Que Sirah Syrah

As promised, a recap of my latest wine tasting class.

If you missed the others, which were in late winter, here they are:

• First class - intro & blush wines
• Second class - white wines
• Ice Wine - my own remarks, not from a class
• Three - this actually touches on the third class and then describes the fourth which was sparkling wine. The night of the third class I spazzed out and if you want a good laugh read that here. Hey, at least I can laugh about it too. This was about our family's Valentine's day cooking extravaganza.

So... last night we went back and Ted (a ringer for Bob Newhart) was still running the classes, so that was fun. Seated directly to my right was Sean Connery.

Well, he sure looked like him anyway. He was fun to chat with and seemed to know quite a bit about wine.

We were tasting Petit Sirah, Petite Sirah, Petit Syrah, Petite Syrah. Yeah, I had to read it four times too. It's all the same, no matter what the wine is called.

Here's what you need to know....

Grown mostly in California.

It was originally a french wine (the Durif grape -- Dr. Durif crossed the Syrah grape with the Peloursin. Remember that, quiz later.) His new variety didn't grow well in France but did very well in the sunnier/ less rainy California.

Cheese

The wine is very red, very strong, and you shouldn't really drink it alone. Invite friends over-- no, I mean you should have food with it. Ted always serves cheese during tastings. We had a soft cow's milk cheese called Taleggio (Italian) that I loved because the rind was salty like a Brie. It was kind of stinky, not for everyone. Vaguely reminded me of babyfeet. Hard to believe it could taste good but it did.

We also had a French sheep's milk cheese, which was named Abbaye de Beloc, and was much harder. That was a more "normal" cheese, for those of you who don't like weird smelly stuff. Remember to let your cheese come to room temperature (at least an hour) - otherwise it all tastes pretty much the same. Find a good gourmet shop near you to buy interesting cheese, really.

Bread! More bread! (Sue will get that.) Always have plenty of bread on hand. Because it's good and Mr. Atkins is dead, so it's not like he's going to walk in and scold you, right?

The next Pinot Noir?

Ted feels that just as the movie "Sideways" increased the popularity of Pinot Noir, and prices shot up, Petite Sirah will become more and more popular in the near future. (Read that "more expensive". ) The wines we tasted ranged from $11 - $20.

The wines

As you recall, Ted talks for a while, and we stare at our empty glasses. At last he walked around the room and gave us a sample of the following 3 wines:

• Bogle 2003 - I liked it, and it was even better after it sat in the glass for 10 minutes. I believe he said this winery buys wine from other vineyards (that may have been "inferior" for their label standards but still "good" wine) and blends it.
  
• Concannon 2003 - very tart, my least favorite, but "OK" after it sat
  
• Rosenblum 2003 - the most expensive, and the smoothest. Hey, 15% alcohol. Woooot!Very dark and strong. Ted said a bunch of entertaining things like "this is chewy, chunky wine and you should drink it with a nice steak" and talked about earthy, stemmy, pepper flavors. (Um, it's red wine, with a lot of flavor during and after each sip. Don't forget to swirl and slurp and all that.)

All in all, fun class, not necessarily a wine I'd drink often but we did buy some wine on the way out. Next class is in two weeks.

By the way, if you buy any of these wines, be sure to throw some Crest Whitestrips in the cart or you'll look like you picked a peck of blueberries with your teeth and then didn't soak your dentures.