Category Archives: EMPTIED BOTTLES

Here reside my bottle breakdowns. These reviews provide information about each wine’s context: history, geography, value, etc., and composition: from appearance and aromas, to sweetness, acidity, tannin, body, length, flavors and quality within its type. Each review features a chart where I rank the wine’s qualities (e.g. light, medium, or full bodied) according to the Wine and Spirit Education Trust’s tasting guide. These are snapshots of a wine and reviewer. Don’t be surprised if the wine and your perception of it change. Use this data to buy and taste wine with purpose.

Stop worrying if a wine is bad or good. Judgment only describes the judge. Instead, treat each wine, each bottle, even each sip as a meeting unique unto itself. Find new wines here to stretch your mind and palate.

Open bottle. Open mind.

Thirsty Thursday: Olivier Leflaive, Les Setilles, Bourgogne Blanc, France 2011

Posted on June 5, 2014 by waywardwine

This Thirsty Thursday we drink Chardonnay. Wait! No! Keep reading! I lied. It is not Chardonnay, it is magnificent, fabulous, white Burgundy.

Now, yes, white Burgundy must be Chardonnay. But you try and grow any grape in Burgundy. Any grape. No matter how hard you try, the resultant wine will taste of Burgundy. Why?

The weather in this eastern French valley sucks. The soil sucks. Vineyards are smaller than American homes. Traditions and rules are painfully restrictive. Wine-making is stuck in the past. And everyone looks pale, angry, and old. Continue reading →

Posted in Chardonnay, EMPTIED BOTTLES | Tagged Bourgogne, Burgundy, chardonnay, France, French wine, Leflaive, Olivier, wine | 2 Comments

Thirsty Thursday: Nero d’Avola, COS, Nero di Lupo, Sicilia IGT 2011

Posted on April 3, 2014 by waywardwine

For Christmas we suggested a wild Sicilian red aged in pithoi (read here). This Thirsty Thursday, we revisit Azienda Agricola COS in Southeastern Sicily (because we can’t help ourselves).

Again, the grape is Nero d’Avola. Again, wild yeasts did the work, biodynamic principles reigned supreme, and nothing beyond a dash of sulfur was added to the wine.

Yet this time, instead of those gloriously anochronistic pithoi (ceramic jugs), modernism creeps in with two years of cellaring in cement tanks under temp control.

The result? Continue reading →

Posted in Nero D'Avola, Red | Tagged Azienda Agricola COS, COS, Italian wine, italy, Nero D'Avola, Nero di Lupo, Sicily, wine | 7 Comments

Thirsty Thursday: Arneis, Seghesio, Russian River Valley, CA 2012

Posted on March 13, 2014 by waywardwine

Spring has sprung, at least where I live. Time for an odd, snappy white.

The grape in question is Arneis: roughly translated, it means “little ass”. Either the vine is a pain to manage, or the resultant wines tastes just as prickly. Etymology aside, the grape comes from NW Italy’s Piedmont.

Folklore claims Arneis drew birds away from the prestigious Nebbiolo vines of Barolo and Barbaresco. It made for a decent white. But once wines became 100% Nebbiolo, Arneis disappeared.

While Arneis declined in Italy, the Seghesio family left the Piedmont and started making Californian wine in 1895. By 1992, Pete decided to plant Arneis. He had already upped their game with hand-harvesting and small lot batches. Seghesio’s Zin and Sangiovese were garnering respect. But Arneis was a risky throwback. 26 vines remained more than any in the US for years.

Today, 8 acres of Russian River Valley, Sonoma County real estate fill our glasses. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, White | Tagged Arneis, barbaresco, Barolo, California, Piedmonte, Russian River, Russian River Valley, Seghesio, Sonoma, White wine | 1 Comment

Thirsty Thursday: Nino Franco, Faìve, Spumante Brut Rosé, Valdobbiadene, Italy 2011

Posted on February 20, 2014 by waywardwine

This Thirsty Thursday takes us to Italy. Just above Venice is Valdobbiadene: cradle of Prosecco.

But today’s wine is weird. It looks neither pale green, sweet, nor made from Glera (Prosecco’s only grape). It is pink:

But not just any pink. This glinting, copper flame lives up to its name: Faìve (FieEEve): poetically Italian for those sparks and tongues whipping about at the top of a fire.

So what goes in it?

Around 2000, Primo Franco got bored with perfecting fantastic, dry, single-vineyard Prosecco that was changing the world. So he went to buddy Brandino Brandolini, who grows red grapes. But they broke with Champagne’s (and the world’s) Pinot-hegemony. Heck, they also left red Italian varietals behind. Instead, they used Merlot and Cabernet: grapes that rarely see the light of bubbly. But this ain’t a red Bordeaux. Continue reading →

Posted in Sparkling | Tagged Brut, Brut Rosé, Faìve, italy, Nino Franco, Primo Franco, Prosecco, Rosé, Spumante, Valdobbiadene | 2 Comments

Japanese Beer: Baird Beer, Dark Sky Imperial Stout, Numazu, Japan

Posted on February 6, 2014 by waywardwine

Today we visit Japan.

Beer may be your last thought, but the Japanese love it. Most drink mass-produced lager like the rest of us. Yet, by the mid-90s, regulations loosened and allowed for a craft beer boom. A license went from 2000 kl per year to 60 kl. In steps Baird Beer: not very Japanese-sounding. Heck, their website looks like any other American micro-brewery’s: nary a whiff of the land of the rising sun.

That’s because Bryan, a former Johns Hopkins grad, and Sayuri, a native of Okinawa, founded it. International studies sent Bryan to Japan. But he preferred beer. Then he met Sayuri. They moved to the US. Then he crammed in the American Brewers Guild 3-month intensive and apprenticed at Redhook Brewery in Seattle. They quit their jobs and home-brewed countless small batches. Continue reading →