M. Senegor

My recent preoccupation with Bordeaux vintages took me down memory lane into certain years that I recall as landmarks that I experienced in my own wine journey. Two in particular had to do with pinot noir.The first occurred soon after I joined my Friday night wine tasting group in late 1995. In those days I was mostly a California chardonnay enthusiast and did not have a palate for much more. I discovered that my new wine group was very Burgundy oriented, and while they sampled a large variety of wines, pinot noir from this famed region, and the precious few domestic winemakers who[...]

I have touted the virtues of off-year Bordeaux wines in past blogs. Recently we journeyed into this world deeper with a tasting devoted to inferior vintages with bottles assembled from various vendors and our personal collections. It took place in the house of George and Gail Heron, proprietors of Fine Wines of Stockton, with 10 tasters in attendance. The driving force behind this was Mike Hernandez of Fresno, who spent the last six months scouring merchants for such wines. He contributed half the bottles to the tasting (many others he bought were not included because some were actually good vintages, and others[...]

For those cabarnet sauvignon and merlot lovers out there I have surprising news: you will get the best bang for your buck with Bordeaux!For the average American drinker Bordeaux has an image problem. Hard to pronounce names, a seemingly infinite number of Chateau's, bottle labels that don't carry varietal designations, to name a few. Worse yet, it is considered expensive, a luxury item. Its well known need for long term storage before consumption restricts it to the domain of wealthy snobs who can afford fancy wine caves. Yes, all of the above is true. But for only a small portion[...]

In a recent tasting, a group of us picked a "grenache" theme, and each  brought a randomly purchased bottle, a total of seven. We ended up with a mish-mash of Californian, French, Australian and Spanish wines. After  randomly shuffling the bottles and  double-blinding them, we attached  "A',"B", "C" etc. labels onto the bags. Each of us  poured a few ounces of this line-up into seven glasses in front us. We then tasted them in one session, and discussed and unveiled them one by one.As luck would have it, two people had bought the exact same bottle, a 2010 Tres Picos Grancha Borsao from[...]

Ask any wine enthusiast a simple question: "what are you drinking nowadays?" You'll get surprising answers. Oftentimes they will not mention hoity-toity labels. They will quote reasonably priced wines within their comfort zone, some of which you may know, and some you won't. The big names remain relegated to ceremonial occasions.There are some enthusiasts out there who restrict themselves to only certain categories. For instance, I know a few who won't touch white wine. Many refuse sweet wines like Port or German Riesling. The list is endless. I myself am a sampler of all that's out there and I don't pre-judge[...]

Last night the above bottle appeared in our weekly tasting where we try to identify blinded wines. This 2003 Penner-Ash syrah was still surprisingly young. It had a distinct domestic syrah nose, but its flavor profile was more typical of Central Coast pinot noir, of the kind that is now ubiquitous in the Edna Valley, Arroyo Grande and Santa Lucia Highlands. It had  smoky, dark berry fruit flavors upfront, noticeable but subtle sweetness in mid-palate, and a spicy finish with hints of oak. Our group tilted between syrah and pinot in their guesses. We were all certain however that if was American. When we unveiled[...]