of pumpkin flavors. Very deep. There are strong, full, forward flavors of spices like cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and ginger, all taking a backseat to straight pumpkin flavor.

The finish is warm and strong, with lots of pumpkin tastes and a slight alcohol taste. There's a very bright pumpkin and spice aftertaste that's very pleasant.

Let's discuss why this beer is set apart from all the others:

1. Unlike most other pumpkin beers,  this beer has full, total pumpkin flavors from start to finish. No other pumpkin beer I have tried comes close to the consistency and depth of flavor that Southern Tier has.
2. The alcohol content. Unlike some beers (i.e. Shipyard), this beer has a stronger ABV, which in my opinion translates the stronger spice flavors better.
3. The ingredients. This beer is made with pureed pumpkins, which I believe some others are simply flavored as such.
4. Moderation. This beer is well-balanced and has delicious, moderate flavors throughout. It's not super heavy on the body or the aftertaste.

So yes, it's really the whole package, and delivers it in such a way that leaves me only wanting more. Out of all the pumpkin beers I have tried, I feel that this is the most faithful delivery of pumpkin tastes in a beer. There are a lot of good beers out there, but this one I feel really hits a grand slam. As I mentioned, this is one of my favorite beers, and I highly recommend you seek it out and purchase it at any opportunity.

Unless I get to it first.