My Favorite Organic Red

My favorite red wine I tried at the Midtown Winer's organic wine tasting was a Rhone style wine. Before I comment on the wine I thought I'd share about my notes taken during the wine tasting. Looking back at the notes, I noticed that as the evening progressed, my notes were less and less helpful. This was not the result of alcohol effecting me as I was spitting every sip I took the whole night. (It its interesting to note that I sipped and split an amount of wine worth half a 750ml bottle that night.) There were so many wines (21) that our pace was fairly quick. Plus, it was more fun to talk about the wines with my table partners than to write. I think I'll change the format of my tasting notes sheet and practice with them whenever I drink a new wine to get in better practice.

I really liked the 2005 Beckman Cuvee. This wine is a Cote du Rhone-like blend of 53% Grenache, 34% Syrah, 8% Mourvèdre and 5% Counoise. Syrah is my favorite grape of the bunch, but the blending made for a much more interesting wine. When I first sniffed it, it smelled like cabbage or spoiled green vegetables! When I sipped it, the flavor of vegetables was still there, but it combined with the fruit in a good way. This wine would be really good with food.

Beckman Vinyards is in the Santa Ynez Valley AVA in Santa Barbar, California. The Beckmans chose a hillside location to plant their vineyard, which they called Purisima Mountain Vineyard. The soils of the area include clay and clay loam soils and even a rarely seen type in California: limestone. The combination of elevation, moisture and soil allow Beckman Vineyards to grow great Rhone varietals such as Syrah (the predominant grape,) Marsanne, Rousanne, Grenache, Counoise and Mourvedre. The entire property is farmed biodynamically.

Another nice thing about the Beckman wines is their affordable price. The Beckman Cuvee costs around $16 making it an affordable as well as enjoyable Rhone style wine.

Tasing Notes:

Color: Dark red

Aroma: Cabbage and some red fruit

Taste: Vegital (in a good way), cherry, nice tannins.

Finish: The finish was nice and the taste lingered for a while