Wine at Five

Longboard Tsunami

It’s not often that we blow our own trumpet or dance to the tune of the Pied Piper so bear with me this one time.

Three years ago we had the opportunity to taste a terrific line-up of wines from California. They were bursting with energy and passion and we loved the taste of all of them. Over the years we have brought in pretty much all the wines we could get our hands on, including some not even available on the East Coast. My favorite has been a Merlot from the Dakine Vineyards. I realised as I drank the wine that Merlot was not flavor of the month – so many people had watched Sideways and had been converted to Pinot Noir, but I have always followed my francophile tastes and I loved this Merlot. Seems now that I was not alone. In last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal that erstwhile newspaper published their “America’s 12 Best Wines…Revealed” and they too decided that Longboard Dakine Merlot was worthy to reach their exclusive Top Twelve list.

Longboard wines are the creation of Oded Shakked an Israeli who grew up on the Mediterranean just a few miles north of Tel Aviv. He took to water at an early age (his bio says 2 months) and became one of the first ‘surfers’ in the region. Over the years he was drawn as much to water as to wine and ended up at UC Davis studying Oenology. During school he worked harvest in France and Sonoma and it was not long before he started on a career of winemaking. I love the synergy between water and wine and on Longboard’s web site Oded makes this comment:

Winemaking? Pretty similar approach. Both surfers and winemakers reach the summit of their respective crafts when they attain an understanding of, and a respect for, the environment in which they work (and play). Adapting to their surroundings, they achieve peak performance, on the waves and in the vineyards. 

I love that approach and it sums up his wines too.  The Wall Street Journal wrote: “Chateau Lafite-trained winemaker (and surfing fanatic) Oded Shakked sent his double gold-medal merlot. ‘Dakine’ is Hawaiian for ‘the best’ and this 2007, aged 12 months in French oak, brings waves of chocolate and blueberry flavor.” “A hedonistic style” (San Francisco Chronicle).

I can’t fault them on their choice, I would just point out that we knew this three years ago! Trumpet blown

We will be receiving 5 cases of this merlot tomorrow – I am keeping our price the same as before, even though the hype has already led some to increase theirs – $22.00 net.

Manursing Island Club Portuguese Dinner

We are co-hosting an evening at the Manursing Island Club this coming Friday, October 1. Club Members have already received details 0f the dinner but if you happen to be a member and overlooked that e-mail, or you really dig Portuguese food and wine and you know a member then call them up and get tickets for this event. David Leite – whose web-site is linked on my web-site’s home page (www.wineatfive.com), has recently published his first cook book, ‘The New Portuguese Table, and he will be the guest of honor on the evening. John Krall,  head chef, and his culinary team will be serving up dishes from the book, five in total plus Portuguese appetizers. David will introduce the foods, and I shall play a supporting role and introduce the five wines that will be poured during the evening. Two beautiful whites, two extremely robust and complimentary reds and a new port from Qunita do Noval, one of the greatest Port producers. Part education, part wine course, huge fun.  This is going to be a terrific evening so if you haven’t purchased tickets yet I suggest you do.

Wine of the Month Club

The wines for the October Wine of the Month Club have started to arrive – I am not sure whether they will all be available by this Saturday so we will defer the Wine Club tasting to the following Saturday – October 9. It’s a very exciting Wine Club this month – the theme is Stunt Men of the Wine World. Following on from a previous post about paying for a Barolo or a Brunello look-a-like, we delve into areas that make the same wines as their highly paid Hollywood superstars, but they’re stunt men – so they cost a fraction and they don’t get Oscars, except from us. So we have a baby Sancerre, a baby Chateauneuf du Papes, a 2nd label Bordeaux from Lynch-Bages and an Amarone substitute – WOW. So join the club – go to http://wineatfive.com/the-four-bottle-wine-club/

Tags:

This entry was posted by WinebyCai on Tuesday, September 28th, 2010 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Daily Mutterings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.