Aglian-what?

It’s always a nice surprise when we get a varietal or blend that we aren’t familiar with in a wine club shipment. It doesn’t happen often – not because we’ve had a ton of varietals, but there’s a reason the varietals aren’t on every wine shelf- difficult varietal, specific climate needs, etc.


Well, in the past month we’ve received not one, but TWO of the same lesser known varietal, Aglianico [ah-LYAH-nee-koh] from two different wine clubs. (Aglianico is an Italian variety primarily grown in the southern part of Italy, performing best in hot climates and volcanic soils, although both of these were from California) I don’t recall ever having it, although it’s possible I tasted it but would remember having a bottle with dinner, for example.

The two we received were the 2006 Domenico Winery Aglianico and the 2009 Benessere Winery Aglianico. Clearly we chose to try the 2006 first, and the pairing recipe called for lamb, so a dinner was born. We bought a leg of lamb, seasoned with some thyme and tarragon, put it on the grill and opened up the bottle to taste.


Now, we’ve gotten in the habit of opening up the bottle for dinner about 30-60 minutes before dinner pouring a small glass to determine if the wine should be decanted, or just left in the glass and bottle to air. (in order to really allow an open bottle to aerate, you need to pour a small amount into a glass to get air into the wine in the bottle- not just uncork it)


Back to the wine – the recipe had called for lamb or a “heavily marbled ribeye” so we took that as the wine will be tannic and strong – we anticipated it would need some time and we were right. Right out of the bottle it was astringent and strong. We poured our glasses and decanted it while the lamb cooked, about 45 minutes and it opened up nicely. While still strong, it was no longer astringent – just tannic – and it was really wonderful with the lamb cutting through the fat. It continued to evolve with flavors of dark cherry and currant, with a little bit of spice. By the time we were finished with the lamb, it had softened to the point of no longer requiring food, so we clearly could’ve kept the 2006 for another 2+ years. Naturally we’re quite bummed, because that means the 2009 should be cellared for quite some time before reaching it’s peak.

Trying new wines is fun, so keep an eye out for something you've never heard of!

Wine Enthusiast deal for V-day

To show my love, I thought I'd share this deal....

History of the Artist Series Quest

I was skimming my blog and realized I haven’t posted much on my Artist Series Quest in quite some time. One might think I haven’t been actively collecting – but one would be wrong. I have about 20 labels already taken off, with another…at least 30 ready to be taken off. But my inability to finish projects is not the point of this post- it’s to talk about the reason for my affection towards “artist series wines”.

When I was .. well, we’ll say a bit younger.. I worked a restaurant that had an excellent wine list and the owners were committed to their staff knowing about wine so we often had the opportunity to taste wines before a shift, or if a table wanted to give us a glass, we could share a little bit with them. It was a wonderful kick start to my wine knowledge – but also propelled my palate quickly past the “entry” level wines, thus I’ve always had a taste for wines that are more expensive than my pocketbook would like. One of the wines I learned about was the Kenwood Artist Series. I had mentioned it in another post, but since then the link has changed, so I’ll tell the story now:

In 1974 Kenwood released a wine (what is now their Artist Series) with a drawing of a naked lady on it. It was rejected by the ATF because it was “obscene”. They then submitted a new label, but with a tongue in cheek twist-it was the same label but with a skeleton where the lady was. It was also rejected. So, finally in 1975 they released the “Hillside” label- the same label, just with no lady, no skeleton. (no…fun). Times changed and in 1994 they released the same “Naked Lady” label – the originally rejected one – and it was accepted! Here’s a picture of the 1994 label, along with a very grainy picture I took at the Kenwood winery earlier this month of the 3 labels:

This was a very interesting story with a nice twist of sex, art, and booze. (while at the winery we also picked up 2 free posters; one of which was indeed, the 1994 label!) Times have certainly changed - you can find all sorts of provacative labels now! The best part about the Kenwood Artist Series is the wine is always great and ages well. So, I decided to try other wines with art-based labels -  typically if a new "artistic" label is released for a bottle, it's because the wine is special, whereas if it's just mass printed year after year, it may or may not be special.   I've liked most, if not all, of the wines with a true unique-to-the-vintage "artist series" label, thus, the Artist Series Quest was born! Currently my quest is focused on the Gundlach Bundschu artist series - a bit pricey, but I'm on the lookout for a deal....