A Great “Go To” Zin

Yesterday was a wonderful preview of Spring 2007. We celebrated the sunny, warm air with BBQ’d hot dogs, cheese, crackers, tapanade, and an old stand-by Sonoma Zinfandel. We and our neighbors toasted the arrival of daffodils and riding mowers with a 2004 Murphy-Goode Liar’s Dice Zinfandel. Yum.

We first discovered Liar’s Dice at a Zinfandel festival in San Francisco back in the late 1990s. We then visited the Murphy-Goode winery in Sonoma and bought several bottles of the then hard-to-find Liar’s Dice. These days, you can find this reliable, proud-to-serve (red) Zinfandel at Costco for $14.99.

Murphy-Goode produces some very solid, representative wines. If you want to know what a Zinfandel or a Fumé Blanc (also called Sauvignon Blanc) or a California-style Chardonnay (heavy oak and butter) is supposed to taste like, Murphy-Goode is a great place to start.

In terms of their Zinfandel, Liar’s Dice has a deep, seductive berry nose with a dark cherry, currant, and peppery taste. It is a pleasantly rich Zinfandel that will go nicely with any BBQ’d meal, as well as pizza, pasta dishes, or just a nice kick-back evening on the patio. It feels a tiny bit special to open on a Wednesday night and is great to open with friends when you want a nice bottle without breaking the bank. We’ve been drinking Murphy-Goode’s Liar’s Dice for over ten years and have never been disappointed.

Little percentages mean a lot in wine

The other night we enjoyed a nice dinner out and ordered a bottle of wine we had never had before. It was a local Cabernet Sauvignon that went nicely with our steaks. What was especially notable, however, was how quickly both of your wine nuts felt the effects of the alcohol. Yowza!

We looked at the label and our suspicions were confirmed. The wine had an alcohol content of 14.6%. This literally means that by volume, the wine we were drinking was 14.6% alcohol – specifically, ethanol. That’s pretty high. Most everyday wines are typically in the 10-13% range. One of our favorite light, sweet summer wines is a Moscato that clocks in at just 7% alcohol. Dessert wines, like sherry or port, usually have an alcohol content in the 17-22% range, largely because they are fortified (they have had alcohol purposely added during the processing). But rarely do you finish a bottle in one sitting. There are also some wine makers out there, particularly in California, who are making huge Cabernet and Zinfandel “fruit bombs” that pack a punch with 16-17% alcohol. Bomb is right, cuz that’s what you’ll be after a bottle of wine like that!

So if you are sensitive to alcohol or are just curious, examine a wine’s label for something along the lines of “Alc. 12.4% by vol.” You’ll often find it in tiny print on the edge of the front label, sometimes printed sideways. It can also be found on the back label towards the bottom, near the information about who produced and bottled the wine.

What a surprise!!

We recently visited Albuquerque, New Mexico. While driving around, we spotted a sign pointing to a winery. “Wineries? In New Mexico??” Surprised and skeptical, we followed the signs to Casa Rondeña Winery. We like wine adventures and figured this would be a good amusement. An hour later, we walked out stunned, making plans for a future wine tour of New Mexico, and the proud owners of a mixed case of four wines.

Karen, the really nice lady in the tasting room, poured us tastes of nine wines (still adjusting to the 5,000 foot elevation, we wisely opted to share our tastes). There wasn’t a dog in the bunch. Karen told us that about 95% of the grapes used in Casa Rondeña wines come from New Mexico. The winery grows its own Riesling and Gewürztraminer grapes. It buys most of the remaining grapes from growers in southern New Mexico. The lower elevations and higher temps in the southern part of the state allow a variety of red grapes to grow, including Tempranillo, a tasty Spanish grape typically used for blending. It is slowly becoming more popular in the United States.

The wines we came home with were:

• 2004 Sangiovese, a red that was very light and bright and fruity ($15).



• 2005 Clarion, a red wine which was a blend of Syrah, Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. It was unlike anything we’ve tried before, although it did have the earthiness and spice of Tempranillo ($28).



• 2004 Animante Port made from Cabernet Sauvignon grapes that was a ruby port of sweet cherries and chocolate ($35).



• 2006 Viognier ($20), our absolute favorite of the bunch. It was probably the best Viognier we have ever tasted. Viogniers - a white wine - typically smell fruity and sweet and then have a contrasting sharp, citric flavor. The Casa Rondeña Viognier’s nose and taste were more harmonious. It had an apricot and pineapple nose with a sweeter, crisp, fruity, yet still lightly acidic taste to complement it.

Casa Rondeña Winery has only been around since 1995 and produces just 6,000 cases of wine per year. For comparison, in 2006, Robert Mondavi produced approximately 9 million cases. In other words, Casa Rondeña is pretty small potatoes…or grapes. And they just started selling wines outside of Albuquerque, branching out all the way to Santa Fe and Taos. Which is to say, they aren’t much into distribution. The good news, though, is that they will ship. At first glance, their prices seemed high. After tasting their wines, we think we got a bargain and plan to bookmark their website for future purchases. New Mexico hints at having fabulous wines and enough wineries to consider a wine tour – who knew? (See New Mexico Wine Country for more info.)