After the disaster that was the Raucous Red, I had to save the evening and the dinner with a “sure thing”. Around our house that usually means something from Cameron Hughes. CH Wines are almost always consistent. Consistently good that is. Mrs. Barbarian is partial to Pinot Noir, so I grabbed a bottle of Lot 110, a 2007 Pinot Noir from the “Los Carneros” AVA, which straddles both Napa & Sonoma valleys in California.

As usual, Mr. Hughes delivered on his promise and provided an excellent value wine for about ten bucks. Mrs. Barbarian liked it, and so I was spared any more discordant screeching that night.

Thank you Mr. Hughes, I am forever in your debt.

While I like a good Pinot Noir, the Vinagoth rarely buys any. Why? It is really hard to find a cheap Pinot that is a GOOD Pinot, that is why. There are lots of cheap Pinot Noirs out there, but they are generally unpalatable swill. There is however an exception: Momo Pinot Noir from New Zealand. I’ve mentioned it before and as I tasted some recently it is worth mentioning again. I generally buy a few bottles of Momo every year, as Mrs. Barbarian likes Pinot Noir and this one from down under has yet to let me down. This bottle cost me a mere $14, yet was every bit as good as every other bottle of Momo Pinot I’ve tasted over the past half-decade or so since I first tried it. I don’t know what those Kiwis are doing to make Pinot so consistently good, but let’s hope they keep on doing it.

Americans have occasionally been shown to be … shall we say “geographically challenged“. Your humble Barbarian however, always knows where he is, and normally can find just about any place on a map. Navigation to me is an enjoyable past time. I can find cardinal directions quite easily and though my travels, when judged on a global scale, have been rather modest (the number of countries I’ve visited number less than a dozen) I can still tour the world through a bottle of cheap red wine… and often do.

I saw this Pinot Noir on a grocery shelf, with a price of about $10. It proclaimed its origin from the Columbia Valley, which I know straddles both Oregon and Washington. The Washington side of the river, being on the north, which means facing south, contains the vast majority of the grape growing areas. I noted also that the winery is called “Castle Rock”. Now this is a rather common place name, especially in the western US, where I bet every state contains a town or a feature named “Castle Rock”. I know for a fact there is a town with this name in western Washington, somewhere north of Portland, where the Willamette River (whose valley produces so much excellent Pinot Noir!) flows into the Columbia. I seem to recall a place long the Colombia River as well named Castle Rock… perhaps it is a geological feature. So the grapes are from this valley in Washington state… where is the winery?

The label says Sonoma, California, and their website says Palos Verdes Estates, California.

That seems odd to me as I doubt the grapes made either a 600 or a 1200 mile journey from vineyard to winery. If so those grapes are better travelled than most of the Americans they passed on Interstate 5!

However the geographical conjecture is meaningless as the wine itself is quite good. Mrs. Barbarian and I enjoyed it with a grilled chicken caesar salad the other night. I was supposed to do the grilling. I imagined slicing the chicken breasts like filets and pounding them flat with some garlic and herbs before tossing them on the grill. But I became distracted with some chore out in the yard … and the Mrs. being hungry and an impatient type of person put one of those cast iron griddle things on the stove and started cooking. When I finally finished my manly wrench spinning, or grass chopping, or whatever it was I was doing I wandered into a smoky kitchen to find lumpy chicken and a coughing wife. I casually mentioned my idea of a filet cut, and was met by a verbal assault. If she’d been armed with a filet knife I imagine I’d be on the menu.

I beat a hasty retreat to the wine cellar and as it was the first day of summer and this was a light meal, I grabbed a Pinot. This Pinot: Castle Rock 2006 Columbia Valley Pinot Noir. Mrs. Barbarian put the food on the table and I opened the wine. Within minutes her mood improved. It could have been hunger being sated, or it could have been the wine. I’d like to think it was the latter, as it was light, refreshing, and quite tasty. Not a sophisticated Pinot, but certainly significantly better than your average low priced one. In fact I’ve paid twice as much for bad Pinots! So for the money, this is likely one of the better ones I’ve ever had. Kept me from being served as dessert.

www.castlerockwinery.com

I saw this bottle as I was picking up some Secreto Malbec to give away as xmas gifts. My eye of course was drawn to the “petite” word on the label, always a promise of my favorite varietal. It was a tad pricey, around $22. I also found it a bit disappointing to be honest. It is actually a blend of Petite Sirah and Petite Verdot. The latter served to just mellow it far too much for my taste. It is a 2006, made by Michael & David Wines of Lodi.

I imagine many folks would find this wine pleasant, which is why I’m not really going to downgrade it. I also noted that they are not making it anymore, so perhaps the point is moot. I will try their Earthquake Petite Sirah though at some point, as that sounds far more promising.

 Last week it was two wines from Chile, this week it is two from Washington state… sort of the American equivalent of Chile I guess. Both have dry desert areas, glacier-clad volcanoes that occasionally erupt. Both sport fjords filled with whales, and rugged islands connected by ferry boat, and both produce excellent value wines. They differ in shape, with Chile being long and thin, and Washington being sort of squat. Separated by latitude, but connected in a great attitude towards wine.

I saw these two wines from the Challenger Ridge winery and decided to buy them. After all, they are from the romantically named town of Concrete, Washington. How can you turn that down? Seriously though they turned out to be a complete yin and yang experience. Both cost $17.99, but each was as different from the other as black is to white, male to female, night and day, disco and rock n’ roll, or Bush is to Obama.

The differences I suspect came down to terroir and varietal. On the one hand there was a 2005 Pinot Noir. This is grown in the Puget Sound region of Washington, which I imagine is not the best place on earth to grow grapes. It rains there a lot, and temperatures stay cool all the time (unlike Oregon to the south which can get quite hot in summer.) Of the two, this one was the weaker, by far. It had no backbone, and really not much to offer. The guy in Sideways must be right, Pinot is a hard grape to make wine out from, and if this Pinot is any indication perhaps the efforts up there in Concrete should be directed elsewhere. This wine is not worth eighteen bucks. It isn’t horrible (we did after all DRINK it, unlike some poorly reviewed wines around here!) but it just wasn’t that good either. Mrs. Barbarian, who normally likes most Pinots, had not much nice to say about this one.

On the flip side however is this wonderful 2003 Cabernet/Malbec blend from the Columbia Valley, Washington’s great wine production powerhouse region from over on the dry side of the state. This wine is big, bold, and very flavorful. Everything you expect in a great red wine. Unlike the Pinot, I’d call this a bargain at $17.99. I’ve tasted California reds at 3X this price that were not as good. Good stuff! Give it a try.

Repeating myself from an earlier post:
“While dining at our favorite local bistro, I saw a Pinot on the wine list from New Zealand. Being a fearless barbarian I gave it a go. It was wonderful. Light, fruity, very different in character to a French, Oregon, or California Pinot Noir. It was so good I ordered a case.”

This is the wine in question: Momo.

I strongly recommend giving this wine a try. Momo 2004 Marlborough Pinot Noir www.seresin.co.nz The price varies from $12.00 to $19.99, depending upon vintage. We’ve been drinking it since 2002 or so, with vintages going back to around 2000. It has been consistently good, and a great value.

I still buy a bottle or two whenever I see it on the shelf at my local wine merchant or grocer. Can’t lose with this choice.

While dining at our favorite local bistro, I saw a Pinot on the wine list from New Zealand. Being a fearless barbarian I gave it a go. It was wonderful. Light, fruity, very different in character to a French, Oregon, or California Pinot Noir. It was so good I ordered a case.

This wine however, proved to me that not all New Zealand Pinot Noirs are created equal. My notes, stabbed into my Blackberry say: “Kiwi red pinot noir 2006 Nelson NZ $13.99 awful.”

Those words just don’t do it justice. This stuff tastes like a brown-eyed mullet. It is as if the Grape Cocky flogged some from a kiore in the tip and crushed it with his ute and tossed it in the bottle. Rough as guts mate. It is puckeroo. You’ll chunder.

This stuff is BAD. I can’t even blame it on the cork! (It features a screw top.)

If it were under ten bucks I’d probably poured it down the sink. But since it was Pinot, and a penny shy of $14, I saved it and last weekend used it to make Coq au Vin. It was certainly up to that task. So if you want to blow fourteen bucks on a cheap bird, by all means buy this wine. Otherwise, avoid it like the plague.

OK, so I fell for the funny name. The wine? meh.

I love a good pinot, though I’m not obsessed. This one is nothing to obsess over either. It is moderately cheap, but it isn’t a value by any stretch. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really all that good either. 

I doubt they’ll be any more Loons in my shopping Bin in the near future.