Canyon Wind Cellars Wine Tasting

While we were on our honeymoon, I somehow convinced my husband (the obstinate beer man) to venture over to the Canyon Wind Cellars tasting room in Georgetown, Colorado. Canyon Wind's vineyard is located in Palisade, Colorado, where they produce a wide variety of wines using sustainable (eco-friendly) practices. While my hubby stood by (obviously bored with the wine talk), I sampled several of Canyon Wind's red varieties. Keep in mind that I only had a couple of sips of each and didn't bring my wine journal along with me, so I won't be able to go into much detail about the nuances of each one. Also, since I wasn't able to do a "proper" tasting of these wines, I'm not going to assign a grade to them--I simply don't remember enough about each one.

Merlot
Described by the maker as "One of our most successful and popular wines...The nose has nice scents of cherry and cedar. A medium bodied, balanced red with a soft full mouth feel. This wine is perfectly suited for a picnic or a black tie dinner," this was a fairly straightforward, balanced merlot. Nothing "off" about this one; it was pleasant to both the nose and the mouth. I'm sad I left without picking up a bottle of this one, especially since Canyon Wind only ships within Colorado.

Syrah

"A wonderfully intense version of this popular varietal with a deep, rich color. Coffee and fruit aromas abound. On the palate it is a well balanced, and richly flavored wine with a long finish. Perfect for hearty meats and stews." This wine had a much more powerful quality than the merlot; there was nothing delicate about it. That's not to say it was unpleasant in any way; it would simply require a similarly substantial food to stand up to its intense flavors.

Tempranillo

"This red wine is originally from northern Spain and has now found a home in Colorado. A lighter red with a nose of bright cherry, smoke, and spice." Although Canyon Wind only offers this short and simple description, this wine is arguably deserving of much more. It was a delightfully spicy red wine, and evoked the sultriness of its country of origin. The man behind the counter suggested pairing this one with Mexican or Italian food, both of which I can see this one working beautifully with. This one impressed me so much that I decided to buy a bottle of it to take home, so I'll be reviewing it in more detail in the future.

Petit Verdot

"One of the noble Bordeaux varietals. This wine is a dark, tannic, and rich with exceptionally deep color, great weight and structure. A must try...with great pepper overtones!" Out of all the wines I tasted at Canyon Wind, this one was without a doubt the most interesting one. The gentleman behind the counter instructed me to really take my time with this one, and rightfully so. He told me to imagine what a rose would taste like if it was melted into a wine...And that is exactly what this one tasted like! Now I'll be the first to say that eating (or drinking) a rose never sounded appealing, but against all odds, this wine pulls it off. It was a little too different for my taste, but it was definitely an adventure in and of itself!

Desert Rosé

"Based on our Cabernet varietal, this Rosé has a beautiful youthful color. Bright fruit aromas of strawberries and raspberries burst from the glass. On the palate there is an array of red berry flavors. The balancing acid provides a nice crisp finish making this wine a drink for all occasions." This was the last wine I tasted, and was also the sweetest by far. Marked as Canyon Wind's dessert wine, this rosé was intensely fruity with overtones of red berries both on the nose and the palate. Although it arguably lacked the complexity of the other wines Canyon Wind offers, it had an innocent appeal that can't be denied...I bought two bottles of this variety, one for myself and one as a gift for my mom!

A Wine-Filled Honeymoon

Obviously it's been a while since I've posted (over two weeks, in fact), but I'm not going to apologize this time around! My new hubby and I got back from our honeymoon in Colorado on Monday, and we've been getting our house set up since then. Today is my first day back to work in a couple of weeks, and I finally have full internet access again...Two weeks is a significantly long web hiatus for me!

Anyway, we had an amazing time in Colorado, and it turned out to be a relaxing and much-needed vacation for both of us. You just can't beat eight days of a private hot tub and a breakfast of fresh fruit and crescents delivered to our room each morning (through a window in the wall, nonetheless!). We were sad to leave our cozy room at the Hotel Chateau Chamonix behind, but I don't think we'll miss the crazy altitude changes anytime soon!

Since I last posted, I've sampled several different wines, and a pretty wide array of them at that. According to the best of my memory, here is a list of them:

Wines From Personal Collection:
--2009 Yellow Tail Riesling (Australia)
--2008 La Vieille Ferme Récolte Rose Wine (France, AOC Côtes du Ventoux)
--2007 Hayes Ranch "In the Saddle" Cabernet Sauvignon (California)

Wines From Honeymoon:
--[Bodegas?] Borsao Red Wine (Spain)
--Beringer Cabernet Sauvignon (California)
--Sutter Home White Zinfandel (California)
--Unidentified White Wine (Received upon check-in at hotel)
--Unidentified Red Wine (Drank with dinner on Two Below Dinner Sleigh Rides in Frisco, CO)

Wines From Tasting at Canyon Wind Wine Cellars in Georgetown, Colorado:
--Merlot
--Syrah
--Petit Verdot
--Tempranillo**
--Desert Rosé**
**Added to Personal Collection

I'll try to describe each of them for you in as much detail as possible in separate posts, so keep reading!!!

A Weekend With Two German Rieslings...and a Wedding Cake

This weekend proved to be a pretty eventful one. Not only did I pick up my wedding dress (which fits, thank goodness!), but the bakery also delivered our wedding cake and groom's cake. The wedding isn't until next weekend, but due to a stroke of bad luck, the entire staff at the cake company is going to be gone on a cruise this whole next week...so they had to come set up our cake this weekend, and we'll keep it in the deep freeze until the big day. Anyway, the girl assigned to our delivery got all five tiers stacked and ready to go, then she and my dad set about lowering it into the deep freeze using a couple of tie-down straps. My mom and I looked on anxiously, since all we could do was pray that the whole cake wouldn't come crashing to the ground on what seemed like the longest three foot journey in the history of mankind. I guess our prayers worked, because even though the cake was just a moment away from disaster the entire way down, it miraculously made it to the bottom of the freezer in one piece. Although the poor girl seemed calm during the whole process, as soon as the cake was safely in the freezer, she collapsed against the wall in relief. I think ours was without a doubt her most stressful delivery ever, but she handled it extremely well, and hopefully she isn't scarred for life from the whole experience!

Later that afternoon, my mom brought over some of the wine she had picked out from World Market, and we had a "tasting party," just the two of us. The night before, I had opened one of my bottles, a 2007 German Riesling called "bloom".

2007 bloom Riesling (Germany)
After swirling it, I took a lengthy sniff. It had a very acidic aroma, and smelled like a combination of green apple, white grape, flowers, and weeds. In accordance with Kevin Zraly's suggestions in his "Windows on the World Wine Journal," I took a sip, then waited 30 seconds before taking another in order to be able to properly take in its flavors after the initial "shock to the taste buds". Next, I began Mr. Zraly's 60-second tasting process. The first 15 seconds were overwrought with acidity, and provided no sweetness or fruit flavors. The next 15 were much the same, with a small decrease in the level of acidity and a small hint of green apple and white grape flavors. In the next 30 seconds, all of the flavors faded, and the sweetness I was searching for never emerged. Overall, this wine was fairly unoffensive, but unremarkable all the same. It seemed to need some more time to achieve a better balance between the acidity and fruit flavors, as the acidity was rather overpowering all the way through. I might pair it with an equally unremarkable dish, such as chicken or a mild seafood.

MY GRADE: +/-

2007 Moselland Ars Vitis Riesling (Germany)
Saturday afternoon, my mom brought over another 2007 German Riesling, Moselland Ars Vitis. This was the first wine I had ever opened with a corkscrew (the bloom Riesling was also a screw-cap variety), which turned out to be an adventure in and of itself! I used a corkscrew from my Oneida wine set, and removed the cork without any problem. I was feeling pretty proud of myself until I realized that I couldn't get the cork off the corkscrew...I tried twisting it off to no avail, and finally abandoned the task in favor of sampling the wine.

This variety turned out to be infinintely more appealing than the bloom Riesling. Its aroma was much more mild, and consisted primarily of white grape and a hint of green apple. After the initial sip, the first 15 seconds of tasting proved to be very pleasant; this wine was only mildly acidic, and the fruitiness (white grape)appeared much sooner. By the end of the 30-45 second time frame, the flavors achieved a pleasant balance: the acidity all but disappeared, and though there was still little residual sweetness, the fruit flavors showed themselves very well.

The bottom line? The Moselland Ars Vitis Riesling was much more appealing and ready to drink than the bloom Riesling, achieving a very pleasant balance between sweetness and acidity and a harmony of flavors, both of which the bloom very much lacked. The Moselland could withstand a more flavorful chicken or seafood dish than the bloom, and would undoubtedly appeal to a much wider variety of palettes.

MY GRADE: + or ++

Next, I'm planning on trying an Australian Riesling by Yellow Tail, which is chilling in my fridge as we speak. We'll see how the Aussie stacks up against the German varieties!

In the meantime, if you're looking for a great wine reference book, I highly recommend Kevin Zraly's "Windows on the World Complete Wine Course: 25th Anniversary Edition", along with his wine journal of the same name. They're great reads if you want to learn more about wine, and Mr. Zraly is simultaneously thorough and accessible in his approach to wine.


Oh, and about that stubborn cork...After drinking a glass of the Moselland Riesling, I easily unscrewed it from the corkscrew. Apparently, that's the trick to successfully removing the cork after opening your bottle of wine...You just have to drink some of it first! =)

Different Day, Same Story...Almost

This morning, I'm drinking Gloria Jean's Hazelnut Coffee from our new Keurig and wondering why I still haven't bought any creamer! I've drank black coffee (with Splenda) for the past three days, and let me just say that although it hasn't been horrible (and if it was, would I still be drinking it? Who knows!), I'm just not a black coffee kind of person. I suppose I'll just have to make today's mission a trip to the grocery store, considering I'm out of milk, eggs, and bread too. It's too bad our [one and only] grocery store doesn't carry wine...our little town is dry, so we have to drive 30 miles in one of two directions to buy alcohol, and even then the selection is pretty limited. On a side note, I should probably say that I really don't drink very often, so even though this experiment revolves around wine, my experience with alcohol in general is limited. Case in point: My first glass of wine for this blog left me somewhat tipsy, even though the Arbor Mist only has 6% alcohol...This should be an interesting adventure!

At any rate, last night was much like the one before. After I made, ate, and cleaned up after supper, my fiance and I recommenced our respective "research". His next choice was Shiner Light--my mom got him a six-pack variety of Shiner because she didn't want him to feel left out during the bridal shower! He poured it from the bottle into a fresh beer mug from the freezer (which he was sure to put in as soon as he walked in the door!), and was exceedingly proud of his pouring skills--he achieved less foam than the night before! In the midst of his beer-pouring-professional glory, he took a more assured drink from the mug and didn't make any strange faces this time. His verdict? It didn't have the aftertaste that the Shiner Blonde did, but it "still wasn't Bud Light." I guess that once you find a favorite, nothing else can quite compete!

After I tried a sip of his beer (which still tasted similar to Coors Light to me), I picked a 14-ounce bordeaux glass from my new collection and poured myself another glass of the Arbor Mist Blackberry Merlot.

Okay, before I go any further, I have to say that the whole proper glass debate still has me confused. If anyone knows whether a merlot tastes better in a glass for a burgundy or a bordeaux, please let me know!

Last night's sample of the Arbor Mist tasted much like the one from night before, and as much as I tried to extend my senses, I came to the conclusion that my first assessment was about as complex as it was going to get. I thought I might have detected a hint of strawberry flavor in this glass, but it could have just been my imagination and the desire to find something more in there. The texture was also much the same; it was still a bright, refreshing wine until I let the remainder of my glass sit for a bit while I did some laundry--then it became slightly flat.

Speaking of laundry...I had decided to sit at my dining room table for last night's tasting, not considering that my dining room is connected by swinging doors to the laundry room. I had some towels in the dryer, and due to the lack of a seal on the connecting doors, the scent of laundry detergent and dryer sheets soon overcame any wine-related scent. At this point, I had already decided that I wasn't going to get any more complexity from this particular wine, so I just gave up and drank the rest of the wine without paying as careful attention to its characteristics.

I'm thinking of using the last of the wine when I cook my roast in a crock pot, so I guess this marks the end of my Arbor Mist Blackberry Merlot evaluation. As much as a true wine connoisseur would most likely dismiss this variety as nothing more than a typical low-end wine, I still stand by my opinion that it is a pleasing and refreshing (if quite simple) drink.

A New Journey

I'm a 21-year-old recent college graduate (B.A. in Anthropology, minor in Psychology) that grew up in a small town in Texas, so I suppose you could say that I haven't had a lot of "cultural experience" in my life thus far! Nonetheless (or perhaps due to this fact), I've decided to embark on a journey to learn about wine. I've always enjoyed the taste of wine, but my current knowledge of its nuances and attributes is rather limited...Let's just say that my repertoire up to now has consisted of screw-cap bottles, which should explain a few things!

I don't have an exact strategy as of yet to guide me through this mission, but the basic idea is to try as many different types of wines as I can get my hands on that fit within my also-rather-limited budget, and to experience the beauty of wine without the snobbery it often implies. I want to record my observations of each wine in a wine tasting journal and, of course, on this blog.

I'm hoping that through this adventure, I will be able to hone my palette and expand my horizons—wine, at least for me, is a window to the rest of the world beyond my own. Although I may never get to see the Italian countryside, I can curl up with a good book and a glass of wine and taste its splendor.

"Wine to me is passion. It's family and friends. It's warmth of heart and generosity of spirit. Wine is art. It's culture. It's the essence of civilization and the art of living."
—Robert Mondavi