Lowden Hills 2005 See You There Syrah

The Winery: Lowden Hills Winery
The Wine: 2005 See You There Syrah
The Price: $25 at Jack Cellars

I went to a tasting a Jack Cellars on Saturday. Jim Henderson was pouring his wines this week. I enjoyed them all, and purchased my favorite to review. My second favorite was probably the Lowden Clear Riesling - an off-dry Riesling. While I'm not reviewing it here, it's worth a taste if you get a chance.

Jim Henderson seems like a great guy. Total confession here - I talked with him without letting him know that I review wines. In the event that the wine was horrible, I didn't want him asking for my opinion. And I find vintners to be much more friendly and approachable if they don't know that I do reviews. Anyway, I liked Jim and found him to be a pretty nice guy. And he wore a very brilliant Hawaiian shirt, so you had no chance of missing him.

I'm not normally a huge Syrah guy. When I sampled this originally, I didn't really think of it as a Syrah. It's much more fun than most of the other the Syrah's I've tasted.

Lowden stops their bottles with natural cork. The wine was decanted an hour before tasting.

This Syrah is a very dark purple wine. It has aromas of blueberry and coffee. This is a big, huge, fruity wine. It is bursting with blueberry flavor, with a carmelly, coffee finish. It is absolutely wonderful. It is great, and I don't see any value to cellaring it away. Buy it. Drink it. It's fantastic.

Recession Review: Protocolo 2006 Tinto

The Winery: Protocolo
The Wine: 2006 Tinto
The Cost: $7.99 at Central Market

Protocolo is one of the lines from Dominio De Eguren. The winery, founded in 1870, is located in Northern Spain.

The wine was stopped with a synthetic cork, and was decanted about one hour before tasting. The wine is made from 1oo% Tempranillo grapes.

The wine is a deep purple color with aromas of molasses, pepper and berry, with a fairly pungent alcohol aroma.

This tastes salty. I don't recall ever encountering a salty wine before. Besides salt, the wine has flavors of cherry and berry with a pepper finish.

The wine is not bad. Actually, it's pretty good Especially for the price. I'm just perplexed by the salty flavor. It is unexpected and adds an interesting depth to the wine.

Recession Review: BV Coastal Estates 2007 Chardonnay

The Winery: BV (Beaulieu Vineyard) Coastal Estates
The Wine: 2007 Chardonnay
The Price: $7.99 at QFC (marked down from $11.99)

BV is a Califonia winery. They've always struck me at one of those mega-producers that is focused on quantity over quality. This may be the first BV wine I've ever sampled. I don't recall ever having it before.

To my surprise, the wine was sealed with a natural cork. So we're off to a good start. The wine is a hair towards the yellow side.

The Chardonnay has aromas of apple and pear. It has a creamy texture to it and has flavors of apple, pear and vanilla. It's a dry wine with fairly decent flavor. It's an average Chardonnay for the price.