Mother...

It felt like mere hours being home from Australia when mom showed up on our front doorstep to spend a few days. She had been visiting soem friends in San Diego and made the short trek up to LA to see her grandkids (our dachshunds) and party with us. I usually try to break out some fun and interesting wines for her while she's here.



The abridged version of her visit:


We grabbed some sushi from our local spot and brought it back to the house for lunch. I'm still living in a world of love for Australia so I broke out the Koonowla Riesling 2007 from Clare Valley that I picked up from K & L. This totally rocked their worlds and mostly because it was Australian. This is a perfect example of what the American consumer isn't aware that Australia can do well. The Riesling was super-crisp, high acid, showed petrol and citrus. It was perfect with the food. We sucked that down fairly quickly so I opened a Vocoret 'Foret' Chablis 2007 to move forward. I was not wildly impressed with this one, but it was good - a bit too green and a little light on fruit for my taste. It was relatively inexpensive, also at K & L.

The night continued on with a variety of red wines: Emeritus Pinot 2007, Araujo 'Altagracia' 2004 and Neal Cabernet 2004. The Emeritus, while I have liked it in the past, was showing off a little too much of the cola for me, but the Araujo was doing great and seems to still have a long life ahead. The Neal 2004 has generally been consistent and is probably my favorite vintage of this wine to date.


We dined at Lucques on another evening. I have been to Lucques a few times, but always for events hosted by wineries. This was my first experience during normal service and it was pretty solid. We bought a bottle of J. Lasalle 'Cachet d'Or' Brut Champagne from the list to start and moved into a bottle of 2000 Chateau Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape from my cellar for the entrees. The Lasalle was perfect and showing well. Sometimes bubbles are so satisfying that you can actually shut your brain off and not have to analyze them. This was one of those times. And with its versatility, it went great with our salad and burratta.

The 2000 Beaucastel was good, but not my favorite experience with this Chateau. The Mourvedre was a little more obvious in this bottling and felt more like an inexpensive Bandol than a well-crafted Chateauneuf. The medicinal cherry and meatiness were present, with funky French earth notes, dusty tannin and decent structure. I liked this wine, but I'll hold my last bottle for awhile to see what happens down the road.

Our final dinner was at Peppone, which is one of my favorite restaurants in Los Angeles. You get raped on your Spaghetti and Meatballs, but the wines are cheaper than you can buy them for on the market, if you know what you're looking at. I bought a bottle of 1991 Chateau Montelena 'Estate' Cabernet from their list for $89. It's going for $120 minimum in the free world! Dave (my step-father) gave us a bottle of 2000 Gaja 'Sperss' to take with us. The Montelena was killer and still youthful! Dusty sage and eucalyptus notes over blackberry and cassis with spicy oak throughout. I'm really developing a taste for this winery and I wish I had bought more of it back when I was first getting into wine. The Gaja was, unfortunately, corked. Not badly, but enough that we noticed it and the staff seemed to appreciate us leaving it.

We plowed through a fair amount of bottles, as usual, and only a few of do I mention here. It's good to have this connection in wine with mom. She's always been there for me and it's good to be able to offer her some great juice when she comes around. I always look forward to the next time we'll be able to spend some time together.