Tasting Notes: 2005 Kalyra MC2 Santa Ynez Valley

Finally had my first proper wine night in the new apartment on the beach, and a long overdue catch-up with LL was more than enough reason to pull the cork on this wine that has been sitting on the rack for a couple months now.  The science nerd in me was drawn to the bottle by the black and white Hubble telescope image of the universe, but the wine nerd in me had to bring it home because of the wine's smooth drinkability.

Yes, Kalyra was a Sideways winery, but it is a Santa Ynez gem and favorite among many of my other wine-drinking friends in the Southland. The winery was started by an Australian who made his way over to Santa Barbara, and they have made some pretty interesting wines that are imbued with the label's offbeat spirit. MC2 is a Merlot blend, mixed with some Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc in the Bordeaux style.

These are not wines that will shock your senses, but rather more subtle in their impressiveness. MC2 is at first a soft red that opens up into a creamy, almost velvety wine. The dominant Merlot lends it a fruity sweetness (as far as reds go), but it is a fairly deep wine with a good balance of light tannins. The dark fruit flavors nicely complemented our garlicky hummus snacks, with a bit of chocolate raspberry when it sits full in the mouth. A good value, and an interesting twist on a fairly standard blend.

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Kalyra Winery
343 N. Refugio Rd.
Santa Ynez
(805) 693-8864

Label Notes: "Moving at 5 miles per second The Hubble Space Telescope has orbited the Earth 100,000 times (and counting) traveling over 4.8 Billion Kilometers since being put in Space 18 years ago. [sic]"

Tasting Notes: Working Late @ Father's Office

I once told a cab driver to "step on it" (yes, it was seriously overdramatic) in order to make it to Father's Office before the kitchen closed on a Friday night. The Father's Office burger and sweet potato fries are an essential part of my life in southern California. After having tasted those piping hot, perfectly salted and just-crispy-enough taters, I now find myself in other bars begging them to bring out an order of sweet potato fries with garlic aioli, please please please, to no avail.

First and foremost, however, Father's Office is not a restaurant but a bar - someone is checking ID at all times, even at 1 pm on a Sunday. They have a vast, changing, and well-selected array of beers bottled and on-tap, but they also pour some good wines, with a fair representation of Santa Barbara producers. Should you be in Culver City or Santa Monica, definitely pop in, get some fries, and savor them once you've staked out a table (gets pretty competitive, especially at the smaller, original location in Santa Monica).

2006 Paige 23 Pinot Noir San Luis Obispo
Described in the tasting notes as having flavors of plum, cherry, and smoky raspberry, this wine was a full and fun pinot noir that had hit you pretty hard in the nose. It was soft and creamy on the palate. Though I can't say I'd call it smoky raspberry, I see the inspiration; the Paige was a full of those dark, fruity flavors and actually had a soft finish.

2006 Poderi dal Nespoli Sangiovese di Romagna
I was ready for something bigger, and this sangiovese fit the bill. It was still an easy accompaniment for some light conversation, but also had a bit of spice and tannins that complemented the heavy Indian flavors from my lamb skewers. Both good wines that I'd come back to.

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Father's Office
1018 Montana Ave
Santa Monica, CA
(kitchen closes 11pm Thurs - Sat,

sweet noble rot

How sweet it is to be back at home. After a long few weeks hopping about, it was great to come back to something familiar. As soon as I dropped my bags in the doorway, I went exploring for a post-travel snack in my nearly emptied refrigerator. Passing on stale pita and plain yogurt, I was excited to find a tupperware full of blueberries. On opening the lid, however, I was only fortunate enough to discover my free "gift-with-purchase" had blossomed - a nice, white fuzz coating my overly ripe snack.

Rotting, moldy things are typically to be avoided, e.g. berries, leftovers, roadkill. This got me thinking, however, as I turned to the next closest thing (my wine rack). Noble rot is key to the syrupy sweetness that makes the popular (and pricey) dessert wines of Sauternes and Hungary so prized. I really had no idea of how noble rot works or its role in the vinification process, so I took a break from tasting anything this weekend (thanks a lot, first cold of the season) and dug around in my wine encyclopedia. And online. After all, if it's on the internet, it must be true.

Officially known as botrytis cinerea, noble rot or pourriture noble, is a fungal growth that appears on grapes late in harvest season and increases the alcoholic potential while concentrating the sugary juice. Unlike the standard fuzzy stuff that grows on food, grape growers actually wait and hope and keep their fingers crossed that the stuff will show. As with other fungi, it usually appears later in the harvest season when there is some moisture in the air to provide a friendly growing environment. The climate around Sauternes is ideal for our friend botrytis, whose spores are also indigenous to the region - maybe why Sauternes is the source of such legendary wines.

What happens as the botrytis spores grow is key to the concentrated sweetness and high alcohol content that define these wines. The spores feed off of the grape's extra moisture, concentrating the remaining juice into a thick and sugary mix. Because botrytized grapes are typically harvested one-by-one, the making of wine from these harvests is highly labor intensive. Once the grapes are harvested and used to make wine, the sugar content promotes alcohol creation in the fermentation process. The results are the heavenly (yes, really) Sauternes and aszu wines, as well as some lesser known German and Italian styles.

I won't get into detail on these wines now, but I do suddenly have a craving for a glass and some accompanying dessert...

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Tasted: Chateau Rieussec
To Taste: Chateau d'Yquem (should you be so lucky)

How Noble Rot Produces Sweet Wine
Sauternes Vintage Chart
Profile on Chateau d'Yquem
Hungary Returns to a Sweet Past

photo: Hans Voorn via flickr

Tasting Notes: 2006 Melville Sta. Rita Hills Syrah, "Donna's"

This particular bottle has been sitting on my wine rack for at least 6 months, and though it's been ready to drink, I hadn't really had a reason to pull the cork. Melville is a charming, pretty winery located off of 246 in Lompoc, up in the Santa Ynez area by Santa Barbara. I had to dig out my fuzzy, scratched out tasting notes to remember my first impressions. Drinking wine is often contextually associated in my memory, and having a glass outdoors tonight while listening to old jazz and blues highlighted different characteristics from when I first tasted it in Melville's sunny and bustling tasting room, with The Pointer Sisters' "Fire" piped in on the radio (see, I told you, contextual).

The wine is a powerful blend of sweet, dark fruit and a lingering, pop-rock-like pepper finish that bursts across your taste buds. In the glass, it is a rich and inky, deep purple color. At first, I tasted more of blackberries & cassis, but as the wine had more time to sit, the acidity softened out somewhat and I tasted more of the earthy undertones mixed in with the fully expressed fruit flavors. Melville's tasting notes suggest it might be "sinister," I'd almost call it "lascivious;" the creaminess seduces the palate before that kicky finish teases you to take another sip - I'd even say the peppery borders on overwhelming, so this is not a wine for the faint-hearted. Certainly a delicious syrah with a shamelessly bold personality. Probably good to drink now and for another two years, at least. Enjoy.

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Tasted: 2006 Melville Syrah "Donna's"

bikes & flights

Santa Barbara wine country is a charmed area for multiple reasons in addition to its obvious draw as an epicenter for delicious, mouth-filling pinot noirs - from the established wineries along the Sideways wine-tasting routes to smaller, family operations, every vacant plot of sloping hillside is gradually filling with new wines to discover.

Over Labor Day weekend (yes, I'm a little behind on the updates), I took a trip up to Zaca Lake, a retreat also known as the location set for warm and fuzzy movies like the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Friday the 13th, part 3. We arrived at the gate just before midnight, learning something about what it means to be in complete, pitch-black darkness. After struggling with the padlock, we bumped over 5 miles of rough, narrow and winding road, traversing a couple of small, mostly dry creek beds and giving A, my backseat passenger, some mild car-sickness.

We woke up to find ourselves nestled between mountains on all sides, having stayed in the cabin above with 20 other strangers who would become our friends by the end of the weekend. We had all driven up variously with bikes loaded onto the backs of our cars, training for races the next week but eager to combine some pre-taper workouts with wine-tasting and outdoors relaxation over the long weekend.

I've been in the area several times for both tasting and cycling, and can't get over what a great place it is for both. The Solvang Century, held annually in early spring, was my first century ever and so beautiful, with one of the aid stations housed in a lot adjoining Fess Parker, at about mile 90 and just before the final (killer) hill on the road toward Los Olivos. This time, all 20+ of us drove our bikes from Zaca Lake to Los Olivos for a good long ride, combined with some tasting...and then disaster struck.

My tire had a pretty little hole in it from a ride earlier the day before, but figuring it would be a quick fix, I left it until we unloaded the bikes in Los Olivos. In a series of bizarre mishaps, we struggled for about 30 mins before realizing the poor wheel just had to be taken to a bike shop. I'd basically resigned myself to missing out on a great ride AND a full day of tasting, but A and I rolled into Dr. J's in Solvang where the friendly shop guys not only fixed my tire pronto, but a laid-back local hanging outside led us on a nice, 20-mile jaunt on the mostly flat roads around Solvang and Los Olivos. You can bet I'll drop back by there next time I'm in town, whether just to say hi or to find an excuse to buy something new for the cycling habit - they're the kind of local bike shop you want to have in every neighborhood. We were back in time for a late lunch at Panino before popping back into Los Olivos to try and reconvene with our fellow cyclists.

Los Olivos always becomes a bit of a mad house on the weekends, with the main square overrun by limousines and black cars chauffeuring groups around to tastings and a flood of other weekend visitors stopping in for a mid-day break from tasting. It's never so crowded that it takes away from the charm, however, and Saturday was no exception. I saw some riddling-rack wine holders for sale that I've added to my mental checklist of items for a future house, and A successfully procured various locally grown gourmet garlic varieties to save for future cooking endeavors.


There are numerous tasting rooms all over Main Street, which I've found to be hit or miss. The winery specific ones are generally better, and Saarloos&Sons was a pleasant discovery this time around. They fall into the family-run category, with Keith Saarloos pouring. He had this great trick of pouring just enough into the glass, then rolling the glass across the counter on its side, without spilling a drop. I've made a note to practice with some cheap wine and master as a future party trick. I guess I could also try learning to tie a knot in a cherry stem, but back to the wines -

They mostly grow grapes used by other wineries, but started producing small quantities of their own wines. Of the ones we tasted, I most enjoyed Daughter's and 194Five The Union. Daughter's is a fresh, sweet Chardonnay blended according to the tastes of the women in the family. I thought it was refreshingly different from most California Chardonnays I've tasted, with a soft and slightly creamy feel and light, fruity flavors that rush the palate before fading away like the champagne fireworks you see on the 4th of July. 194Five The Union is a Syrah-Cabernet blend that is a strong, masculine contrast to Daughter's, with its dark and smoky flavors and tannic finish.

This was unfortunately the only tasting we had the chance to breeze through, despite an ambitious schedule, but I'll likely be making another tasting trip in the next couple of months, with more to come at that point on some of my favorite wineries and tasting routes.

L.A. Sommeliers and Chefs Toss Back Summer Beers

who says beer and wine lovers can't get along? I'm on board with Peter Birmingham - love Racer 5, and have on occasion hightailed it to Father's Office just to sneak in a sweet potato order before the kitchen closes.

from eat:LA
L.A. Sommeliers and Chefs Toss Back Summer Beers

Color me organic

A couple of years ago, my then-roommates and I were in the habit of having friends over to our modest (tiny) space once or twice a month, over 6 or so bottles of wine and conversations that grew increasingly silly as the glasses emptied. Though these were meant to be beginning-of-the-night stops, they more-often-than-not ended with several of us curled up on the floor cushions with no desire to pursue any further bar-hopping or other exciting social engagements.

One such night I was able to convince the roommates it would be a good idea to do only organic wines; everything else is going green, why not go green with the wine, too? And so I asked for some favorite picks at the store, came back with the standard collection of a half-dozen bottles, and excitedly served them up.

What exactly makes a wine organic? Well, just as with foods at the supermarket, there are certifying bodies, but the term is not a clear-cut indication as to how a wine is produced. A wine "made from organically grown grapes" may not necessarily be an "organic wine," and must be labeled accordingly. The difference here is simply because an "organic wine" can have no sulfur added during winemaking process, a step that aids in the aging of wine as it reacts with oxygen in the bottle to prevent the wine from oxidizing before the cork has been removed. Those with sulfite sensitivities (like one of my old roommates) may prefer organic wines for this reason.

By the time we had worked our way up to the fourth bottle of the evening, one of our friends took a sip, and remarked that it "tasted like green earth." Organic wines are sometimes criticized for relying on the certification as a marketing gimmick while sacrificing the integrity of bottles produced. Of the organic wines I've tasted, at this particular tasting and since, I would have to agree that there is a whole range of quality to be found amongst the organic wines. There's no specific advantage, taste-wise, for choosing an organic wine over one otherwise labeled. Even with concern over production practices though, it may not be a meaningful difference as all quality grape growers should be focused on practices that extend the life of their soil. Most of the agricultural methods employed to create prime growing conditions are already fairly sustainable.

What makes the whole business even more confusing is the parallel growth in popularity of biodynamic wines. These merit a post of their own. In summary, biodynamic wines are similar to organic wines in production methods but employ an even more holistic, philosophical approach to growing - preparations involve burying cow manure in horns or adding wildflowers to compost that is spread on the vineyards. My brief take on both? Organic and biodynamic wines are best for those who are primarily concerned with the many steps to winemaking that occur before grapes are even harvested.

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Tasted: 2008 Sauvignon Blanc, Mauritson, Dry Creek

More on certification:
California Certified Organic Farmers