I had to use my Google site search to see if I had written about 2005 Celler de Capcanes “Mas Donis” Barrica before and indeed I did last October.

I thought it was worth a mention since it had been so long but this is one of my top two or three favorite Grenache-Syrah blends. This wine has scored over 90 points from most the of the major wine magazines and sells for under $15. I bought it last fall for $14 and picked up the bottle I opened tonight at Cork & Cracker in Indianapolis for $12.99.

The wine is 85 percent Garnache (Grenache, if you prefer French) and 15 percent Syrah. It is a Spanish wine made in the style of the great Cotes du Rhone wines. It has a big nose of dark fruit and gets eight months of oak. So you get big fruit on the front of the palate and bold tannins on the finish.

This is a great wine for $12.

A Farmers Market Worth a Visit
Many communities have strong farmers markets and if you’re not going, you should be. First, there is much to be said about the nutritional value of fresh produce. Second, there is even more to be said about buying it when it’s locally grown. All of that is a rant for another time and place.

Crawfordsville, where I live, has a great Saturday morning market. About a half hour south of here near Rockville, there is a great Amish farmers market. But this past Saturday I visited the northern Indianapolis suburb of Zionsville for their farmers market.

In Zionsville it’s clearly a community event. I arrived mid morning and it was packed. There were plenty of bakers and fresh produce suppliers, but there also was a popcorn stand, hand-crafted olive oils, the Mennen family which lives near the Clinton-Boone county line had pork products. Trust me, their bacon-flavored pork burger should probably be illegal it’s so good.

There was a lady selling fresh-made pasta! I had some tonight and it was great.

It was just a fabulous farmers market where people come together and celebrate locally made and grown products! I was impressed! Support your local market and local producers. But if you have a free Saturday sometime soon, check out Zionsville! It’s a great Saturday morning trip!

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My last newspaper column was a list. I generally don’t like lists of things but had a couple of editors and a few readers request a list of 10 or 12 great value wines.

So I turned the last newspaper column into just that! Here is a link to the blog where I post just the newspaper columns!

As always, thanks for reading!

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I have returned to the Cotes du Rhone region for my taste in really good wine the past few weeks. I’ve not been disappointed.

Tonight I opened a bottle of Domaine Fincham’s 2005 Red Note wine which is a 50-50 blend of Grenache and Syrah. I bought this $15 bottle at Pairings in Indianapolis in the Castleton area.

This was a smooth and medium bodied wine that didn’t have the pop some of my more recent selections. It was rich and smooth with dark fruit flavors and a just a wee bit of tannins on the finish.

After the wine was open for awhile the nose really came around to a fragrant and earthy French wine. It’s a nice introduction to French wines without the power of some others.

Fincham is an interesting guy who married into a wine family apparently. He wed the daughter of a winemaker at Domaine de Pagau in Chateaunef-du-Pape region. This is the southern Rhone valley area.

You’ll find the wine up to $19 in some shops. It’s a nice bottle of wine but if you can find Patrick Lesec’s Bouquet, go with that one!

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I’ve mentioned shopping at the Village Bottle Shop in W. Lafayette several times in this blog and finally met wine guru Donna Lattanzio just this week.

Donna had a long career on the distributor’s side and has managed the Bottle Shop for nearly a dozen years.

I’ve been buying there since the first of the year and couldn’t resist picking up her “Pick of the Week” a Rutherford Provenance 2007 Sauvignon Blanc. The deal was $9.99 for a wine I found online for up to $18-$19!

This is a beautiful and soft Sauv Blanc. I got notes of peaches, pear, with light mineral qualities and a pleasant acidity on the finish.

Wine Spectator gave this wine an 88 rating. You’ll normally find this nice California wine for around $15.

I had the wine with a pan-seared piece of salmon. I think it would be great with most seafood.

So if you get near W. Lafayette, on the 52 bypass, stop in and say hi to Donna. She will steer you to some great wine buys.

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I’ve now posted all the photos in the two blog entries about my two-day visit to Southern Indiana’s wineries and drive along the Ohio River.

When thinking back about the experience the one thing that sticks in my mind is that Indiana’s wine producers are getting better at what they do. I remember just a couple of years ago the wines were so sweet they were hard to digest.

There still are some of those around but I found more of the sweeter wines made in a light and fruity style that would still please those who like sweet wines but without killing the taste with sugar.

I also found some well-made wines that fit my usual palate. I thought Winzerwald’s Rose’, Turtle Run’s Syrah and Summer Solstice were the outstanding wines of my trip. But there were plenty of other really good ones too.

I have always been reluctant to be too negative in my wine writing. I did have a couple bad experiences. That is the exception now days which is great news for Indiana wineries.

I didn’t include Huber Winery in my visit because I’ve been there so many times before. You could easilty do Huber, Turtle Run, and perhaps Best Vineyards on a one day trip if you’re in the Indiana-Kentucky area. If you’re a little farther west, I’d recomment Winzerwald. If you’re up for a drive, go to Blue Heron Vineyards and enjoy the view. Their wines show promise too!

I believe I included a link to every winery’s website in the two posts below.

I do have more material from this trip which will surface as a newspaper column soon. I had a fun interview with Jim Pfeiffer at Turtle Run.

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CORYDON , Indiana (and the general area) – After spending the night in the beautiful Leavenworth Bed & Breakfast Inn I headed for Corydon. I learned as I was departing of a new winery on Ind. 62 near Corydon I had not heard of previously.

Click here for photos from the second of my two days in Southern Indiana.

Scout Mountain Winery is about six miles west of the old state Capital. Michael and Margaret Schad own a bed and breakfast and an orchard. They opened their winery this spring with a modest 900 gallons of wine but are experiencing success.

Mike, a former toolmaker, shared his story while pouring wine. They’ve already sold out of their Traminette and Vidal Blanc. Mike noted he has gotten lots of help from Dan Adams at Winzerwald, Jim Pfeiffer at Turtle Run, and Ted Huber at Huber winery.

The Scout Mountain wines were unique in two ways. Some of the traditional Indiana grape wines – Chardonel, Chamourcin – were done in a light style that was well balanced. They were very good wines for a first-year effort.

But Mike has some of that ‘mad scientist’ in him that runs through many of these winemakers near the Ohio River. He wanted me to try his Apple-Strawberry wine. I was surprised to find the fruit wine a nice combination. It was not too sweet and had the tartness of apple with a lingering strawberry flavor on the finish.

He’s planning another blend called Blue River Blush which will combine Chambourcin, Riesling, and Apricot. It sounds like a crazy mixture, but he pulled it off with the first one.

I asked how he came up with the Scout Mountain name and he shared asking residents about the area’s history. It seems there was a Boy Scout camp over the hill near the river which closed in the 1920s. So he thought Scout was a perfect name for the winery … and doesn’t mountain just sound better?

For me, the wine highlight of the day was a visit to Turtle Run Winery west of Corydon. I had heard alot about owner/winemaker Jim Pfeiffer and he didn’t disappoint.

He was working on a white wine blend while I was there and it was alternately fascinating, educational, entertaining, and at times maybe even a bit silly. He allowed me and a family of three to smell and taste the various blends. “Everybody does it this way,” he repeated over and over.

He has a bit of a frantic energy that’s just contagious. When you talk about “passion” for wine, Pfeiffer’s mug could be beside the definition.

He makes a lot of wine. There were 20 wines on the tasting list. He hopes to more than double his production the next few years and get the winery to 10,000 cases.

He’s making some wines others are not and may be one of Indiana’s most creative when it comes to blending wines. “We’re blend-a-holics,” he laughed.

The last wine I tasted was one of the most interesting of the two-day trip. Jim’s Summer Solstice is a blend of Chardonnay, Gwertztraminer, Traminnette and Chardonel. And by Jim’s definition, he just oaks the Chardonnay until he kills it.

Oddly, but in a good way, the oak is the first thing to hit your palate then layers of fruit carry on through the finish.

I liked his nice Catawba and wonderful Vignoles. His Syrah was as good as many $15 bottles you’ll find in any wine shop. He also does Zinfandel without oak – almost unheard of to most wine drinkers. I tried the Zin and liked the flavor, but missed the oak.

I really liked his Red My Mind Barrel Aged bottle of Merlot and Chambourcin. I read the notes which said the wine wouldn’t taste like either grape and it was right on. The wine actually reminded me of a Pinot Noir style wine. I bought a couple $14 bottles.

There are several more on his list that I enjoyed. But it’s all blurred by his work blending his Dry Tortuga which is one of his best sellers. It’s a blend of 2005 barrel-aged vignoles, 07 late harvest vignoles, 07 stainless steel aged chardonel. Now that was the blend on the bottling he had just sold out. But it gives you the idea.

Who said “Mad Scientist?” Well, I did. Jim, discussing the Solstice, prefers to think of himself more as Picasso.

Turtle Run is not terribly far from Huber’s which I have written about here on several occasions. I’d strongly recommend both for some of the best wine made in Indiana.

About six miles away, I couldn’t tell anyone exactly because I got lost, is Best Vineyards. Best is in its second year of operation with a 10-wine lineup.

The big seller is a very light Peach/Chardonel combination they consider a dessert wine. I was surprised it wasn’t a sugar bomb considering the sugar they add. It was pleasant and nicely balance for so much sweetness.

Their Lavina is your typical Concord Grape wine with an exception – the Concord grapes came from Canada for this one. It was a lighter, softer style Concord.

I liked their Hummingbird Red ($11.95) which is a light style red made from Chambourcin. I could see sipping this one without food, sitting on the porch.

My last stop of the day was at Indian Creek Winery with their 12-wine offering. Indian Creek is on the west side of Georgetown, Indiana, just north of I-64. These last three wineries are all relatively close together and close to Huber – just west of Louisville on the Indiana side of the river.

Indian Creek does a Dornfelder, the grape Germany considers its Pinot Noir. They have a couple of blends and a lineup of sweet wines.

I don’t know if it was a quick lunch I grabbed before getting to Indian Creek, if it was the end of a long day and tasting wine at three previous stops, but I found a taste to all their wines that I just couldn’t shake. It wasn’t helped when the young man, the owner’s son, noted one bottle I was tasting had been open a week.

There was an odd odor to each glass that carried through to the taste. We even switched glasses after the first couple.

Maybe it was me, I’m giving Indian Creek the benefit of the doubt after just one visit.

Saturday
I started the morning in Madison, Indiana – a place Charles Kuralt, of CBS News fame, once called the prettiest river town in America! I bought fresh peaches on the hill and visited the farmers’ market on a beautiful, old side street downtown.

Then it was down the river to Vevay, Indiana, – home of the late-August Swiss Wine Fest that draws a dozen or more Indiana wineries each year.

Ridge Winery sits about five miles east of Vevay on State Highway 56. The tasting room appears to be built off the end of a beautiful new home. There’s a large deck with plenty of tables on the back side of the house where you can sip wine right along side the Ohio River.

It’s a beautiful setting.

The tasting room is full of wine-related gifts and novelties and two delightful women pouring a sip for the many visitors. They had 12 wines on their tasting list and I had small samples of several.

Their sweeter wines were typical of most Indiana wineries, but a tad more sweet than most I had tasted during this trip. Their “Country Red” made from Stueben grapes had a pleasant and light nose and taste. It’s the kind of sweet red many Hoosiers enjoy.

Their attempts at a Cab/Merlot blend and a Cabernet – well – let’s just say there is an incredible view of the Ohio River on the deck at Ridge Winery!

Another nice note about this winery is its less than five minutes from the Belterra Casino and Resort. And across the river from the Casino is the Kentucky Motor Speedway.

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LEAVENWORTH, In. – A drive up the Ohio River sounded like a great two-day trip last fall. I didn’t get it done then, but I’m in mid-trip tonight (July 30).

The gray weather and frequent rain didn’t make it a perfect day but this unique area in Indiana is really beautiful. I drove up and down very curvy roads with a few spectacular views of the Ohio. (Yes, there is a Possom Junction!)

My wine trip was also part of a two-day vacation driving the Ohio River. Check out photo albums throughout these two blogs. An album from the Lincoln Boyhood National Park is here.

I also made visits to Winzerwald Winery near Bristow and the new Blue Heron Winery with a spectacular view of the Ohio River.

Here is the second set of photos which includes river pictures and shots taken at the two wineries.

I had been to Winzerwald on two previous occasions and enjoyed chatting with Dan Adams. Dan recently retired as director of the Perry County Parks department and is now focusing all his efforts on the winery.

Winzerwald makes all its wines in a German style honoring the family’s German heritage. Last year Dan made just over 2,200 cases of wine and expects to be near 3,000 this year. Winzerwald is also a frequent participant at many of the Indiana wine festivals.

Most of their grapes come from the immediate area though he does buy fruit from Washington state. I’ve not seen alot of Pinot Noir in Indiana and Dan is making one from Washington grapes.

I tasted seven of his wines and will offer thoughts on a couple. I really liked his 7th Anniversary Catawba Rose’ It had a beautiful nose and was nicely balanced. A really good bottle of wine for the $14.99 price point. It had a full fruit flavor but still could be considered a semi-dry to dry wine.

He makes a nice Riesling that’s his biggest seller in the whites. It had a hint of green apple and mild acidity. I like Riesling to have good acidity but its easy to see why many like the Winzerwald.

Dan had great success at the recent Indy International Wine Festival. His Cherry Red won a rare Double Gold Medal. I normally shy away from the sweet fruit wines, but this was really not what I expected. The nose had the Louden Cough Drop aroma and I was thinking, “oh no.” But one little sip and the experience was far different. The wine was nicely balanced and sweet but without the over-kill in so many Indiana wines.

He also makes a German-style Blaufrankish and Blaufrankish Reserve from Lemberger grapes grown in Southern Indiana. The primary difference between the $15.97 and $17.99 is the reserve gets a year in oak.

The less-expensive Lemberger was smooth with a lighter-than-expected feel on the palate. The oaked version was just a better glass of wine with a nose and taste of the 12 months in American oak.

Winzerwald sits pretty close to I-64 and is easy to visit if you’re on that interstate stretch between Louisville and Evansville.

It takes considerably more effort to make it to one of Indiana’s newest wineries, Blue Heron Vineyards. But let me tell you that it’s worth the effort.

Blue Herron Vineyards is south of Cannelton, on Ind. 166 – then you have to climb up a hill that is largely gravel road. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to the top to see a beautiful facility, quaint tasting room and one incredible view of the Ohio River and Cannelton locks.

I had a great time with Lynn Dauby, who runs the winery with her husband Gary. Both are retired school teachers pursuing a dream.

They have made a limited number of wines and just started pouring this spring. They are distributing their wines only out of the tasting room so you won’t find them without an unlikely trip to Cannelton. They may undertake a couple of festivals this fall or next summer if they have enough wine.

Their first wines show potential. I tasted four of their five. They have two wines from their own Marechal Foch grapes. One was a little lighter and sweeter while I really liked the drier ‘Prime 23’ version. It was nicely balanced with a unique “cherry pie” fruit taste on the palate. I was picking up cherry and it was Lynn who suggested the “cherry pie.” I’ve had Foch at some Indiana wineries that was harsh, this was unique – in a good way!

They also have one of the more interesting Concord grape wines I’ve sampled. Most every Indiana winery makes this version of sweet red wine. The Blue Heron “On Deck Red” was lighter than most and while very fruity, it wasn’t as sickenly sweet as so many of them on market shelves.

Lynn also poured “On Deck White” which was … aaaa … different. It’s a blend of Cayuga and Chardonel. I couldn’t get a handle on it at all. But three out of four isn’t bad!

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In April I blogged from my roadtrip to Oregon’s Willamette Valley as I hopped from winery to winery. It was truly one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had.

I’m embarking on a two-day trip Thursday morning that wasn’t originally designed to be a winery tour, but has turned into something of one.

I’ve wanted to drive along the banks of the Ohio River for a year or two. I did it many years ago and its an interesting experience. There are great old river towns like Rockport, Tell City, and Cannelton.

I checked Indiana’s winery map and found 5-6 wineries very close to my route. So I’m going to stop and visit as many as possible.

I’ll definitely post something with photos Thursday night. I’m not sure what my internet access will be Friday. I’ll post something over the weekend, or the second day of the trip will have to wait until Sunday or first of the week. We’ll see!

But I should have some river and winery pics up tomorrow night

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As one gets more and more into wine what you want to look for is if a wine is correct to the varietal. Does the Pinot taste like Pinot? Is the Cabernet characteristically correct for a Cabernet? Etc ….

That’s hard with a nice dry summer Rose’ because the wine is made, and made well, from so many different grapes.

But if there was one you might want to try for your summer of dry rose’ exploration it would be the nice French Mas Carlot 2008 Rose’.

The wine is 60 percent Grenache and 40 percent Syrah. It has a big beautiful nose of strawberry .. a bigger nose than many dry rose’ wines.

It has a bright and light fruity flavor with some mineral, strawberry, and sweet spicy goodness.

There are so many good Rose’ wines on the market at incredibly low prices, it’s hard to go wrong. Ok, there are a few stinkers too!

But this wine is available at Kahn’s Fine Wines in Indianapolis on Keystone Ave. for $9.99.

A great wine at a great price. If you wish to taste really good French Rose’ at a reasonable price, it’s hard to go wrong staring with Mas Carlot.

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There are plenty of choices from France’s Cotes du Rhone area in your local wine shop. You will find the Grenache- and Syrah-based wines plentiful in any good shop worthy of your business.

There are so many wines to choose from, most quite tasty, it’s hard to remember anything truly outstanding. Or at least outstanding enough to remember the name or write it down. That might be true until you sample the wines of Patrick Lesec.

A 2005 bottle of Lesec’s Cotes Du Rhone Bouquet was nothing short of remarkable for the price point. For $12.99 you’re going to have a great bottle of wine that will hold up to most dinner dishes.

It’s a terrific wine with herbal notes, a big ripe and rich flavor, but still medium bodied and smooth on the finish. And for the real wine geeks, the first taste of this wine screamed “DIRT!” I you want to taste the “terroir” the soil and environment where the wine is made, or better understand the concept, find a bottle of Patrick Lesec’s Bouquet.

Robert Parker, Wine Advocate, gave this juice an 89 rating. I thought it was every bit that good. Most of us are influenced by the price point though more than Parker. If you buy your wine on a budget,try this wine.

It’s a cliche’ but this is far better wine than the price point!

Pairings – Where Wine and Food Meet!

I made my first visit to Pairings in Indianapolis, near Castleton on 82nd, this week. I met proprietor Philip Vandeusen and he walked me through the shop.

I was impressed with the selection of value wine and his cooled storage room of high-end wines. I bought about five bottles including the wine above on his recommendation. In the climate-controlled room I found Lange Freedom Hill Pinot Noir and Domaine Serene Pinot Noir – enough to convince me that this was a serious wine shop.

I’ve included a link here and urge you to stop by. And besides the great wine selection, he has beer and gourmet food products.

He is in a strip mall just down from Keystone at the Crossing.

The 89 Project

So what’s the difference between a wine that scores at the magical level of 90-or-above and a wine rated at 89?

That’s a concept that Indianapolis attorney David Honig explores in an ongoing blog with numerous contributors called The 89 Project.

David asked me to be a contributor a long time ago and I have just recently posted comment on a couple of 89-point wines. Take a look, it’s great reading!

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