Shannon Ridge – Not baaaaad…

The good folks at Balzac recently gave me the opportunity to give the wines of Shannon Ridge a run. Shannon Ridge is in Lake County, California – a region rapidly gaining in notoriety and availability. I’m always interested when samples arrive, but I was especially intrigued by this line from the accompanying press release:

“Shannon Ridge’s vineyards are certified sustainable, and are known for their woolly compost machines – a flock of 1,000 sheep, complete with shepherds and a team of highly trained sheepdogs. The sheep do an excellent job of canopy management and leaf removal, and pick the vineyard clean after harvest. They also manage the cover crop in the spring and work hard to reduce fire danger in the surrounding hills the remainder of the year.”

Sheep are cool (and tasty!). I was already a fan before I cracked a bottle. It turns out that you can order parts of their “mowing system” for your own consumption. They direct-ship any cut of lamb you’d like. (see http://www.shannonridge.com for more info) Additionally, the Shannons have reserved the unused land on their ranch as a wilderness area. They also planned their vineyards so as not to interfere with eagle nesting areas and animal migration trails. Good on ‘em.

They produce a broad range of wines on their ridge, both white and red. I was sent four bottles to try. The suggested retail on these wines is $19 with the exception of the Sauvignon Blanc. That one’s $16. How were they? Overall, I was pretty pleased with them, as you’ll see below:

The lineup...and then some.

Shannon Ridge 2010 Sauvignon Blanc – As you may have noticed, I’ve been on a bit of a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc kick thanks to the New Year’s feast. It was nice to get domestic for a change. The Shannon Ridge was pleasant enough. I got apples and lemons off the nose. The first taste had a bit of an acidic bite amongst the apple and citrus flavors and I thought it had a slightly  alcoholic aftertaste. It finishes dry and lemony. It was a decent wine for the price point. Didn’t blow me away, but it’s of good quality.

Shannon Ridge 2009 Merlot – My notes on this wine read like copy from a 70’s Schlitz beer ad: “Easy drinking, smooth, not too heavy.” Don’t be put off by the description. The “easy drinking” part is the only similarity with the aforementioned swill. This wine was the only one not entirely sourced from Lake County. They pulled some grapes from Mendocino (one of my favorite California regions!) to blend with the Lake County fruit. The result was a pretty classic California merlot – lots of up-front blackberry and plum, a tannin that gradually builds as you work your way through the glass, and a balanced, silky finish. (And I don’t know anyone who could legitimately describe Schlitz as “silky.”) I gave this one a big thumbs up. As a side note, this wine reminded me that I need to start buying good “f’n merlot” again.

Shannon Ridge 2010 Chardonnay – I always open California chards with a little bit of trepidation. The unoaked ones can be uninteresting, and the oaked ones can be like sucking on a Kingsford briquette. Thankfully, this was neither. This chardonnay was another nicely balanced wine. Lots of pineapple and apple on both the nose and body. There’s oak here, but it’s at a quiet undertone level, balanced with a little bit of malolactic creaminess. The finish is a little firmer on the oak side with some sustained fruit. I think this could be an excellent, flexible food wine selection as grilling season comes on.

Shannon Ridge 2009 Zinfandel – This wine brought back some wonderful memories. During our first trip to Sonoma, the SPinC and I fell in love with Zinfandel -- the varietal that made us go “Hey, we need to learn more about this wine stuff.” We lived on Zins for a while, then moved away to less in-your-face varietals. We reminisced about the start of our mutual addiction over this classic NoCal Zin. Word of caution – if you try this one, it needs a considerable amount of air to open. Once it’s good and aerated you’ll find, in the SPinC’s words, “Fruit, fruit, fruit – vanilla, vanilla, vanilla…” As with the other Shannon Ridge selections, this a good balance of blueberry, vanilla and tannin with a finish that gets grippier as the evening wears on. We opened this one with roasted boneless pork chops in a mushroom sauce with some baked sweet potato “fries” and it was a wonderful complement. Like most big ol’ Zins, it was divine with end-of-evening chocolate. Another solid choice.

Shannon Ridge also does a petit sirah and a zinfandel-based blend they call “Wrangler Red.” They also have a slightly more expensive line of single vineyard wines. For a “nice bottle” evening, I’d certainly recommend the latter three.

Lake County, California

Monica from Balzac, who previously let me try samples of both Espiritu de Chile and Golden Kaan wines, sent me something a little different this time around. I opened the box to discover a couple of cabernets from Lake County, California -- two 2005's from Snows Lake Vineyards named "One" and "Two." "One" was 100% cabernet sauvignon. "Two" was a 3-to-1 blend of cab sauv and cab franc. Both wines retail for around $45.

I had to do a little background on Lake County to know what I was getting into. Lake County is immediately to the north of Napa. The soil is similar to Napa's, albeit on more mountainous terrain and with higher elevations. Lake County had a thriving wine business from the 1860's up until Prohibition. Wine production started up again in earnest in the 1960's. There are now about 9,000 acres of vineyards in Lake County (compared to Napa's 40,000+). Lake County, like Napa, is largely known for cabernets -- specifically powerful, tannic cabs.

Tasting big cabernets, of course, is a perfect excuse (like I need one) to fire up the grill and toss a couple of ribeyes on there. No fancy rubs -- just salt, pepper, and olive oil. Sides were some grilled, herbed Yukon gold potatoes and some halved Cremini mushrooms, cooked down in a sauce of ginger, garlic, tomato paste, curry and cumin.

I opened both of these wines a couple of hours before I thought we'd be having dinner. I wanted to give them enough time to breathe. My experiences with tannic wines have taught me that a couple of hours is a minimum for bottles like these. After the steaks came off the grill and were resting, we did a side by side of the two wines.

Even after the time to breathe, the One was a tannic monster. The nose was huge with wood and violets, but the flavors of the wine were obscured initially by the overwhelming tannin. We broke out an aerator and eventually my super-duper Taste of Monterey tasting glass to speed up the process. That helped a little. The other flavors began to emerge. Layers of smoke, wood, and tobacco. (I guess this is what people refer to as "cigar box.") There are some currant and blackberry flavors in there, too. The finish hits you with a surprisingly tart burst that fades pretty quickly into a lingering coffee taste. "This doesn't finish as long as I thought it would...and I think that's a good thing."

The Two was more pleasant. The cabernet franc blended in mellowed the experience considerably. The wine wasn't as tannic, but still certainly wasn't to be taken lightly. ("Doesn't beat you over the head" was my note.) The nose was much more berry and vanilla. The flavors were better balanced -- cherry, blackberry, and cocoa dominated. The bitterness of the tannins start out very strong on the finish, but they mellow quickly into smoke and chocolate with a mineral undertone that certainly wasn't unpleasant.

With the meal, both wines changed. The One lost a little of its tannic edge and revealed more blueberry flavors. That tart burst on the finish remained, which I didn't find all that pleasant. The Two was much better. The tannins balanced the fruit nicely when paired with the steak. The mushrooms were really interesting, since they had a spice to them. The spice flavors gave way gently to fruit, then as the wine finished the spice picked back up pleasantly. That was probably my favorite gustation sensation of the meal.

I had high hopes for these wines with chocolate, but I was disappointed in both. With both Dove dark chocolate and a brownie, each wine ended up a tart, tannic overload. Honestly, the leftover two day-old zinfandel that we had laying around before was a much better pairing.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that these are bad wines by any stretch. They simply aren't wines built for my palate. A couple of weeks ago, I linked an article from the Daily Beast by Keith Wallace entitled "The Great Cabernet Ripoff," which bemoaned the huge price increase in recent years for Cabernet Sauvignon. In my semi-uninformed opinion, my guess is that this huge increase is driven by folks who are more interested in collecting wine than actually drinking the stuff. Wine collectors' eyes big up when they see the words "aging potential." You've seen shelf talkers for wines that might state something like, "Drinks well now, but best between 2012-2017."

The growers of premium Napa-style cabernets market to this. Both these Snows Lake wines are so powerfully tannic that, at least for me, they just aren't very pleasant to drink right now (although we both much preferred the "Two" to the "One") -- and I can imagine that they're built to be bought and stashed in a cellar for four or five years until the tannins settle down. I know that there are many folks out there who can taste these wines now and project how they will drink in 2015. Maybe these are good investments for some folks at $45 a bottle. As much as I really appreciated the opportunity to try these wines, they're difficult for me to pass appropriate judgment upon. Now, if some of you want to pick some of this up and invite me over in a few years to give them another go, be my guest!

Before I leave Lake County, I wanted to find a Lake County wine that was more in my price range. I ended up with the Guenoc 2006 Lake County Cabernet Sauvignon for about $11. It certainly wasn't bad, and you could open this up right now without batting an eye. It started with cedar and blackberry on the nose. It's medium bodied, slightly alcoholic tasting, with straightforward blackberry flavors and some earthiness. The finish is a bit clipped -- starts strong with fruit, but quickly tapers off into a mild tannin. It's not nearly as complex as its more expensive cousins, but it's not built to be. It's a pleasant enough cabernet, especially with food (and it's much better with chocolate...).