I’ve bought several bottles of Rose’ lately and opened a great version tonight.

This Portugese treat was Adega Coop Ponte da Barca’s 2007 Vinho Verde Rose. It was one of the best Rose’ wines I’ve had this summer!

The wine is light in alcohol at just 10 percent. It is a light red color that is spicy on the nose and palate with that wonderful hint of strawberry. It’s a medium bodied Rose’ that’s ok against food and dynamite all alone.

The wines from this region are also know for some effervesence and this one had some light buzz to it!

Normally you’ll find this wine at about $14.95. But I bought it from my friends at Cork & Cracker in Indianapolis for just $9.99.

Vinho Verde is a specific designated wine growing region in the northwest corner of Portugal.

I’m going to be contributing to a new national online wine magazine soon. And after meeting the publisher this week, learned they want to adopt the popular 100-point scale to rate wines. I’m not sure what I think about that and I’m not certain at all I can define a 91-point wine from a 93-point wine.

All that being said, I’d give this Portugese Rose’ something over 90!

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I have picked up a few bottles of value wines from Portugal a time or two. And frankly, never liked any of them.

I recently took the recommendation of Ashley at Cork & Cracker in Indianapolis and bought a $12.99 bottle of Barco Negro red table wine. It comes from the Douro Valley of the seaside country.

This wine has a nice dark ruby color, there is soft red fruit and a definite spice on the nose of this wine. It has soft tannins and it has a very nice feel in the mouth.

When most of us think of Portugal, we think of port. The best ports in the world come from the country also known for its cork production.

But check out your local wine shop and you’ll see more and more Portugal red wines.

This wine is made from three grapes I’m not familiar with: Tinta Roriz 30 percent, Touriga Franca 30 percent, Touriga Nacional 40 percent.

But I’d recommend this wine. It’s big enough to please the purists, smooth enough for the novice, and nicely balanced for anyone who likes a nice wine with a different flavor profile with dinner.

It was nice with my grilled steak, green beans and fresh corn!

I paid $12.99 for this bottle but if you look hard enough, I found it under $10 on the Net.

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I was a little disappointed when I opened a bottle of Lavielle Ferme red table wine tonight. I expected more since it was recommended, but considering the price point I’d drink it again. And perhaps, buy another bottle as well.

This red table wine from the Rhone valley is 50% Grenache with some Syrah and Carignan. It has some spice but not lots of identifiable fruit on the palate. It’s rather smooth. Not much on tannins but I thought it was a bit harsh on the finish.

Still, there was something about it I couldn’t strongly dislike. The wine drank “okay.”

And you have to love the price at $7.99 up to $11 in most wine shops.

And it’s a French wine with a screw cap! How often does that happen? In my experience, the answer is not often.

Both Robert Parker and Wine Spectator gave this juice an 87. I don’t see it – but for the price you could do so much worse.

Keep in mind, as I’m still learning, many of the great Old World European wines are much more delicate in style. Many California wines tend to be in-your-face with flavor, tannins and alcohol.

This was a nice simple red wine at a simple price that I enjoyed with some pork chops off the grill!

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This always feels even more self-indulgent than writing a wine blog, but several readers tend to miss my newspaper columns and then ask about them.

I just posted the newest, published this week. I send out the columns every other week but the eight newspapers have different publication schedules.

I maintain a separate blog “Grape Sense” – with a link in the left column here where I post just the newspaper columns. So you can go over there and read the columns. They are usually of an educational nature or feature stories.

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Plungerhead Zinfandel is pretty good juice.

That’s the simple point of this blog entry. I’ve had better and I’ve definitely had worse. Zinfandel is pretty serious wine when done well. It’s not for the weak of heart or those looking for something soft and smooth.

Zin should be big fruit, big peppery finish, big alcohol and sort of “in your face” kind of wine. California Zin producers have frequently been criticzed for their high-alcohol Zinfandel wines.

The Plungerhead, yes – there is a dude with a plunger on his head adorning the label, is a nice Zin. It’s a bit of a fruit bomb. It’s very fruit forward with spice flavors, you’ll notice the oak, and maybe some vanilla hints.

This wine also has an intersting closure. There is a twisted plastic wrapper around the neck leading to a cork with a cap you simply pull out.

It doesn’t have the peppery finish of many. But this is not a bad wine for the $15-$17 price point.

The wine takes its heritage from Sonoma’s legendary Sebastiani family of wines.

It’s not bad juice! Probably a pretty good introduction to Zinfandel for those not drinking much Zin.

I’d buy it again.

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Summer is the time for dry Rose’ as you will read over and over. I’ve had several this summer and picked up several more in Indianapolis today!

I had bought a Rose of Cabernet Sauvignon made in South Africa recently and found it surprisingly light. I didn’t write about it, but it was ok. I was expecting a bigger wine flavor coming from the King of red grapes.

Today I bought and tried a bottle of Miguel Torres Santa Dinga Cabernet Rose. It was a 2008 with an unusually high alcohol level of 14 percent. That’s unusual at least for a dry Rose.

This one had a real bang of big wine flavor. It is a beautiful transparent cherry color with a powerful nose. There is just a small amount of typical-Rose’ strawberry on the front of the palate with some tangy citrus on the finish.

This wine was well balanced and could probably hold up to bigger food than most Rose wines. Most Rose’ wines are wonderfully refreshing and more delicate on the palate than this powerhouse. But this was enjoyable.

Even the wine bottle suggested several foods, including pasta, the winemakers thought were a good match.

I bought this at Kahn’s Fine Wines on Keystone in Indy. I found it on the internet for up to about $11 or $12. I paid just $6.99 at Kahns!

The Torres family, with Spanish roots, opened its Chilean operation in 1979 and its grown since. The family was one of the first major foreign investors in Chile.

I love Rose’ in the summer. This one is big, but a nice change of pace from those I just sip on the porch! Try a Cabernet Sauvignon or Sangiovese Rose’ if you like them big. The Grenace-based Rose’s, largely of France and Spain, are also big wines with a lighter touch. The Pinot Noir Rose’ seems to be the one most like relegated to the porch with cheese or fruit.

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Anyone who has read this blog in last few months know I’m taken with the wines of Lange Winery in Oregon.

Guilty!

I brought a mixed case of Lange wine home with me in April. Most of it was their great Pinot Noir. But I also bought a few whites.

My morning with Jesse Lange included tasting their entire line of wines. They have an incredible Pinot Gris Reserve I can recommend to white wine lovers. Their regular Pinot Gris is also quite tasty.

But Jesse wanted me to taste something new that was “fun!” Kissy Fish, yes that’s the name, is a blend of white wine grapes. It’s mainly Gewurztraminer, which is the only grape attributed to the wine on their website. But I remember Jesse saying there was some Riesling in the blend, and I think something else as well.

It is a beautiful “sassy” wine and fun. It’s very floral with lots of soft citrus. It may be one of the most drinkable white wines you’ll ever come across.

I discovered another Indiana outlet for Lange wines this weekend. I found them originally at Sahara Mart in Bloomington. But I also found Lange Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and their Pinot Gris at Bar Berry Liquors in Lafayette on the 52-Bypass.

I’m not sure you’ll find Kissy Fish. I don’t remember the number of cases, but I don’t think it was very many. If you find it and like well-structured and fruity white wines without too much sweetness, buy a bottle. It retails at the winery for $16.

Or, as it says on the label: “Suck it up it’s tasty!”

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A NOTE ABOUT THIS BLOG: I visited Oregon’s incredible Willamette Valley in April, tasted wines, visited with winemakers, and had the time of my life. I have a couple interviews that have aged a bit before getting around to the writing, but there really wasn’t any time stamp on them. This blog entry is for the geeks out there – too long for the newspaper and probably too long for here too. But I loved these people and their wines.)

Bill Sweat and Donna Morris aren’t unique in the Willamette Valley, there are plenty of investors who have had success in other businesses come to Oregon and open wineries.

The couple who opened Winderlea Winery spent most of their careers in financial services running branch offices for Fidelty. They had a dream of making premium Pinot Noir and went about achieving that dream systematically.

“I think we did our homework so we knew what to expect,” Bill said in April. I tasted their 2007 wines during this interview. I should add they were kind enough to pour even though they close their tasting room over the winter and had not yet re-opened.

“We had done a vocation vacation; we spent three days in a winery; we kicked the tires. We had a very nice woman open her books for us and tell us how the finances work.

“We also made wine privately at a crush pad in San Francisco. So we came in and had a sense there was agriculture, and there’s marketing and more than sitting in the tasting room drinking wine. It was such an exciting project for us to take this jewel of a vineyard that people had been working on for 30 years and see what we could do to build upon the foundation that was already established.”

They put in long hours during the 2007 harvest season. They didn’t take any shortcuts. They invested not just dollars but old-fashioned sweat equity as well.

Their vineyard is the Goldschmidt Vineyard which sits in the Dundee Hills – the red soil or terrior is the heart of the beautiful Pinot Noir made by Erath, Lange, and Winderlea – among others. The vineyard has been producing Pinot grapes for more than 30 years.

Bill and Donna did all the homework. They are the ones pouring the wine in their Worden Hill Road tasting room. And Bill is thinking of doing some winemaking himself this fall. Donna keeps the books and tries to stay current with the mish-mash of wine shipping laws a winery must contend with to be successful.

They bought the storied vineyard then landed winemaking veteran Robert Brittan to make their wines. Brittan has enjoyed a long Napa Valley career with more than 30 years making wines for Stag’s Leap and St. Andrews. He also owns vineyards in Oregon.

The couple may be new to the business but the careful planning and decision making has been rewarded with some incredible wines. They made just 1,600 cases of wine in 2006 and 1,300 in 2007. They have used the term “luxury boutique” wines to describe their goals.

“We both spent time running branch offices for Fidelity Investment,” Donna said. “I told Bill it reminded me of our first days at Fidelity and selling mutual funds to people. We were trying to give them enough information to make an intelligent decision but you don’t overwhelm with the geekiness. I find that’s true with the wines. It’s like being back in the branch and we’ve had a few friends walk in here and say it has a similar feel.”

Bill is quick to interject there is a major difference. “People are happier when you pour wine for them other than just handing them a prospectus.”

Winderlea’s wines have been well received. They have also become important contributors to the community. The Winderlea $10 tasting fee is donated to iSalad, a healthcare program for vineyard workers.

I found their Pinot Noir and the Pinot at Lange the best I tasted in two separate trips to Oregon in 2008 and again this spring.

“It’s been really quite positive,” Donna said. “Most of the people who came in last year were predisposed to the wine and enjoyed the wines. It’s so fun to pour for people. People have such different palates. It’s just like food; we don’t all love the same foods. We don’t all love the same wines. The education part is really fun for the people really trying to learn about wine. I really enjoy that.”

They made a decision early on not to make their wines available for scoring, so in some ways they don’t make it easy for visitors to like or dislike Winderlea juice. “You can’t walk in here and be predisposed to like them or not like them, you are kind of on your own. There are some wine writers whose palate we’ve learned we share so when they like a wine we typically will as well. But we know there are some wine writers who won’t like us so much so we’re not going to make a lot of effort sending our wines out.”

The couple prefers to have visitors taste their wines and discuss them in their state-of-the art, if not funky, tasting room. “We’re not going to start with ‘Robert Parker game this wine a 94 so I should like it or someone else gave it an 87 so I should hate it.’ We look more for people who think ‘I sorta like this place. It’s pretty cool. I hear good things or Lange sent us down or Erath and said we should try it.’ That’s gratifying in a lot of ways.”

The former Bostonians find working with other Valley winemakers gratifying beyond expectations.

“That’s why we have a concern about (tourist growth in the Valley,)” Bill said of the wine community. “I think one thing Donna and I have a concern about is the people who founded this industry created a community willing to help one another. They recognized they didn’t know enough individually to avoid failure so they worked together. Even to this day if you look at the folks really committed to this industry in terms of being involved, writing checks, you’re going to see the names Adelsheim, Erath, all the folks here at the beginning are still deeply committed to making this work. We came here because that’s what we loved about this area and we feel the same thing. We wanted to join this community and bring whatever skills and talents we can but not try to dramatically change it but try to move it forward on same path it’s been on.”

Their wines are available across the county but the couple continue to add new states.

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Take a look at the new “Palate Press” by clicking the button embedded in this post.

The Palate Press is an idea kicked around a long time but now being brought to reality by Indiana wine blogger David Honig, Indianapolis.

The idea is rather simple and that’s to collect, edit, and distribute writing from wine blogs across the country. Editors across the country will handle different subjects and post what they believe has the widest interest.

Yes, I’ve been asked to contribute and most likely will offer my feature stories and maybe the occasional review.

This is a great idea. So for those of you who like to read about wine, hit the button embedded here and check out Palate Press.

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I’ve had Tilia wines before and thought I wrote about this one, but couldn’t find it in the new search feature on the blog.

This 2008 Tilia Malbec-Syrah is a dynamite glass of wine for the price point for those of you that like big spicy wines. It’s an Argentina wine from the Catena family of wines that usually sells for under $10 or right at that price point. It’s a Mendoza Valley keeper. I bought this bottle at Jill Ditmire’s Mass Ave. Wine Shop.

This is a nice purple-ish wine that has dark fruit flavors, a bit earthy, and even roasted coffee. It’s big without clobbering the palate. I had this wine with some seasoned pork burgers off the grill and it was just great.

It has a nice soft tannin finish. The 07 vintage of this same wine got an 88 from Wine Spectator. I’d strongly suggest you buy Tilia wines in your wine shop. The label is widely distributed.

Try this one with some big chocolate too!

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