I had never heard of this grape before and I'd never heard of this region - so I'm very happy to share this with you all - especially because it's starting to warm up and I feel like I've found my summer sipping wine!!

This is Abymes 2007 from Domaine Giachino from the Savoie region in France. Giachino you say!? That sounds Italian! Well, it is - the Savoie region is due west of Burgundy, putting it right in the French alpine area and boy, does this wine taste mountain fresh!

I read about this before I cracked it open and found out that the grape used here is the Jacquere and that it makes "rather neutral wines". That may be true of the grape, but I'm assuming that the winemakers at Domaine Giachino are doing their job well, because they are able to make a fragrant, balanced, and lip-lickingly good wine. It's full of green apple, minerality, and a creaminess that comes from it's time spent on the lees (dead yeast cells from post fermentation). It is clean and crisp and fresh and it's relatively low in alcohol (11%)--- PERFECT APERITIF!! --- or I like to call it a weekday wine, you can have a glass (or two) on a Tuesday night and not have a hangover for Wednesday morning!

The estate is also very detail oriented, organic whenever possible, and the grapes are hand harvested.

color: very light straw colored
nose: green apple, Meyer lemon, quince
palate: crisp, clean, green apple, green grapes, fresh minerality

Find yourself a couple bottles! I bought mine for $13!

Austrian RED wine!! Schellmann an der sudbahn 2005, Thermenregion, Austria

Rock me Amadeus, I love Austrian wines! I happened to be in a wine store the other day and they only had one Austrian red wine and I snatched it up. As I said before, I am a huge fan of Austrian wines and I think they don't get the credit that they deserve. They are generally extremely high quality, they have the adorable Austrian flag on the tops of their wine bottles (usually screw caps), and they are usually made by smaller family owed wineries.

Their red wines are really funky and spicy and if you are a Pinot Noir lover, you can try Zweigelt or St. Laurent from Austria - you'll probably really enjoy it. So this particular wine is a blend of Zweigelt 50% - St. Laurent 40% and Pinot Noir 10%. I've never had a red blend from Austria before so I was very excited. This wine is made by the Schellmann family in the Thermenregion of Austria. If you look at the map up there - it's the area right southwest of Vienna. It's known for its funky brown soils that are really suited to growing fantastic red wines. Let me tell you about the grapes that are featured in this wine so you can have a better idea of what to expect if you see it in a store or on a wine list:

St. Laurent: dark berries spice and sour cherry - very similar to Pinot Noir

Zweigelt: this is a crossing of St. Laurent and Blaufrankish - lots of cherry fruit and a velvety texture

Pinot Noir (also called Blauburgunder in Austria) - elegant, delicate, spicy cherry fruit, wild strawberry

color: light ruby

nose: spiced cherries & raspberries, red licorice, mint

palate wild strawberries, spice, medium bodied, very smooth, balanced, high acidity (make sure you consume with food)

the verdict -- experiment with Austrian reds!!!!

Bloody Tempranillo - Volver 2005,Tempranillo from La Mancha Spain

I've seen this wine everywhere and it looks like a very decent wine, the label is clean and cute without being too cutsie. It's a pretty substantial feeling bottle too - what do they say about not judging a book by it's cover. No - in this case it's completely a matter of personal taste.

I cracked this open a few days ago and the moment I sniffed it, my expectations plummeted. I PERSONALLY cannot stand a very particular iron/bloody aroma that also is expressed on the palate too. I let it stand for an hour and it was still there. I was so annoyed - here is an $18 bottle and I can't even drink it. I gave a glass to David to try and he smacked his lips and exclaimed how much he loved it -- especially the "bloody aftertaste". Go figure! That just shows you how different people's palates are. This wine has scored a solid 90 points with Steven Tanzer and with the Wine Spectator. Neither of them mention the iron-y taste or the bloody taste that I found so overwhelmingly pronounced. Maybe it's just me!

However, 4 days later the iron scent was gone! Hallelujah! At to show how well made this wine is - 4 days later it was drinking really nicely!

At any rate, this is a well made wine. Even though I didn't like the aromas or the flavor profile, I thought that it was extremely well balanced and had nice acidity for a wine region that is supposed to be sun-baked with Don Quixote running around windmills and the like. You can see from the wine map above that La Mancha is the deep purple region smack in the middle of Spain. It's the largest DO in Spain and it is supposed to be the next big thing in Spanish wine even though less than 20% of the grapes are red. Tempranillo here is sometimes called Cencibel, but on this particular wine is says Tempranillo.

color: dark ruby

nose: plum, sweet spice, cherry coulis (upon opening -- very irony and bloody)

palate: smooth, rich, lush more black cherry and tart blackberry. nice acidity and medium to full bodied.

My suggestions - buy it - I think you can find it on sale for under $15 dollars - but decant it and let it breathe for a few hours unless you're a vampire and like the taste of blood.

Looks like Mountain Dew but it's... STREGA! - Liquore Strega

I wish that the golden splendor of Strega showed up better in these photos. It is truly fluorescent, and the Strega website describes it as; "solar color". http://www.strega.it/ Check out their website. It is adorable. There are also tons of products that I had no idea existed. For the boozers there is also Strega Sambuca and Cream Strega. I have to get my hands on a bottle of Cream Strega.

This brilliant solar colored liqeuer is self proclaimed as "the most famous Italian liquor". I'm not sure if that's true, but maybe it's one of the oldest mass marketed liquors. I'll have to do some research. It's made with 70 herbs and "valuable spices from Europe, Central America and the Orient". Valuable is right! Saffron, the most expensive spice in the world is included in the mysterious blend. It' helps to give that "solar" glow to the nectar! I could only suss out mint and fennel as other confirmed ingredients.

I love the bottle and the label. There is a circular lithograph of a train station. It's the Stazione Ferroviaria de Benevento. Looking closely you can see a long building behind the station - that's the Strega factory! It was created in 1860 in Benevento. Of course there is a lot of lore and legend to this, but Guiseppe Alberti, originally from near Naples came to the town of Benevento where his father was unsuccesfully selling liqueur. Guissep' found an old love potion used by the local witches... oh yes, didn't you know, Benevento is a town between Rome and Naples and it's a famous meeting place for witches from all over the world! Strega means witch in Italian, so wonder no more why there is a broom-toting witch on the label!

This love potion can be used as a digestif, or drunk straight/over ice, or in cocktails. Last summer I had a great cocktail at Franny's in Brooklyn that used this with gin and orange juice (i think). I think they were calling it Il Solare... but I could be fabricating there. Franny's is great and so are the cocktails - if you haven't gone, you must!

Back to Strega... I poured a glass for myself while i was typing and was almost knocked over by its strong medicianal scent. When I actually took some time to discover the aroma, however, I was intriqued by its many layers. I guess that's what happens when you are layering ingredients in your love potion.

color: positively flourescent yellow - looks like syrupy Mountain Dew

nose: mint, white pepper, sage, curry, liquorice

palate: medicinal, sweet liquorice, viscous minty finish, not unlike a sweetened Listerine

I may not drink this every night, but I certianly feel cool having this in my liquor cabinet!

Cotes du Yum -- Domaine de Givaudan 2007

I am the first to admit that I don't know much about vintages. Here are two good vintages I have been hearing about for the past week that I can pass along to you:

2005 is an excellent year for Bordeaux

2007 is an excellent year for Cotes du Rhone

I grabbed this $12.50 bottle the other day and I have just popped the cork. It's the Domaine de Givaudan 2007 Cotes du Rhone (70% Grenache and 30% Syrah). Just a quick Cotes-du-Rhone primer: This is the region of Chateauneuf du Pape, Hermitage, and the Cote-Rotie. The major grapes are Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre... most of the wines are blends... as withe the majority of Chateauneuf du Papes... even some white grapes are blended in like Roussanne and Viognier. It's a region that demands a lot of hand harvesting because of steep rocky slopes, they get whipping mistral winds.

OK, so on to this 2007:
color: deep ruby - almost purple

nose: violets, raspberry/cherry jam, red licorice, minerality

palate: spiced red fruits, licorice

I thought this one was great - I'm going to let it aearate and return to it in a few hours to see how it progresses. I'm getting a lot of alcohol - we'll see if that blows off a bit. Otherwise - for under $15 - it's a keeper!!

Cotes du Rhones are usually a safe bet on the wine list when you're looking for a full bodied wine - especially if it is a by the glass option. These puppies can usually keep for a good couple of days after being opened. Experiment away with the Cotes du Rhone!

Wine List Showdown in the Spanish Section - Allende 2004 Rioja & El Regajal 2006 seleccion especial

David and I recently celebrated our 5 year anniversary. We went to BLT Prime and decided to splurge on steak and creamed spinach. the food was good but over-priced. The atmosphere was very nice and clean and well decorated and CROWED for a Wednesday night -- I guess BLT is doing fine. Anyway - I was looking at the wine list and because I'm on a Spanish kick, was checking out that section. The sandy-haired sommelier came to the table to ask if I had any questions and I did indeed. There were two wines in the $65 price range I was interested in 1) the Allende 2004 Rioja and 2) the El Regajal vinos de Madrid (that's how it was written on the wine list).

He explained to me, in his no-eye-contact-way that the Allende was a very modern style of Rioja using the Tempranillo grape - so more fruit forward lots of cherry and strawberry while the El Regajal was more earthy and dusty and mineral driven. Knowing that David was getting BBQ Brisket and I was getting a fillet chose the Allende 2004 Rioja thinking I'd get a bigger wine. At the time - I thought the wine was OK. It was good enough, but it wasn't what the sommelier had made it seem and it seemed a little to delicate to pair up with a brisket and the Bearnaise drenched Fillet Mignon. I wasn't unhappy, but I wasn't thrilled with my selection. I think the wine would have showed much better with a different food pairing

So I had to laugh when I saw the El Regajal bottle on the shelf at Zachy's earlier this week -- I was curious about the bottle that I HADN'T selected that night. I asked the wine buyer what his assessment of the wine was: modern, opulent, very lush - it's a blend of Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon and some other grapes too. I bought the bottle.

THIS was the bottle that we had expected to be drinking that night at BLT - had the sommelier not lied to us or switched the descriptions (no - I know what you're thinking -- IIIII did not confuse the descriptions -- I don't make mistakes!) we would have been more satisfied. All the same, we enjoyed it pretty nicely on our couch with chorizo and coconut rice.

At any rate, they are both good bottles of wine. The Allende is from Rioja - the region in Northern Spain located on the Ebro River near Navarra. It's comprised of three subregions - Rioja Alta, Rioja Baja and Rioja Alavesa. The main grape here is Tempranillo. The Allende was 100% Tempranillo (spicy, wild strawberries, violets) but Garnacha (Grenache) Graciano and Mazuelo among others are found here for the red wine. White Rioja also exists.

The El Regajal is from just outside of Madrid - which is pretty cool - the winery is located on a rare butterfly preserve (hence the image on the label) and they've been around since 1998 (i think - I was reading the Spanish site and i don't speak Spanish). This 2006 wine is made from a blend of 45% Tempranillo, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20%Syrah, and 10% Merlot. It was just as the Zachy's wine buyer had described: lush and opulent, there were deep rich berry aromas and roasted plum and coffee.

Both of these wines are about $24-$28 on the wine shelf!

My Mencia - Domino de Tares Exaltos Cepas Viejas 2003

This is the second bottle of Domino de Tares Exaltos that I have purchased. From someone used to getting their wine free (thanks old job) or heavily discounted -- that's saying a lot. I wanted to see if I liked it the second time as much as I liked it the first time. I did!

The label is a little funky - it sort of looks like an orgy. There are what look like people but then again, maybe they are horses - maybe they are naked, maybe they are eating grapes in a wild vineyard. At any rate, it's what's in the bottle that is important. What's in the bottle is 100% Mencia that is from VIEJAS - old vines -- 60 year old vines to be exact. I have been wanting to learn more about Spanish wine, that's why I picked it up in the first place. I didn't know anything about the Mencia grape or anything about the region in Northern Spain; Bierzo. Here's a good article from our friends over at the NYtimes. They did a Mencia tasting. Pretty cool:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/dining/31wine.html

I've seen two of their wines here in the states - although I know they have more- The Exaltos is made from 60 year old vines. Apparently, that's not unusual in the area. Like much of Spain, their wine is aged in American oak. It runs anywhere from $20-$28. It's well worth it. I recommend decanting it because it does take a little while to open up. You'll get cherry, wild strawberry, sweet spices, and roasted plum on the nose. It's very smooth on the palate, silky and spicy - there's some vanilla a mellowness from the oak aging too. I would liken it to a merlot/tempranillo experience. We happened to have it with some chorizo and sweet potato puree. It was perfect.