Sorry for going all incommunicato on everyone there... I'm back now.
I moved to a new place in downtown Sausalito, closer to the water and the conveniences of town (but too close to Sushi Ran for my fiscal comfort). I'll keep everyone posted on the inevitable housewarming barbeque. As one would expect, the last few weeks have been overly hectic and I've been too busy to keep up with posting, but have no fear...I do have, and will post tasting notes from the past few weeks. I've also decided to start a new segment type thingy. A client of mine was swearing up and down that they buy almost all of their wines at the local Safeway and that I would be surprised by the number of quality wines they have there. I will admit that they do have some very drinkable, though very rarely world class wines there, so I thought about this; what is it like for the average wine drinker (who doesn't spend all his time researching and tasting) who must go into a supermarket and purchase a wine almost at random...
So I'm doing a little experiment, and I encourage my fellow wine geeks/snobs/know-it-alls to participate with me (just post your findings as a comment under this, or a subsequent Supermarket Experimentations post) . The experiment is this. Once per week, I will walk into a local supermarket and without much pondering or conjecture on possible quality based on vintage and region, purchase a wine I know absolutely nothing about...I will then...drink the wine. I mean it. No tasting quickly, making a snap judgement and then moving on to something with more pedigree. I will roll out the red carpet, decanters and Riedels, and see what happens. First test...
Parcel 41 Oakville Merlot 2005
Obtained at: Strawberry Village Safeway
Price: $22
This was a pleasant, if not overwhelming first foray into the supermarket wine selection. Plenty of plush red fruits, and rich merlot mouthfeel. A touch over oaked for my tastes, but not offensively so. The fruit here is plenty ripe with not a hint of greenness, or unbalanced alcohol. Over the course of dinner this opened nicely (but did seem to get more oaky) and grew more aromatically interesting with spicy overtones and a hint of cocoa. 85 points
Overall- not bad for a first go round. I will say that I don't expect all future experiments to be this good...
Cheers
TRC
