Jason’s Wine Blog

Look out Trader Joe’s!  Walmart wants a piece of your Charles Shaw action.  They, as many others before them, are launching their own low cost label; Oak Leaf.  This from Wine & Spirits Daily:

“In a world where cheap wines generally hail from other countries, Wal-Mart’s private label Oak Leaf wine is joining the ranks of Two Buck Chuck, selling for less than $3 a bottle but to a much bigger consumer base than Trader Joe’s. Oak Leaf took gold and bronze at this year’s wine competition at the Florida State fair and even appeared in Oprah’s “O” magazine. Wal-Mart partners with The Wine Group to produce Oak Leaf. Oak Leaf is almost sure to see a spike in sales as the sour economy encourages consumers to save money, trade-down, and – as you’d have it – shop at Wal-Mart.”

Looks like they have a pretty good marketing push behind this one.  No Walmart’s in San Francisco.  Someone else want to give one of these a try and send me a review?  I’ll be happy to post it.

Went to Trader Joe’s this weekend and true to my Top 10 was looking to stock up. I grabbed ½ a case each of the XS Red Cab and the Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc. I am still well stocked on the Epicuro Aglianico and alas the Red Flyer was nowhere to be found. I picked up six new bottles as well so stay tuned for more about those.

It wasn’t until I got home that I noticed the Geyser Peak was no longer the 2006 but now instead the ’07. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it is just as good….

UPDATE: The ‘07 Geyser Peak delivered…

Tonight I updated the database and unfortunately found I had about 4 cases of wines outstanding to post on.  I whittled it down to a more manageable number but before I do anything I want to get the Top 10 list for May up as in my head it seems as if there are going to be a bunch of new entries and changes…Tomorrow is the day.  Thanks for bearing with me.  Stay tuned!

Hey all, please bear with me as I am in the middle of a move…houses this time. I am nearly settled but still lacking DSL. I hope to get back to posting over the weekend and have the Top 10 list up for May by early next week.

In the meantime here are some random thoughts. A lot of new comments out there I plan on responding to, thanks for interacting! Makes this much more enjoyable from my end. I also have had a flood of new ratings, always interesting to see how others rate these wines. Would be even better if you commented! I saw a rating come in from my hometown of Milwaukee. Wonder which one of my family members that was? And lastly after a long hard day of moving I opened the Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc and Wow! Though I moved less than 20 miles; here in the Bay Area that can mean significantly better weather which I now have. Look for lots more reviews of whites and roses as I look forward to enjoying my first real summer in a long time….

Got a tip on a new Trader Joe’s wine, the 2005 XS Red California Cabernet Sauvignon (to which the Hess Family is rumored to be linked), I heard mentioned in a post that ended up in my RSS feed so went out to hunt it down today. I came back with yet another Trader Joe’s bargain hunting story on that one plus 4 additional wines, 3 of which are again repeat buys. Backing up my mouth with my wallet! The three repeats were these:

- 2005 Archero Nero d’ Avola Ruggero di Tasso - I have been meaning to grab a $10 or $15 bottle of Nero d’ Avola to sample the quality difference for the price increase. As I had yet to get around to it decided to grab another one of these.

- 2003 Red Flyer California Red - Because it is good and $3, ‘nuff said.

- 2005 Gravity Hills Base Camp Syrah - This one seemed nice on the first go round just want to be reconvinced!

Also grabbed one new one, the 2003 Gaetano D’Aquino Chianti Riserva (which I snagged for a $5 spot here in CA), based off a recommendation from the Wine Oaf.

Look for new reviews soon and as always let me know if you have any recommendations of your own to share!

Picked up a case plus as I was scouting for the best of April posting at Trader Joe’s. Again wanted to tell Parker and the rest of the critics I am still backing up my rankings with my wallet. I grabbed these 8 that I had previously reviewed here.

2004 Evans & Tate Cabernet Sauvignon Underground Series
2006 Concha y Toro Casillero del Diablo Carmenere
2005 Les Moirets Cotes du Rhone
2005 Perrin Cotes du Rhone Reserve
2006 Callaway California Chardonnay
2004 Columbia Crest Two Vines Cabernet Sauvignon grabbed the Grand Estates too…
2003 Columbia Crest Two Vines Merlot
And the Santa Ynez Gewurtz which I will publish soon…….

Look for write-ups on the 6 new ones over the coming weeks. Some interesting bottles for sure. I already opened the Red Flyer and at $3 it could be promising…

and hopefully past a bit of the writer’s block.  I have at least three wines I am anxious to post as well as a recent tasting event so stay tuned!

Picked up a case of wine at Trader Joe’s today and wanted to tell Parker and the rest of the critics I am still backing up my rankings with my wallet. I grabbed these 5 that I had previously reviewed here. The top 3 are regulars in our household now:

2006 Concha y Toro Casillero del Diablo Carmenere
2003 Columbia Crest Two Vines Merlot
2006 Geyser Peak California Sauvignon Blanc
2005 Santa Ynez Valley Winery Gewurztraminer - but the ‘06
2006 Dr. Beckermann Piesporter Michelsberg Riesling Spatlese

Look for write-ups on the 7 new ones over the coming weeks. Some interesting bottles for sure. Perhaps I’ll try the No Man’s Land from Bulgaria first…

Have you used them?  I have used a bunch of sites to try and hunt down information but this article in the San Francisco Chronicle was the first I had heard of a subject matter specific search engine for wine

“Wine types have long bemoaned the fact that search engines don’t share our view of the world. If we type in “Barbera,” we don’t want to know about “Hanna.” So there’s plenty to like about Able Grape (www.ablegrape.com). Rather than the usual scattershot approach, it scours wine-specific Web sites and lets users divide their results by such categories as “official body” and “press,” providing a shorter path to the most useful info. Difficult-to-parse sites like that of INAO, France’s regulatory agency for appellations, are readily accessible.”

Able Grape looks like it is attempting to be the Google of wine search with its nice clean interface.  Another that I’ve come across in the past but never vistied the home page until now is Scrugy.  There they take the Yahoo portal perspective with lots of content up front with search bundled in.

Now that I found them, what’s next?  Put them to the test with some of the wines I have yet to find information for.  And just for fun let’s add Google in to see if these wine specific search engines find something different.  First up was the 2005 Melipal Malbec.  Able Grape was the only to find the winery which was a huge win.  They had appeared to return the Wine Spectator Pick of the Day as well but the result took me to a laundry list with this wine not to be found.  Google did take me to the Wine Spectator write up and also turned up some individual write ups.  Scrugy on the other hand found neither of these but lead you to loads of tasting notes.  I tested a number of others and the results were somewhat comparable. 

At the end of the day these all have a place at the table.  Google is what you expect it to be.  Able Grape may turn up a gem that Google missed and Scrugy will get you straight to tasting notes if it can find them.  I’ll continue this experiment as I search for wine information and see if I can’t perhaps provide some more insight.  If there are any other wine specific search engines out there that you are using let me know!

Just when I had given up hope on ever finding this aglianico it finally appeared. I had searched 5+ stores multiple times with no success. Being as persistent as I am it finally paid off this weekend down in Daly City where I found it in abundance on the shelves. I grabbed a case! Get it while the getting is good….