Folie a Deux Merlot 2011

Folie a Deux has merged companies together with Napa Cellars. So when you go to Napa (yes, when!) you'll find them in the same little building. they have a lovely tasting room and a beautiful garden in which you can ruminate on the various delicacies they have just poured in your wine hole.

For some reason a lot of Merlots are cheaper nowadays (thanks Sideways for fucking the wine market), but despite a questionably earned reputation, I like them. Cheap flirty fun, but sometimes they can surprise you. Remember that "bimbo" you made out with? She's a PhD in genetics from Ivy League U, and is creating new heads for people. To break with the Merlot-haters out there, I like them waaaay better than Pinots. Because Pinots taste like zombie feet.

This Merlot is smooth and you can really taste the fairy. Dark, rich and magical. But I have to be honest: while I do like this wine, there are other wines I like more. Like Napa Cellars. I'm sorry, but if you are both going to live in the same house, I want you to know which child I prefer. It's not personal Folie. You do many things I love, but Napa is just better looking and more talented.

Bottom line: This Merlot is good. Solid good. Just good, but also all-the-way good. Honest, like a cowboy that scares you, but at the same time you would trust him with your life. So drink it.

Titus Zinfandel 2010

Titus has beautiful wines. Period. They also started selling olive oil, which I have been too cheap to buy (because it is expensive and at the moment, I'm a little on the broke side), but it was part of the tasting I did, and it was quite amazing.

Titus is small winery, and they happen to be right around the corner from David Fulton, convenient. We had to make an appointment (as is often required at smaller wineries), and were just blown away by their cab, petite sirah, and this zin. Oh, my stars and garters! Zinnnnn!

It's a big, jammy, complex experience with magical flavor ribbons.

Bottom line: Olympics for your face.  Drink it!

Maddalena Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

This! The best year of Maddalena Cab I have had, is '08, but '09 will not disappoint. As I discover more and more Paso wines, I am more intrigued to make a pilgrimage there.

This is beautifully complex, but still approachable. All wines are best when they have fully opened, but a little sippy-sip right after opening won't disappoint; a preview of the magic to come.

This is one of those wines that tastes like the label: regal and sophisticated.

Bottom line: Drink it!

Sonoma Landing Pinot Noir 2008

This is a cheap and fairly tasty pinot. I usually don't like pinots, because they taste like zombie feet, but this one isn't too bad--particularly for the price--I think it was about $12ish. We first discovered it at BevMo during the 5-cent wine sale, which can make new and questionable wine-ventures more appealing. You mean I can get two crappy bottles of wine for the price of one? Yes please!

I recall it being better when fully open--I mean, you can drink it right from the bottle, and I won't judge you--but you'll get the most bang for your buck if you really let it breathe for a few hours, or decant it or perform an exorcism on it, take it shopping, play twister with it.

Sonoma Landing, which is fun to say in the Pavilions Announcer Lady voice, may be more of a drinking wine than a tasting wine, but it is by no means awful. And I feel bad (I don't feel bad), if the best thing I can say about a wine is that it "isn't awful," but as I mentioned in my parenthetical statement, I don't feel bad.

It is never a bad idea to have a few bottles of cheap drinking wine on hand when you have your tasting out of the way and want to keep your buzz going. Especially if the conversation is great.

Bottom line: Good for the wallet, questionably good for the liver, unless you are in need of a new doorstop.

A Lack of Posting: An Brief Explanation

I know I talked a big game at the beginning about posting regularly. I mean to. I really do. Well, meant to, but still mean to--anyway, I fully admit to being a punk-ass slacker.

Here 2014 is off to such a promising start, and I'm, well, what am I doing?

It's not that I haven't been tasting and drinking wine--perish the thought!--it's that I have been very busy helping my parents. My mom has cancer (lung - stage 4) and while she is doing well, there are a lot of day to day things that need to happen. Meals prepared, medical appointments with out-of-state doctors shuttled to, and a variety of other minutae that before you know it, it's time for bed.

We have been through two rounds of chemo and are pursuing a clinical trial now. So, sorry-not-sorry for my absence here, but I felt like I should at least tell you, I haven't abandoned you. Lots more wines rife for abuse or praise on the way soon, more snarky bottom lines, and more "fancy" instagram photos (I mean "fancy" as in "Lee press-on-nails fancy").

So as I work though my backlog of posts, keep drinking!

(I sure as hell am!)

Ravenswood Old Vine Zinfandel 2011

So this was about 9.99. And it even tastes like it. Not the top shelf Ravenswood, by any means (I have had good Ravenswood before), but maybe those old vines could use a dusting.

Bottom line: you get what you pay for...(don't get me wrong, I still drank it)