One More One-Hitter: End of Year Barrel Bomb

I guess I wasn't completely accurate -- there is one more Naked Vine left in me for 2019.

The Sweet Partner in Crime and I recently returned from a whirlwind holiday trip to visit various family and friends. We started with my fam in Eastern Kentucky, then made our way back to our until-recent home Newport to spend some time with friends, and concluded our jaunt in Dayton to see the SPinC's family.

Thanks to a new Yeti cooler, we were able to pack along holiday meals for both families, including some truly decadent ice cream from the Berkey Creamery and a holiday ham from the Meats Lab at Penn State.

We arrived in Dayton on Christmas Day, only to discover that Pam's brother-in-law, Dapper Donnie, had been hit hard by the flu and spent Christmas Eve in the hospital. Alas, he wasn't able to join us in our holiday feed -- so we sent him a hammy care package. Donnie did send us a gift, though -- a bottle of wine that goes right along with the bourbon-barrel theme we've had running through the site's electrons this year: Barrel Bomb 2017 Red Blend.

Barrel Bomb has a similar origin to some of the 1000 Stories wines I've covered recently. The wine's made from a blend of red grapes sourced from Lodi, California. I'm not sure what the exact blend is, but figure that Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon figure heavily. The wine comes in a stubby bottle with a replaceable cork -- which might make it easy to lose among the bourbons in your liquor cabinet.

Let's start with the truth-in-advertising bit. "Bomb" is an accurate descriptor for this wine. Any wine backboned with Zinfandel has the potential to wind up as higher potency, but the trend over the last decade has been towards more restraint in alcohol content. By contrast, the folks at Barrel Bomb decided to party like it's 2010 all over again. This wine clocks in at a muscular 16.5% ABV.

The winemakers, however, throttled back on the fruit-foward nature of these grapes. The flavor is actually somewhat restrained, if you can believe it. Perhaps the 12 months that the wine spends in oak, with the last 90 days in bourbon casks, mellows it out. The nose is big and fruity, with vanilla riding the back of blueberry and cherry. The body's not subtle -- big fruit, licorice, and smoke over a pretty considerable tannic base that hold on through a powerful but balanced finish.

In my mind, I think this might end up a better end-of-night sipper than a real dinner pairing. There's a little "portishness"  here, so I tried it with some really nice brie that we got as a gift from Lady Vertu, and it worked well -- although I'd probably go with even a bigger cheese, like a Stilton. Chocolate is also an obvious accompaniment.

All in all, if you're looking for something to sip on during these colder months -- you might give this a try. Also, if you're giving any more gifts, the aesthetic of the bottle itself is interesting.

Barrel Bomb retails for $16-18. They also make a straight Cabernet Sauvignon, which I haven't tried yet.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Naked Vine One-Hitter: Tom of Finland – a Wine for Pride

Touko Laaksonen was born in 1920. He studied advertising, served in the Finnish army during WWII, and began drawing strongly masculine figures during the 1950’s. In 1957, he submitted his work to an American magazine called Physique Pictorial under the pseudonym “Tom.” The editor of the magazine added the now famous place-based tagline.

Tom of Finland, now one of the best known homoerotic artists in history, was born.

Sixty years later, the foundation he helped establish in 1984 has released Tom of Finland 2016 OUTstanding Red in celebration of Pride Month.

Tom of Finland’s artwork created the visual template for several gay subcultures. The biker look, with its attendant leathers, featured as prominently as the models’ anatomy in many of his images. He had a particular fascination, especially early in his fame, with soldiers (particularly German ones) in and out of uniform. (Do a Google Image search for "Tom of Finland" for examples -- but remember the results will be NSFW.) A biopic about Tom of Finland’s life was released to positive reviews in 2017. 

The wine, which retails for $25/bottle in certain markets, yields a portion of the proceeds directly to the Tom of Finland Foundation, which “promotes human rights and sexual expression through art.”

The wine itself is a Petit Sirah-dominant blend. About half the remaining blend is Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel, with a tad of Merlot to round out the cuvee. The fruit is sourced from the Lodi and Sierra Foothills regions of California.

For a wine with a robust combination of grapes like that, I found it to be remarkably well-balanced. The Petit Sirah gives it a strong blueberry and blackberry backbone alongside the pepperiness you’d expect from Zinfandel. The pepper doesn’t overwhelm, though, allowing the cassis of the Cabernet to carry through. The fruit-to-tannin balance of this wine can’t be understated. The finish is blueberry, cocoa, and a little bit of leather, the last of which would have undoubtedly pleased Mr. Laaksonen.

Overall, I thought this was a very easy-drinking wine which would work either on its own or with food. Tom himself would undoubtedly have expected a degree of hedonism with wine carrying his name, and one could certainly use this muscular tipple for pleasant purposes.

The wine can be purchased from http://tomoffinlandwines.com/

Big Smooth Wines

Sam "Big Smooth" Perkins -- who has nothing to do with this wine.

Over the last year or so, I’ve been noticing more and more wines showing up both at Big Wine Store and in restaurants from the Lodi appellation in California. Lodi, which most non-Cali residents recognize from the Creedence Clearwater Revival tune, is just south of Sacramento and almost due east of the Bay Area.

Long-known as an agricultural center, Lodi’s place in the California wine world was mass production of fairly cheap juice. Over the last ten or so years, the lure of wine tourism has caused many local winemakers to up their respective games. Some major winemakers, in this case Sebastiani and Sons, have started creating wines from Lodi fruit.

This year saw the entrance into the market of Big Smooth wines. Big Smooth, with its tagline of “Think Big, Sip Smooth,” features the grape varietals that this section of the San Joaquin Valley is best known for – Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel.

The bottle designs are pretty simple, as you can see, and the labels have a velour finish, which is supposed to accentuate the smoothness, I guess. They do feel different, so beware – you may end up absently fondling a bottle at some point.

Big Smooth 2015 Lodi Cabernet Sauvignon – If you imagine the lean, earthy lines of a Bordeaux and then consider what the polar opposite would be in the Cabernet would – this would probably be a pretty good approximation. There’s little here to the imagination on this Cabernet, which starts out strong and just stays with you.

Big Smooth’s nose is rich with blackberry and baking spices. The first sip yields a full mouthfeel. I found lots of blackberries, currants, alongside rich coffee and chocolate notes on the body. The best part of the experience for me was its lasting finish that holds onto that chocolate essence for a good long while.

I cracked this 14.5% ABV Cab with a surf and turf that I put together after the Sweet Partner in Crime had a hair appointment. I thought it went delightfully well with the steak. As one might expect, it ran over the scallops just a bit – but it worked well enough as a side, even if the SPinC thought it was a bit too much for her.

Big Smooth 2015 Lodi Old Vine Zinfandel – Now, if you’ve paid attention around the store here long enough, you’ve probably heard me mention the notion of an “Old Vine” wine before. There is truth to the notion that older vines tend to produce better quality fruit, albeit at much lower quantity. However, there is no standard definition for what constitutes “Old Vine” – other than what an individual winemaker says it is.

In this case, Big Smooth doesn’t reveal the ages of its vines, but I can tell you  that it’s a big ol’ quaff. Clocking in at 15.5% alcohol, you’re not exactly searching for subtlety when pulling the cork on this big boy. Big jammy flavors of plum, black cherries and vanilla come at you full force. There’s plenty of tannin from its year in largely American oak barrels, but that tannic flavor is stretched out and smoky, which keeps the overall flavor a little more restrained than it could be. It boasts a long finish that’s surprisingly soft for a Zin this big. With a big plate of BBQ, I think it would be a good enough pairing, and it went reasonably well with chocolate. For someone who likes this big, bold style, it would be a fair enough drink.

In general, however, for my palate, these wines weren’t the best match. I thought their fruit forward natures were a bit too fruity, verging on grapey. A decade ago, this probably would have been dead in my wheelhouse, but I’ve trended away from these over the years. That said, I know plenty of folks who would pull the cork and glug these down, delighting in the big sensations of it.

Big Smooth wines retail for around $16-18.

Get Right Back Where We Started From

I have the good fortune to do a fair number of sample reviews in this space. After I finished my recent review of the wines from Biltmore Estates, Lisa at Folsom & Associates and I got into a discussion about grilling. She offered me the opportunity to sample a couple of Zinfandels from Ravenswood and I accepted. (Shocking, I know. I also received some Big House wines from them, but that’s for another column.)

Cracking these wines brought us a little reminiscence. Zinfandel was the grape that started us down the road towards the household’s oenological addiction. About seven years ago, the Sweet Partner in Crime and I took our first vacation to wine country -- Sonoma, specifically. We’d become wine drinkers at this point, but our house wines were generally Meridian Chardonnay and whatever Rosemount Garden Shiraz blend was on sale at the time.

This way lies madness...and tastiness!

We made our way towards our B&B in Healdsburg – a pretty cushy place called the Grape Leaf Inn. We got there in time for their “evening wine tasting” in the building’s cellar. The cellar was designed as a “speakeasy.” Seriously – the stairs down were hidden by a bookcase. (An architectural feature that I’ve always wanted for The Cave, but it just isn’t practical.) Anyway, we headed downstairs, bellied up to the bar, and our tastress Amy poured us a couple of glasses of Dark Horse Zinfandel. I was skeptical. All I knew about Zin at the time was the cotton-candy-in-a-glass. A little swirl, a little sip…Boom.

This huge, fruity monster of deliciousness changed me forever. I hadn’t encountered anything like it. Our normal Shiraz was a big, fruity creation – but there wasn’t a lot of structure. This was alcoholic, muscular, and in-your-face with dark fruit flavors, tannins, chocolate, and all sorts of other yummies. It practically screamed, “THIS is why you have a palate.”

The descent into oenological addiction.

Over the next couple of years, Zinfandel became a mild obsession for the SPinC and I. We loved the stuff. It went so well with anything grilled and was just dynamite with our evening chocolate. When we got back from California, we cast about for some Zins we could keep around as everyday wines. The one we settled on? Ravenswood.

As Zinfandel’s popularity rose across the country, the flavor profile of everyday Zins began to change, much as California Chardonnays did with “oaky & buttery” at the turn of the millennium. Zinfandels were big wines as it was – but it seemed like there was a race on between many of the major producers to make the biggest, baddest, highest-alcohol juice possible. I remember seeing Zins that were upwards of 17% alcohol. This change, coupled with our exploration of wines with a little more subtlety, caused us to drift away from Zin for a while. I was looking forward to sampling our old friend Ravenswood to see if things might have mellowed out a bit. Besides, everyone needs a big-ass wine from time to time, especially if that wine brings back happy memories.

Ravenswood makes several levels of Zin. Their “Vintner’s Blend” series comes from grapes from across California. They make “County” wines from some of the major Zin-growing regions of the state, as well as some single vineyard and limited release wines. We received two bottles – the Ravenswood 2010 Vintner’s Blend Old Vine Zinfandel and the Ravenswood 2009 Lodi Zinfandel. The Vintner’s blend retails for around $10. The Lodi around $13.

(One quick note about the term “Old Vine.” There's no real guideline for what constitutes an actual "old" grapevine. The general rule of thumb is "older than 45 years." Winemakers usually turn to Potter Stewart for direction -- they know it when they taste it. Since there's nothing cast in stone, the term can be applied somewhat loosely for marketing reasons.)

On tasting, I was relieved to discover the fruit bomb-iness that I’d come to associate with most California Zins had been dialed back a little bit, apparently. Don’t get me wrong, these are both pretty beefy wines, but the alcohol content is a much more manageable 13-15%. There’s a nice flavor contrast between those two. The Vintner’s Blend seems designed more of a crowd-pleaser. There are big cherry and blueberry scents and flavors, but the tannins are relatively mild and the finish is lingering and somewhat soft initially.

The Lodi had a little more character.” It needed some vigorous swirling, because straight from the bottle, it was very tannic and tight. Once it opened, there’s distinct vanilla on the nose. The flavor has the same backbone of dark fruit, but it’s spicier and adds plums. The tannins gripped firmly and lingered much longer than the Vintner’s. We split on these. I preferred the Lodi. The SPinC, the Vintner’s. In short, if more tannin is your thing, go with the “County” wines.

With food, Zinfandel cries out for MEAT, and the classic pairing is a slab of messy barbecue ribs. Alas, the SPinC and I are on a bit of a diet, so ribs weren’t an option. We settled for a couple of nice spice-rubbed steaks, some foil-pack beets from our garden, and some garlic-sauteed red potatoes. Alongside the meal, the Vintner’s was better as general all-around table wine. However, the Lodi was simply exceptional next to the beets and the potatoes. It seemed like it played along in a more friendly fashion with the beets’ sweetness. With chicken or ribs slathered in barbecue sauce or a sweet rub, the Lodi would probably be a solid bet.