this heaven gives me migraine

2007 Domaine le Couroulu Vacqueyras Cuvee Classique

Composition: 60% Grenache, 25% Syrah and 15% Mourvedre

Notes: Big nose of dark plum jam, (hot fruit!), lead, rosemary and herbs. Dark fruit in the mouth, lots of black cherry, raspberry, and plum bramble. Some graphite and rock under there, and a tiny bit of tarry bite at finish Nice acids. Youthful, vibrant, well put together... almost elegant, and not too terrubly fruit-bomby even though it's a pretty big wine.

Cost: About $15

2008 Domaine La Bastide Syrah Vin de Pays d'Hauterive

It's the house of sick these days, so not much wine drinking here. This is one I had the other night, before I succumbed to this latest illness. I guess this means I can check off being sick this month... since November, I've had something every month thus far! Fun times, having a baby who has to put everything in her mouth.

Composition: 100% Syrah.

Notes: Dark rocky nose of mineral, violet, and dark plum and raspberry. Flinty fruit in the mouth... a nice combination of rocks and fruit, with soft tannins. Not much of a tarry quality at the finish normal to Syrah, but some slight bitterness and some persistent graphite-like flavor. Very nice overall, although I think I prefer the Les Genets (I did pick up another bottle, finally, and had it the other night, so now I need another one already!). I really like Domaine la Bastide, though, from these wines I've had, and for the price the wines are pretty amazing.

Cost: $12

2008 Uwe Schiefer Blaufrankisch "Konigsburg"

I got this since I had the Eisenberg at Weygandt's a few days ago and thought it was very good, and the Konigsburg sounded even better to me based on the description (more crazy animal/leather/meat). Sadly, it was not so for me: I think I like the Eisenberg better, although that will remain to be seen when I try the bottle I picked up the other night to see if it is really a wine I like. Sometimes, you have to try things more than once....

Composition: 100% Blaufrankisch.

Notes: The main problem for me was that the nose shut down after about an hour open, and that was the main time when I was trying to write my notes. It came back about three hours in, but then had some other issues. The nose is sort of smoky, not as much as I had hoped, but a sweet smoke with coffee, cherry, and an unusual but not unpleasant plasticky smell. When the nose died and came back, it still had some of these elements, but also has some brett in it, and I really had a hard time getting past the brett. In the mouth it was smooth and round, tingly, with not much tannin: this is one of those wines that is about acid and spice. It's got sour cherry fruit in the mouth, and there's that nice peppery spice on the finish with decent acids. I am sad to say I didn't love it, even though I wanted to.

Cost: $23

2005 Ridge Buchignani Ranch Carignane

Dug this out to have with some curry. Usually I am not a big fan of Carignane, although I am coming around... for some reason a lot of Carignanes have a back-of-the-tongue bitterness I don't like. This one didn't have that, and while I didn't love it, it was drinkable for the most part.

Composition: 100% Carignane.

Notes: Chewy, jammy raspberry nose with bramble and some dry leaves. Still a generous amount of sweet-seeming fruit in the glass, despite its couple of years in the cellar. Some warm spice at the end. A clove and anise finish, but not anything by way of tannins. Not much of the hard/bitter back of the throat thing I usually get from Carignanes, which was a nice surprise. Pretty simple overall: nothing complex, but pleasant enough. For me personally, I found it a little too extracted and jammy and the sweetness was a little much for my liking. That, however, didn't keep me from drinking it over the course of two nights. It held up well and was pretty much the same the second night.

Cost: $25/30

Weygandt tasting 1/29/2011: Domaine Alary

Another Saturday, another tasting. This time I flew solo and had time to people-watch, for better or for worse. Today we had the guy who wanted to brag about his huuuuuge cellar (I can't stand these guys. They are often wearing Hawaiian shirts and have cellarsfull of crappy overpriced Shiraz) even though he didn't know what was actually in it. He talked way too much, in any case.

Compare him to the other guy who came in, slammed through the wines in about five minutes, pegged every one of them pretty spot-on, and went on his way with a few bottles in hand. Quickdraw McGraw, I salute you, and hope you enjoy those wines.

Anyway, I am talking too much here, just as I spent too much time taking notes and being awkward at the tasting. Today the featured winery was Domaine Alary, where Denis Alary is tending to vines and making wine as his family has done for 11 generations (since 1692). Headquartered in Cairanne, Alary makes a bunch of Vin du Pays, Côte du Rhône, and Cote du Rhône Villages Cairanne wines. They are fairly solid examples of the region overall, from what I can tell.

2009 Domaine Alary VdP de la Principauté d'Orange La Grange Daniel Blanc ($15) - 100% Roussanne. A faint nose: nutty, waxy, floral/honeysuckle. Textbook Roussanne nose. Some fruit (apricot, peach) on the palate, but also very minerally. The finish has an almost-bitter quality, like bitter almond, which could be an extension of the apricot flavor since I always find apricots, especially dried ones, to have a kind of bitterness. Finish is also gum-tingling.

2008 Domaine Alary Cairanne La Font d'Estévenas Blanc ($22) - 90% Clairette, 10% Roussanne. Smells like a field: lots of straw/hay in the nose, with citrus fruit. Mineral and nectarine in the mouth, with bitter orange. I generally liked this a little more than the previous wine.

2009 Domaine Alary VdP de la Principauté d'Orange La Grange Daniel Rouge ($15) - 20% Grenache, 20% Syrah, 20% Cinsault, 20% Counoise, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. Funk funk funk! Very funky nose. Fur? Game? Sweaty leather? All of those things? I couldn't decide. Once I got over the initial funk-in-the-face I noticed lots of herb/spice, garrigue, and cherry. Has a fair amount of fine-grained tannin from the getgo, and a nice peppery acid finish.

2008 Domaine Alary CdR La Gerbaude ($14) - 85% Grenache, 15% Syrah. A small amount of funk similar to the previous wine, but overall less funky/cleaner. Dark plum, cherry, licorice, clean leather in the nose. Pretty bitter cherry in the mouth along with delicious rocks. I liked this a lot, and didn't get the baby aspirin thing I got from it last week. It was freshly opened, which might explain the difference (last week's bottle had been open a few days).

2008 Domaine Alary Cairanne ($20) - 70% Grenache, 15% Syrah, 15% Carignane. Medicinal cherry nose... not quite cough syrup cherry but cherry with some menthol. A bit of clove and cigarette ash as well. Fruit right on the tip of the tongue, along with nice warm spices.... clove, cinnamon, nutmeg. Not much tannin on the clean finish.

2008 Domaine Alary Cairanne La Font d'Estévenas Rouge ($25) - 50% Grenache, 50% Syrah. Aged in neutral wood. Dense dark fruit featuring raspberry and blackberry, with some violet. Spicy finish... not tarry but kind of a plasticky spice (and I mean that in a nice way). Overall a delightful CdR.

Bonus wine:

Domaine des Soulanes VdP des Côtes Catalanes Roussillon "Kaya" Blanc ($20) - 60% Grenache Blanc, 20% Grenache Gris, 20% Carignane Blanc. Granite soil. Light nose of white peach and tropical fruit. Lots of tropical fruit at first in the mouth, then a gentle warm spice and white pepper finish. Nice acids, but there was a little odd Fruit Loop tang in the finish that kind of threw me off.

What did I take home? A bottle of the La Font d'Estévenas Rouge. I already had a bottle of the La Grange Daniel Rouge at home, which I picked up semi-randomly a while ago. We will see how that funk fares in the home environment! I would have taken a bottle of La Gerbaude, too, but they were sold out. I liked it better today than I did when I had it last week. I also picked up a cheap Sangiovese (Mona Terre di Chieti IGT), and l'ortolan (from last week's tasting), since I want to try it again and I was spent all week fretting about not getting a bottle.

Randomly, this week I can celebrate getting the wine coffin's contents back into Excel. I hate Excel but I hate all the online cellar tracking options more. The notebook with numbered slots and pencil (so I could erase and rewrite) was working okay for general insertion and removal of wine, but didn't allow me to see what I had overall without standing there pulling bottles out. I've synced it through Dropbox to my phone so I can be a real nerd and stand down there with my phone, looking for things. Yep, nerdy. If only I could also edit my spreadsheet with the phone!