by Patrick Ogle

Brendan Tracey's Gorge Seche  red blend 2015 mixes pineau d' aunis, gamay teinturier And malbec. The last of these may be the only one that is broadly familiar.

Pineau d'Aunis is a rather obscure grape. Several sources cited it as the favorite wine of Henry III. Henry was a rather obscure king. One reason he isn't widely thought of as one of the worst in English history might be because his father was John, widely seen as the the worst head to ever wear a crown on the Island.

Poor pineau d' aunis had a poor king as benefactor but, at least this one wine, make with the grape a star. It is light in color , a color which is close to a glass of cranberry juice. It seems as if it has a lot of compressed CO2 and a brisk
acidity. Pineau d'aunis is comparted to wines like ruche and lagrein, often grown in Italy and in the latter case Southern Germany. I had it with a little bit of a chill on it.

This blend, which is 60 percent Pineau, reminds me a little of a couple of different counoise Ive had but this is more acidic than those. This wine is, of course, not just pineau; it has 30 percent gamay teinturier and ten malbec as well. Malbec is a well known grape, these days because of the big wines from Argentina but this is a small percentage and it may be there to add a little bit of tannic grippiness.

The gamay teinture is also a neat addition. Teinturier grapes are those where the juice is actually red. Most red wine (the VAST majority) gets its redness from skin contact, the pigmentation is in the skin. In teinturier grapes the flesh of the grapes are red. There are not many quality wines that are made from teinturier grapes (or so the conventional story goes).

This wine will appeal to fans of German pinot noir and maybe some of the lighter Oregon ones but it is a different creature from either of these. Fans of schiava/trollinger may also be on board.

Brendan Tracey is a natural winemaker working in the Loire but from the USA. I have recently had discussions with people who think "natural wine" always tastes like the monkey cages at the zoo smell. That is idiotic. "Natural" wine is a fairly ill defined term and basically refers to wine with less intervention from the winemaker. There is less use of pesticides and other inorganic substances in the process of wine making. MANY very mainstream, old fashioned, winemakers are "natural" in one way or another. And this wine is just flat out delicious. Brendan Tracey also makes a lovely pet nat.

Some people like to pretend sophistication by dissing "natural" wine and others like to act like counterculture revolutionaries by embracing it. The truth is you can get good wine in all sorts of ways--but who WANTS to drink pesticides?

by Patrick Ogle

Ixsir Altitudes Lebanon rosé 2016 is a pale, light rose with strong similarities to those from Provence, but with differences as well. The wine is a blend of syrah, cinsault (usual rose suspects) and caladoc. Caladoc is a more unusual creature. It is a crossing of malbec and grenache and is a little grown grape and a relatively recent creation.

Altitudes has a lots of red fruit: strawberry, cherry and plenty of watermelon. It has a hint of bitter on the finish and it , unsurprisingly goes really well with olives, hummus, tomatoes and dolmas. It isn't a tiny wispy rose though. It has some heft. Well, perhaps not heft but it has a bigger "mouth feel" than many roses.

"Mouth feel" is a term you hear a lot in wine discussions. Just think of the wines you've had that went down like water, as opposed to kefir. These two being extremes of course! This wine isn't like a pink glass of water.

I had this on a hot night, with a broken air conditioner and it really does the trick in that environment. This rosé is a summer treat. 
 
This is a "surprising" wine primarily because of where it is from and perhaps because of use of caladoc). Most people don't think of Lebanon as a wine producer but they've grown grapes there for millennia. The modern industry owes much to the French it is true. There is no reason to look askance at wines from Lebanon. There are many producers of fine wines in the country.. This particular winery has vineyards as high as 6000 feet. They create wines from various vineyards across the country. Find out more about Ixsir HERE.

When you hear "pet nat," and we have written on this before, it means Petillant Naturel (aka Ancestral Method). This is a method of making sparkling wine that predates Method Champagnois. The basic difference, without going into too much detail, is that Champagnes are made from wines fermented to dryness, then those wines are bottled, have sugar and yeast added, and a second fermentation begins in the capped, but not corked, bottle. Pet nats do not ferment the wine to dryness before putting the wine in the bottle. The fermentation continues and since fermentation creates CO2? You get bubbles.

Some pet nats, like this one, you will find a bottle cap instead of a cork. This also shouldn't frighten you. Champagne is also capped just like this for the secondary fermentation (the cap is removed, the bottle topped off and re-sealed with a cork in the case of Champagnes). Pet nats have become trendy of late; you will see them from a variety of areas around the world. They method isn't the only thing different from Champagne. These wines have a different character but that character varies from wine to wine, area to area.

by Patrick Ogle

Day Wines' Running Bare 2013 blend has some bite to it and maybe could use a little air--a mix of cab franc, malbec and tannat the wine isn't really heavy or high alcohol. But it lets you know it is THERE, like a slap in the face. This is especially true right out of the bottle. 

Taste this wine as it develops with contact to air. It is good right out of the bottle, 20 minutes later, an hour later and it mellows out seriously the next day. This wine comes from Mae's Vinyard in Applegate Valley AVA, Oregon.

This is a wine that you may change your opinion about when you have it a few times but those opinions will never be negative. One reason to never form a solid opinion when having it at a tasting is that a  little  taste is different from a glass or a bottle with friends. It reminds me of how when you hear a song you really like you may have a different feeling about it when you hear it with someone else.

Day makes a series of pinot noirs with quite different characteristics but this is something different, something unique. The blend is something others have done (although Ive never had it) but I bet this one is different from those blends --for one they'd originate in France.

Tannat is a wine that has a lot of tannins and is known to be heavy, gigantic in body and, hence, has been considered somewhat unapproachable. French tannats can also be quite expensive. They grow the grape in South America; Uruguay has adopted the grape as its own and it is also found in Argentina. Malbec can also be a big bodied wine while cabernet franc usually has a somewhat lighter profile. Given that I'd guess cab franc makes up the largest part of this blend (I checked and it makes up 50 percent).

You may notice the bottle is signed; I asked Brianne Day to sign it for me because she truly is a wine rock star.

Find out specifics HERE.