2007 Bogle Russian River Valley Pinot Noir

My first love of wine is bubbly, which should be obvious for any of my regular readers. For those who are relatively new, just click here to see how much I love the bubbles and all the great folks who are helping me out in 2010.

My wife’s true love of wine is Pinot Noir, so we drink a lot of it. The challenge is finding good wines for the money, a treasure hunt worthy of Lara Croft or Dr. Jones’ finest efforts. For both of us, Russian River Valley is usually a good bet. For value, I always think of two brands who produce a wine from this region and Bogle is one of them. You can read my review of the 2006 vintage here.

Bogle is a large production label, but not what I’d call a mega-label. According to what I can find, their biggest production wine in a vintage comes in around 250,000 cases. 3 millions bottles of one varietal isn’t small, but neither is it on the scale of Charles Shaw (the infamous Two Buck Chuck). I don’t have a figure on this particular wine, but the 2006 vintage of Pinot Noir from Bogle weighed in at 30,000 cases. It was a good value and while I’m sure some Pinot-philes may think it wasn’t that great, for $15 I think it was a steal. The 2007 is no different in terms of being a great value, but definitely different in style.

First off, the color is lighter, more in line with a wine labeled as Pinot Noir. Honestly, many Cali wines come out much darker than one might expect. It is like reaching into the box of 64 Crayola Crayons looking for red and getting mahogany, close but no cigar. The aromas were quite pronounced, as it emanated from the decanter at a good meter’s distance. A good cherry cola came to mind, but one without the obligatory sappy sweetness.

On the palate, this wine walks a tightrope between vibrant fruit and tart acidity. Sour cherries mix with pinches of violet, under-ripened raspberry and spice, wrapped around a precise core of palate refreshing acidity. For the technical of you in the audience, this wine weighs in at 14.2% ABV, 3.62 pH and acidity of .56 mg/1ooml. This is definitely a leaner and more finesse oriented style than the 2006. I’d guess that the percentage of Pinot Noir is higher in the 2007 than previous vintages, not surprising considering the overall quality of Cali Pinot Noir in 2007.

This is once again, an above average wine deserving of your attention. I paid $14.99 at Bullock’s in Woodstock for this and in the under $20 category, there are few producers of Pinot Noir as reliable as Bogle. We paired this with teriyaki glazed salmon, sweet potato, roasted cauliflower and asparagus that were tossed in olive oil, sea salt and fresh ground pepper medley.

Haiku
Tart goes the cherry
Add a floral note and spice
Out comes something nice

Here are some alternative blogger reviews, some of which like the wine, some don’t. As in all things wine, you and you alone know what you like and your personal taste is all that matters.

Ethan Prater

Wine Peeps

Drink What You Like

The Iowa Wino

Vin O’Clock

Thanks for stopping by. If you like what I’m doing, please share it with your friends. If you have comments, I more than welcome them. I dig on questions or suggestions too. Have an awesome day and remember, life is too short to drink bad wine. Plus, good wine doesn’t have to cost a lot.

Cheers,
Kevin

Before last year, many folks were not familiar with Murphy-Goode, but that all changed with their campaign to hire a Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent. As best that I can tell, this was the second contest where the word was put out and applicants submitted their applications via video, though the winner in Murphy-Goode’s case actually applied in person (he was first in line no less). The first such contest was the World’s Greatest Job and it has not only inspired Murphy-Goode, but others as well.

It had been a while since I last had a Murphy-Goode wine. A couple of weeks ago, as documented here, I was able to sample this particular selection from the winery and my wife and I both enjoyed it. Seeing as I knew where to get it cheaper than that day, I held off on the purchase.

For me, Zinfandel is a classic American grape that is much maligned because of White Zinfandel. White Zin, in current form, is an accident that launched a fad, which while fading, is nowhere near dead. In the 1970s, Sutter Home Winery was producing Zinfandel wine that sold as a premium product. To make the wine richer and more concentrated in flavor, they would use a technique called Saignée, or bleeding the vats. The remaining must (from the Latin vinum mustum, “young wine”) now has less liquid, meaning the skins will impart a deeper concentration of tannin and flavor to what is left behind. The juice which was bled off can be used to make rosé wine, which is what Sutter Home was doing.

The accident was a stuck fermentation. This happens when the yeast dies out before the little buggers finish eating all the sugar in the juice. That is their purpose in life, to eat sugar, produce alcohol (along with heat and CO2), so the next time you see walk by the yeast packets, just give ‘em a little bow. It is the least you can do to honor their sacrifice for our pleasure. Okay, so the winemaker sets aside the juice, comes back to it a few weeks later and BAM!, White Zinfandel as we know it is born. The wine with training wheels is much maligned by most wine geeks, but you have to give credit where credit is due. First, if not for the popularity of White Zinfandel, many plantings of what are now called Old Vine would have been ripped up and re-planted with something else. Old Vine Zinfandel fans should be grateful. Second, White Zinfandel does get a lot of people into wine and eventually, many of them move on to other wines as they seek to expand their palate.

So, back to the wine at hand.

Price: $16.99 at Bottoms Up Beverages in Johns Creek.

This wine was decanted for about 2 hours and served in Riedel Vinum Zinfandel/Riesling/Chianti Glasses, which is what I use for most wines. It has juicy black berry aromas, but in no way does it smell raisiny or port-like as is often the case with California Zinfandel.

Once you actually drink it, you get what I’d say is a more refined, food-friendly Zinfandel that doesn’t overpower the food. It has some nice blackberry fruit flavors with a decent bit of spice and vanilla, but what I found really nice was the acidity. While the wine does weigh in at a typically palate-crushing 14.9% ABV, the balance of fruit and acidity kept it from bonking us into alcohol oblivion. It was an an above average wine that worked well with our sandwiches and was easy to drink.

We paired this with some awesome grilled cheese sandwiches, which were being demoed at Whole Foods. First, you have to get the SweetWater 420 Extra Pale Ale Bread and if you don’t believe me, here is one other local blogger who dug it as well (plus he posted the cheese fondue recipe they were pushing). It just debuted this past Friday and I’ve got no idea how long they’ll keep making it, so get out there and get some now. If you like a hearty fall bread for pot roast, beef stew or just to have for breakfast, this is absolutely dynamite. If I could, I’d wear it as cologne.

Grilled Cheese Sandwich Ingredients

• SweetWater 420 Extra Pale Ale Bread (don’t forget to have them cut it for you!)
• Bacon (choose what you like, we just went with the store brand)
• English Seaside Cheddar (it was what they demonstration station used and we like it anyways)
• Sweet onion
• Tomatoes

Instructions

• Fry the bacon to a medium crisp & save a few tablespoons of the grease.
• Sautee the onions in the bacon grease until they are nice and carmelized (unless you like them crunchier).
• Slice the cheese and the tomatoes.
• Apply butter (or olive oil) to one side of each slice of bread.
• Assemble sandwiches: cheese, then bacon, finishing with the onions.
• Put sandwich into a pan over medium heat. Our bread was thickly sliced, so they had to cook longer and over lower heat to keep them from getting burnt (which I actually kinda like when it comes to grilled cheese).
• Flip and toast other side.
• Remove from heat, open sandwich and layer in tomato slices.
• Serve and enjoy!

You really taste every component, with the nutty, earthy flavors of the bread, the smoky salt of the bacon, the creamy tang and texture of the cheese with sweetness of onion and the acidity of the tomatoes lifting all the flavors. Of course, you can make whatever combination you like or just use the bread for cheese fondue as the other site listed. Me, I just like it toasted with some butter on it. Yum.

Oh yes, in honor of Hardy, the winner of Murphy-Goode’s contest, I’ll score this wine according to his system:

102.02
Pig Whistlin’ Dixie

Bottles like this are why I love wine so much. I’ve had this in storage for about 3 years now and didn’t want to wait on it any longer. When Whole Foods runs a special on their bone-in rib-eye steaks, we always get one and have them split it since they are about 2 inches thick. I’m not sure which or if it was both, but I think Alton Brown and Guy Fieri both have always promoted using cuts of meat with the bone still on, as that is where the flavor is at. I totally agree and it still befuddles me every single time I see a person asking the butcher for filet mignon. Okay, back to wine.

I wasn’t in the industry when I bought this, but I was on a select email list put out by my mentor. I still have to do an interview / article with her, just hard to pin her down since she makes the Tasmanian devil look like the Dalai Lama in terms of energy level. I was intrigued for several reasons. One, she recommended it, which was a 90% guarantee that I’d love it, as our palates were well aligned. B, it was a wine with a production of only 23 cases. Read that again and do the math. Okay, I’ll do it for you. That means 23×12 which comes out to…wait a second…276 bottles. I don’t know what the rarest wine in the world is, but this is pretty dang exclusive. Trois, it comes from locals, Greg and Jennifer Hauck, who followed their hearts and are now living their dream. Lastly, it was aged in oak for two years, one in French oak and the other in American. This was something I don’t recall seeing a whole lot of, especially since they basically only made one barrel of the stuff. I’m not 100% sure of the price, but I think it was around $50? Current vintages of the wine are going for $48 on the winery website.

Aroma: OMG, I think I’ve died and gone to Alexander Valley heaven. It had strong notes of spicy espresso, mocha tinged pipe tobacco, black currant reduction and toffee. Sounds like something I might drink at Starbucks if they made wine instead of coffee.

Palate & Final Word: Rich, velvety, silky. All these and more were uttered as we drained every single little drop we could. It didn’t hurt that we were enjoying our salt and black pepper crusted steaks, along with some amazingly delicious roasted fingerling potatoes and sauteed baby bella mushrooms. The tannins were gone, providing what I imagine to be the soft and supple texture of the wine, which still had plenty of acidity to keep it from falling flat in the end. The deep, rich flavors of assorted black fruits were united with rich mocha, vanilla and espresso notes, with an underlying hint of fresh mint. I told my wife, wines like this are why I love wine so much. The only shame of it is that we don’t have more, but like I told my better half, we are two of a teeny-tiny group who will ever enjoy such treasures. Perhaps we’ll never have a First Growth Bordeaux or Grand Cru Burgundy, but we will have had this wine and in the end, that is quite alright with me. Without a doubt, an outstanding bottle and a great reminder that Napa Valley isn’t the only great California AVA for Cabernet sauvignon.

Oh yes, the photo of the back label. This is something I normally don’t include, but if you look closely, you can see where it lists the production at 23 cases. Bonus is, you can also see where they mention this as being their first red wine release. Now I feel even more giddy. Pretty cool stuff that only a real wine geek like me could appreciate.

Haiku
Local folk do good
Make rich rare gem from Cali
Applaud them I do