The Auction of Washington Wines‘ 2010 “A Wine Odyssey” cast their usual star line-up of Thursday’s barrel picnic auction, Friday’s winemaker dinner, Saturday’s Covey Run race along the Burke-Gilman trail following with the grand finale gala event. Altogether, the 23rd annual auction raised $1.4 million for uncompensated care at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the Washington Wine Education Foundation.

As promised through name in the likes of Master of Wine Bob Betz, Executive Chef Bobby Moore of the Barking Frog and “investigative reporter” Jesse Jones of KING 5 News, the Barrel Picnic was just the spectacle I anticipated it to be for my third year in attendance, minus the scorching heat from 2008 and the melancholy drizzle of 2009.

Barrels were auctioned off by Master Sommelier Shayn Bjornholm, of the Washington Wine Commission, and auctioneer John Curley, formerly of Evening Magazine. The top five bidders then split the barrel, approximately taking home (once the wine is bottled in the near future) five cases each. The top bidder, however, takes the cake with an add-on of the intricately designed barrel head with the winery’s logo.

Considering I not only got in for free but brought my lovely new blogging friend Alicia with me to genuinely use my second media pass, we both decided to participate in some ring toss action so that we weren’t complete assholes for going to benefit on the house.

Okay, read closely because this is a tricky one – for a measly $25 donation (I’m poor, don’t judge!), you get three rings to toss at a table full of wine bottles. Oddly enough, we didn’t hit a single bottleneck but somehow we both won three bottles of wine! Woo!

Poor decision as this was nearly the first thing we did when we got to the five hour affair and three bottles in a bag does not equal a light load.

The food, brought to you by the 10-man culinary chef team of the Tulalip Resort and Casino, was pretty solid considering the quantity those guys were pumping out. Noteworthy delicacies included:

• The deconstructed potato salad with all of the fixings stuffed into a purple carved potato
• The rich man’s fried chicken that was pecan-crusted and prosciutto-wrapped, served with a raspberry beurre blanc
• Star-anise braised lamb leg that must have just came off the spit
• Smoked peppercorn salmon drizzled with an apple glaze and laid next to a fresh spring roll
• The best dessert ever created: Chocolate-coated cheesecake bit on a stick

Six plates later, I started to focus a bit more on the wine and Alicia. We hit up the few barrel sample tables I really wanted to test out. I’m greatly anticipating a few, with a few more that I think I’ll wait patiently for them to age in their bottles. Stand-out grape juice included:

• Cadaretta 2008 Springboard Red Blend Columbia Valley
• Grand Rêve 2009 Collaboration Series VI (Mourvedre, Granache, Syrah):
• Seven Hills  2009 Cabernet Sauvignon, Seven Hills Vineyard, Walla Walla Valley
• Woodward Canyon 2009 “Old Vines” Cabernet Sauvignon, Columbia Valley

Another event well done in my most hedonistic manner, a grateful hedonist nonetheless and for such a worthy cause. Thank you to all of those who helped rack up $1.4 million in the name of wine education and world class child health care.

"White" next to the orange-ish lily-like flowers I also bought at Met Market!

How many wine months does this state have? Granted, March was “Taste Washington Month,” discreetly differing from its big sister “Washingtone Wine Month” in this blessed 31-day span.

Duh.

For Washington Wine Month (August – duh) I decided to conquer a few things, including a mystery I wanted to unfold.

Side note: this is my 100th bottle I’m reviewing and it falls on a grocery store brand? Hey, no hating. I’m open to all flavors, man, especially ones that sit above a $8 price tag when I’m in serious need of a heat reliever and life is burning a hole in my pocket.

And so – Metropolitan Market, a local, family-owned operation first opened its doors on Queen Anne in 1971 and now has become an award-winning grocery store with six thriving locations throughout the Seattle and Tacoma area.

With the Houghton Store taking Kirkland by storm (sorry to the PPC across the street, you got served), Met Market has received big ups from numerous local publications and recently was awarded best grocery store for the Washington Wine selection by Seattle Magazine’s Reader’s Choice 2010.

Knowing that even their personal customers – who have been coming to some specific locations for decades – love their wine selection, Metropolitan Market stepped it up one by offering their own private label of Washington wine. The wines are nonchalantly yet modestly christened by their color – the “Red” and “White.” The latter was my selection because 80 degrees is f’ing hot for me and I needed some white wine up in here.

The “White” is into its “Selection #3,” as the wine for the 2009 vintage is labeled. Co-fermented and stated to be done so in stainless steel, the “White” is 83% Chardonnay and 17% Viognier – an increasingly popular blend for Washington winemakers it seems.

Tropical fruits of pineapple and peach blow out the nose, fleshy and juicy, with red apple juice, citrus and banana. A toasted hit up front makes me think this booze spent some time in at least some neutral oak.

Even more so when you commit to the wine fully on the palate – light and crisp yet round and creamy. Malolactic fermentation? Aging on the lees? So many options to accomplish the texture… Which unfortunately dwindles after a short burst of pineapple, banana and acid.

The mystery I have uncovered is who makes this. Drumroll please… After some seriously probing of the Oracle (Google), I found out that it is none other than the folks of FMNW2 Wine Company… Aka the powerhouse that is Barnard Griffin Winery. A-ha!

I’m too quick! And for $8, this Chard-Vio was gone too quick… Get it while it’s hot. Literally.

Score: 6.5.

Illana.

1626 made a pretty hefty dent as a page in the history books.

Much like this blog entry, it started on a Thursday.

King Charles the First was crowned in February, remaining on the throne until his timely execution 23 years later (the guy attempted to start not one, but two civil wars in the greater British empire, which was of wealthy stature at that time!)

In May, the Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrived in “New Netherland,” now more commonly known as Manhattan Island. Ever heard of it?

An earthquake in Naples killed nearly 10,000 in July.

November of 1626 brought the consecration of St. Peter’s Basilica, which still to this day has the largest interior of any Christian church on the planet, busting at its seams with a maximum of 60,000 people.

Also in 1626, Bodegas Illana y Vinedos established itself as a full-production winery in Cuenca, Spain.

Maintained by the same family for the past 4 generations, the winery took a modern spin in the late 80s by updating to trellised vineyard plantings, focusing on how the vine is trained to grow on the trellised wires/posts/what have you to get maximum exposure to their life source – the sun. This innovation was the first to be seen in the area, brought to the old world by the folks at Bodegas Illana.

The principal family member and winemaker, Javier Prosper (alongside his wife), leads the winery today, rich in knowledge from his graduation from formal Spanish enology school in 2003. The co-owners have branded the winery’s image into a Spanish-style Thomas Kincaid painting called “Finca Buenavista.” Scenic, green and congenial, the new winery production facility gazes over the estate vineyards like a mother hen guarding her chicks.

And rightly so, the winery owns over 22,000 acres of land. 100 of which are planted with a few completely foreign varietals (to me) like the native grapes Cencibel (a derivative of Tempranillo), Bobal (seen mostly in Valencia, Spain) and Moscatel de Grano Menudo (Muscat Blanc). The rest is filled with staples like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc.

With the best of both worlds within this massive vineyard, the Prospers elected Bobal, Tempranillo and Syrah for the 2006 Tradicion Red Wine (45%, 30% and 25% respectively). The Bobal and Tempranillo vines have a good amount of age on them, dating over 20+ years as the youngest.

The nose is what I expected to find with 30% Tempranillo – spice, vanilla, cherry cola, sherried mushrooms and licorice, typical tones I think to be presumably Spanish. But the Bobal varietal pulls out a freshness in the wine with red fruit, acid and black olives.

On the palate, the attack is gentle with acidity, pushing out spicy plum and other dark stone fruits. The mid-palate is a little grapey but is balanced out with licorice flavors and fine, rounding tannins.

Although 1626 was a very good year, it looks like 2006 worked out for Bodegas Illana as well.

With backing from the Wine Advocate and Wine Enthusiast, positive reviews for Bodegas Illana are flourishing and more are recognizing the winery as a major value producer from Spain.

Score: 7.

Yeah, it's empty…

I find it sad that I have to rely on the oracle that is Google to give me answers that my brain is gradually (and very slyly) erasing. Such as, have I already reviewed this wine?

Blame it on the alcohol, a worldly Jamie Foxx would recommend, but I am far too young to be forgetting things – placements of keys, movies I’ve already seen or wines I’ve consumed. Nay, recites the Oracle after multiple searches in several different word formations, I am safe. At least this time.

It gets even a tad trickier when you’ve had a handful(s) of wines from the same producers. Such is this case with the wines of said Ross Andrew Mickel. I am guilty to have sauntered into The Ross Andrew Winery Woodinville tasting room to flirt with his beautiful Bernese Mountain dog (Galena, like the city in Idaho) and beg for the winemaker’s claim-to-fame bottle of Pinot Gris from the praised Celilo Vineyard in the Columbia Gorge. Refused many a’times for the limited wine, this purchase time I decided to dive for the Meadow White Blend, the alleged “little sister” to Mickel’s exalted white.

And why shouldn’t it be well-reviewed? The man is a direct descendant of the Bob Betz School of Fine Wine, having played in puddles of grape juice with Bob for nine years before breaking out on his own with the 1999 harvest. Before that, Mickel was gathering experience at Rosemount Estate in South Australia and later with DeLille Cellars also in Woodinville.

Mickel is a textbook Woodinville winemaker. Zero formal education, all hands-on field study. I think it worked out okay for him – dude’s got flowery accolades from Tanzer, Parker, Wine Enthusiast and more. An added bonus is he’s sourcing fruit from the likes of Boushey, Klipsun, Ciel du Cheval and Celilo that dress his wines to the nines.

With that, Mickel’s philosophy (as stated on his Web site) is: “Don’t mess up what the vineyards give us…” In the 2008 Meadow’s case, this white blend is wholly from the great state of Oregon, mostly from Willamette but also dipping into the Rogue Valley. Having spent all of its time in stainless steel, this “Pinot Blanc (basically)” wine was also blended with Pinot Gris, Riesling and Gewurztraminer.

The nose is a serious fruit basket. Honeydew, green melon, citrus shavings, starfruit and even some red berry balance itself against the flinty, spice (cardamom?) and waxy minerality of the Oregon terroir. The aroma itself is completely engaging.

Ripe, yet to the point with clean acidity and a crisp finish, the tropical fruits come out with melons, starfruit and lychee, with a citrus backbone. The wine is round yet cut with precision, staying true to the fruits’ home without messing it up like Mickel vows not to.

Serious pool-side sipper, given a day of sunshine and warmth. Can you make that happen, Mr. Mickel? Thanks.

Score: 9.

Slightly profesional photo.

*Bottle #97: Kokomo 2007 Petite Sirah, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County
*Price Tag: $25
*Running Tab: $1,324
*Retailer: Kokomo Winery herself

Kokomo. Not the one in Hawaii or the island in Jamaica formerly known as such, but the Kokomo that is in Indiana. Kokomo, Indiana: the state’s 13th largest city, home of the famous “Gas Tower” and an unfortunate old-school notoriety for the Ku Klux Klan…

Kokomo, Indiana: the hometown of young Erik Miller, Purdue grad and proud-midwesterner, in which he named his Dry Creek Valley winery after. Erik moved west quickly after he turned his tassel and started building relationships with the wine industry vets around him in Sonoma County.

After putting in some grunt work in a few cellars, Erik went back to school at U.C. Davis to work on his oenology degree which lead him to a full-time job opportunity in the cellar for Amphora Winery. On the side, Erik got his start and launched his first release for Kokomo Winery in 2004 with single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from Dry Creek Valley.

The following year, Erik brought in a college buddy with similar interests who later because his assistant winemaker. Today, Erik and his team are putting out 90+ point wines, getting nods from the likes of Wine Enthusiast, Spectator, San Francisco Chronicle, multiple international wine competitions and several book mentions.

Down to business while touring in the greater area of Napa Valley, the boy and I stumbled upon Kokomo while getting lost somewhere between Healdsburg and the boondocks earlier this spring. Amongst the co-op style wineries at Timber Crest Farms, we were immediately drawn into the allure of Kokomo’s “Timber Crest Estate” winery.

After befriending an extremely timid dog, we met owner (of the dog), grower (of 70% of the winery’s fruit) and partner (of the winery), Randy Peters and essentially his whole family (wife and two daughters) that were running the tasting room that day. And does a tasting room experience ever sell the wine itself… We walked with several bottles of Kokomo within the hour after we talked their heads off with questions only obnoxious fellow winos would ask.

One such wine we walked with is the 2007 Dry Creek Petite Sirah.

I read a Wine Enthusiast review on this wine (which gave it 91 points) that made me laugh and beam in my Czech-Jewish descent pride. “The Yiddish word “zaftig” perfectly describes this Petite Sirah,” the reveiwer stated. “Zaftig” translates into “big, juicy and buxom,” most likely used for the long-time single Jewish women more so than wine, but you’ve got to love the handling of the word.

And oy vey, was he right. This Petite Sirah (like most of its kind) was far from petite with big, robust aromas of fleshy fruits in red berries, plums and black currants. Beyond the fruit emerged the lavish savory elements of baking chocolate, blueberry pie, bacon and cracked pepper.

Solid and forward fruit hit the palate first, deep in concentration but elegant and refraining from the weight of syrupiness. Lush and full-bodied, the wine had fine tannins, lower acid and a dry berry-pie finish that made me salivate. Definitely buxom and juicy in its mouthfeel, it finishes balanced in all of its facets and will continue to develop in its voluptuousness over time.

If I remember correctly and referring to my bank statements, I liked all of Erik’s wines and spent accordingly… Happy to taste it now and rest assured I wasn’t just drunk with my credit card a’blazin’!

Score: 8.5.

On the dot.

*Bottle #96: Punkt Genau 2008 Weinviertel Sparkling Rosé
*Price Tag: $19
*Running Tab: $1,299
*Retailer: Madison Market, Central Co-Op

You read it right. Punkt – as in the producer of the wine, not in an Ashton Kutcher sense of the word, thank God.

“Punkt Genau,” meaning “on the dot” in English, captures the quintessential Austrian’s own Blauer Zweigelt in a pink fashion. I’ll be the first to admit I do not know too much about Austria or fashion, for that matter.

With nearly 70% of Austrian wine production consisting of white wines (most familiarly Grüner Veltliner), the remainder made up mostly of the red wine varietals Blaufränkisch and Zweigelt. Austria is on the wine map for their unique grape varieties, a classification system that was put into place in Hitler’s rule and makes about as much sense as a screen door on a submarine and as the motherland of the Riedel wine glasses.

Out of the Weinviertel, also known as “the wine quarter,” is the country’s largest wine producing region, located in lower Austria and home to this wine. Made of flinty soils and plenty of sun, Weinviertel wines tend to be earthy with a fruity bouquet and a serious peppery kick.

Zweigelt only takes up 9% of the vineyards in the country, a note to be made in Weinviertel which is land of the Grüner. The varietals is named, yup – you guessed it, after Professor Fritz Zweigelt in 1922. Typically soft, jammy with a full body of cherry fruited and spice.

Now the Punkt Genau Rosé is produced exclusively from Blauer Zweigelt grapes from Weinviertel. This rosé takes on frissante style, elegantly matching its feminine characteristics of the varietal with floral tones, cherry and spice.

On the nose, violets were the most prevalent upfront with strawberry, raspberry and Maraschino cherries. The spice tones flowed over the fruit in secondary aromas of nutmeg and cinnamon, giving the wine a sweet cherry pie trait that made me salivate.

Red fruit of that familiar cherry and creamy spice filled the palate. Dry with lasting acidity and a clean, crisp with a fruity finish smoothed out and balanced this Zweigelt of the pink.

A stranger to Austrian wine, I don’t have the highest of trained palates but this wine was fun, effervescent (in both senses of the word) and fabulous. It was… On the dot.

Score: 8.

For Daddy Dearest

*Bottle #95: Palamà Arcangelo 2008 Salice Salentino, Puglia
*Price Tag: $15
*Running Tab: $1,280
*Retailer: None – gifted by my work hubby!

Winemaker Cosimo (aka Nini) Palamà made this wine in honor of his father, Arcangelo. Winemaker Nini Palamà’s family has been making small lot wines in the highly underrated southern heel of Italy, Puglia, for almost 75 years, rooting with his father.

Like most producers in Puglia back in the day, Palamà was pumping out bulk wine from the get-go in the small town of Salice Salentino, now a designated DOC region of Italy. Scattered with intermixing olive orchards and vines, homes and history were thrown in the midst, allowing families to thrive off the land.

Given this land and the fields of Negroamaro and Malvasia Nera surrounding them, Arcangelo’s original production of bulk wine gained finesse enough to be enjoyed and distributed to restaurants in the area, acquiring positive publicity and praise.

The vineyards of Salice Salentino, in the southern region of Puglia called Salento, date back to the 6th century BC and consisted dominantly of the Negroamaro variety, uniquely standing out amongst other bold varietals of Italy with its rustic dark fruit and bitterness. Dark and bitter in both color and flavor, it was rightly so for the translation to mean “black bitter,” deriving from both Greek and Latin languages.

The grape is typically used in blends, like our friend Nini’s here. Pouring some 20% Malvasia Nera into the Negroamaro, Nini balances out the bitterness of the dominant varietal with vibrant and fruit-forward aromas.

Considering I couldn’t find Jack on this wine more than a couple planted token phrases (even on their own Web site, with the exception of an epic video), the actual winemaking technique of Nini’s is unclear. If I were to guess, I would think there is little to no oak used in the production of this traditional Salice Salentino blend, allowing the fruit to do all the talking.

The nose of the wine was definitely funky and bitter, true to its character. Sweet cherry, stewed plum, cola and an herbal tone are immediately noticeable. Spice of cinnamon, leafy tobacco and black tea really rounded out the non-fruit tones and created a unique aroma that is totally elemental for a wine from Puglia, in my experience. Dark and bizarrely sharp fruit but with rare seasoning shaken in.

Again, curiously sour fruit flavors of cranberry and fig mixed with tea leaf, the acid was easy and the tannins were minute yet bold. Seldom do I find a wine where the aromas translate over to the palate but Nini’s Arcangelo does just that. The wine tastes exactly how it smells.

Overall, Nini’s wine proved to be a bit of an experience. I think I’d like to try this wine again because I feel there are some questions left unanswered, just like how I wish there was just one more episode of LOST… I believe Salice Salentino’s are to be consumed at a younger age, but I’m oddly intrigued by you, Arcangelo, and want to give you some more bottle age. I guess that’s a way to sell a wine/TV show… Confuse them in to coming back, mwahaha!

Score: 6.5? I don’t know!

It's a horse.

*Bottle #94: Haras de Pirque 2009 Maipo Valley Sauvignon Blanc
*Price Tag: $13
*Running Tab: $1,280
*Retailer: Village Wines

My statements usually come in pairs or triples. Pairs because I usually only have two reasonable points and triples because journalism school merited it as giving rhythm to words. Likewise, my glasses of wine also usually come in pairs and triples.

Statement #1: This wine has three different names. Front label identifies the wine at Haras Estate Sauvignon Blanc from Maipo Valley, Chile. Back label gives a Web address citing the name to be Haras de Pirque. Web address calls the wine Vina Haras de Pirque.

The issue here is product packaging/brand management. It’s like when you misspell the varietal on the label. Does no one check for consistency or copy-edit in the wine world?

*Please mind my type-os…

Statement #2: If you read further back into my early days of this blog, I dog on the Big Guys, mostly because, well, they’re big. Now, in my immense increase of wisdom, serenity, maturity and modesty, I know wonderful wines can come from producers in all shapes and sizes.

That being said, this wine is an imported project of Ste. Michelle Estates, the Washington Big Guy. However, that is not the issue. The issue is that I actually like the wine.

After extended investigation (I am a journalist, thank you), I found Haras de Pirque to be the actual name of the winery. Established in the early 1990′s by a high-profile Chilean entrepreneur in Pirque, one of the top grape-growing regions in Maipo Valley, the property now covers almost 1500 acres scaling the Andes Mountains. Limited by choice to five varietals in the vineyard, only two are white wine varieties – Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.

So really, what is in a name?

Story has it (aka their Web site) the naming of winery is in honor of Chile’s oldest thoroughbred horse breeding service, which was another passion of the founding entrepreneur of the winery. To this date, over a century later, the Haras (the breeder) provides for nearly 30 internationally competing racehorses in the Americas.

Which leads us to the Haras de Pirque, the wine.

Quintessential Sauvignon Blanc just-cut grass aromas arose immediately in the nose of the wine, with fresh-squeezed citrus juices, mandarin and grapefruit. Also present were soft herbal tones of lemongrass and a minerality brought to you by the granite soils on the mountain vineyard slopes.

The palate was surprisingly lush in fruit and bright with its acidity, thanks to the harsh drop in temperature at night in the Maipo Valley, allowing the grapes to gain natural acidity and complexity. Crisp and vibrant in grapefruit, peach and gooseberries, this Sauvignon Blanc was balanced yet still rousing and refreshing.

Considering it was 62 degrees today, I’m taking this wine as a model patio sipper. No, it didn’t blow my mind and but yes, I could consume a lot of this while I float on Lake Washington this summer.

Score: 7.

Spanish flowers.

*Bottle #93: Alvaro Palacios 2007 Camins del Priorat
*Price Tag: $23
*Running Tab: $1,267
*Retailer: McCarthy & Schiering, Queen Anne

I am first to admit that I don’t know right from left with Spanish juice. Unfortunately, amongst a group of wine industry peers, it took failing a pop quiz on Spain to outwardly own up.

Accept failure? Never. Use this necessary learning experience in my blog? Of course!

Starting from the basics, I went to a trusted wine shop, knowing that the lovely staff would step in as my guide dog on this blind adventure of a wine region I should be able to see with greater clarity.

That’s when I was introduced to Alvaro Palacios with sincere enthusiasm. Figuratively – the Man vs. Food host Adam Richman doppelganger was not in store but a fair representation of his wine was – the Camins del Priorat.

Let’s talk numbers. Spain has nearly three million acres of vines planted within the 51^st largest country on the planet. Roughly, that’s only three million acres out of 125 million but is still the third largest producer of wine on said planet. Original vineyard plantings date back to 4000 BC but thanks to the plant-eating phylloxera bugs, Spain (and much of wine-producing Europe) had to start from scratch in the 19^th-20^th century.

Like its large-wine-producing cousins, Spain has a boat load of regions:

• More than half of them fall into the Denominación de Origen (DO)
• Most of the other half classifies as Vinos de la Tierra (VdlT)
• Remainder qualifies as the premium designation of the Denominación de Origen Calificada (DOCa)

Rioja and Priorato are the only two regions that fit into the tight mold of the DOCa – which brings us to the Palacios domain of Priorat.

Along with regions, there are quality classifications:

• Crianza red wine is aged for two years with at least six months in oak.
• Reserva red wine is aged for at least three years with at least one year in oak.
• Gran Reserva red wine is usually from stellar vintages where the wines require at least five years ageing, 18 months of that in oak.

Thankfully, Spain keeps is simple with their indigenous varietals, down to only 20-some – including Tempranillo, Garnacha, Monastrell, Macabeo, Parellada, Xarel·lo and Albariño

Seeing as Spain itself has had many Old vs. New World wine face-offs, Alvaro Palacios stands to represent them both. Coming from a respected family vineyard, Alvaro shipped himself off to Bordeaux to study viticulture under Jean-Pierre Moueix at the cream of the crop Chateau Pétrus.

Alvaro decided to sow his oats in Priorat, which sits about an hour out of Barcelona, and was one of the great pre-phylloxera vineyard sites. Planting in 1990 with praise of his wines coming into print only five years later, Alvaro has been producing remarkable and expressive Spanish wines.

Comprised of 60% Carignan, 30% Granacha, 10% Cabernet and 10% Syrah, I decanted the blend for over an hour before indulging in the nose of this wine. I could have never even consumed the wine and had been satiated.

Radiant with dense dark fruits such as plum, black currant and dried fig, cinnamon and grape leaf were secondary aromas but still prominent. In the back, the fruit was slightly stewed in a rich matter, while earth and black tea swept over in the final wiff.

The wine is medium-bodied, pure and smooth on the palate with fig from the nose and hints of red fruit and spice flushing in and out. Balanced by acid, supple tannins and lingering red fruit in the finish, the wine’s only noticeable blemish was the minor disproportion of alcohol. Not that 14% is really too much in today’s world of “bigger is better,” it stood out a tad much aside the wine’s more feminine stature.

For a $25 Priorat from an exalted Spanish producer, I am happy to have met Alvaro Palacios, in the juice.

Score: 8.

The value of young love is often times discounted.

Ask any 14-year-old girl about what her parents think of her boyfriend of three weeks – whom she totally loves more than like anything in the whole wide world and nothing, not even a curfew or her tyrannical parental units, will EVER stop them from being apart. EVER.

Such intensity and merit of youthful infatuation can be slightly overlooked but fortunately, for 17-year-old Jean-Paul Autard, his young love for his family’s vineyard and winery was not taken lightly. Now, after decades of dedication and fidelity, Jean-Paul has been managing the domaine ever since.

Located in between Courthézon and Châteauneuf-du-Pape and specializing in Châteauneuf-du-Pape rouges and blancs, as well as a lower tiered Côtes du Rhône rouges and blancs, Domaine Paul Autard keeps it simple and traditional with their vinification methods. The Domaine states they do so in order to highlight the distinctive Châteauneuf red clay and sandy soils, making for naturally complex and minerality-based wines.

Unfortunately, for fully-matured Jean-Paul Autard, the 2008 vintage was a trying year on the romance with he and his domaine. A cool spring dumped buckets of rain onto the land, disrupting growth and preventing grapes to bunch. Early summer brought warm days and cool nights, allowing ripening and acidity to both come into the fruit. Overall, the vintage kept the yields lower than most expected, but resulted in more colorful and expressive wines than vintages past.

The 2008 Côtes du Rhône Rouge is built on a blend of Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre and Cinsault from 30-year-old vines. Having the domaine situated between two wine regions, the CdR comes from the fruit grown in the Courthézon village.

I’m still a bit hazy on the exact blend in this current vintage since several sources have been spotty, but the awesomeness of Grenache’s presence was heavy with blossoming floral qualities and spice galore.

The nose was bursting immediately with cinnamon, nutmeg and violet, with sweet fig, dark, fleshy fruit and grape leaves. With some air, the fruit just got bigger with black cherry and blackberry and increasing cinnamon rising over the top of the fruit like a cloud of spice.

Vibrant, juicy and smooth, this young CdR swallows down easy as pie. The fruit on the palate is quite a bit brighter the nose, which allows it to match the spritzing acidity and fair-weathered tannins.

This 2008 Côtes du Rhône Rouge is not necessarily built to last but, with the except of Jean-Paul and his practical sense of romance, what young love really is. And as some young lover’s supportive parents might do – drink now, deal with real life later.

Score: 7.