Archive for category Challenges
Sonoma Cab Challenge
Posted by Jeff in Cabernet Sauvignon, Challenges, Red, Wine on 13 December 2008
Sonoma County is renowned for producing excellent wine, and is home to over 250 wineries. Chief among its red products are its world famous Cabernet Sauvignon’s, which as you might have noticed we tend to review a lot of. Since Seth is leaving us and Lisa is visiting after her harrowing Law School finals, we decided there was no time like the present to procure and imbibe three Sonoma Cabs side by side and compare what they’re about.
Our first contender is from the oldest continuously family owned winery in Sonoma County, Sebastiani. Founded in 1904, Sebastiani Vineyards is well regarded in wine circles and in our experience produces extremely high quality wines for a reasonable price. Our particular Sebastiani selection is the baseline 2005 Cabernet, available in most stores for around $15. Our second wine is the St. George Sonoma County Barrel Reserve, which we picked up at our local beer and wine store for just under $10. Louis M. Martini’s 2006 Cabernet rounds up our field. Martini claim their Cabernet is their speciality, and we were able to score a bottle for $13.
Starting at the bottom, we felt the Martini was simply not in the same league as the other two. Across the board, it was down on flavor, down on finish, down on complexity, and just not as enjoyable to drink. We all agreed that it probably would have been a much better wine if we hadn’t been drinking the other two. In many cases, it would be a good wine to pair with food, perhaps even better with food, as we think food might draw out more flavor from what seemed like an otherwise slightly boring wine. None of us thought the Martini was bad in any way, but none of us thought we would buy it again.
St. George is easily the most aromatic of the three wines we sampled. The smell was so strong that two paused and noted its botique immediately. The most noticable thing about it is it’s pronounced fruityness, which in many ways reminds me of the Avalon Cab I reviewed. It is a wine that clearly is a Cab, but at the same time is perhaps more of a reiterpretation of a Cab. We did all note a slight hint of bitterness which we feel may be attached to the chocolate tones in the wine, but overall didn’t completely put us off. Two of us thought the St. George was at least a good value, and certainly one we would purchase again, though one of us wasn’t particularly enamored with it.
Sebastiani was clearly the most complex of the three. In many ways it serves as a benchmark of what a good cab should be. Extremely rich wich fruit, oak, vanilla and a hint of peppery spice, the Sebastiani transitions well between all its flavors. Even with a tremendous amount going on, everything is in balance and nothing detracts. Overall, the Sebastiani Cab is an extremely good wine – pleasant to drink, complicated and complex without being overly heavy or difficult.
Unlike the Hefeweizen challenge, comparing these wines side by side is not straightforward. In the Hefeweizen challenge, the bottom three were very clear, and very clearly not in the same league as the top three, and the top two were certainly above the third place competitor. While the Martini isn’t a wine any of us would purchase again, it’s still a quality product. In fact, absent price, we can’t really make a strong recommendation against it.
This does bring up a difficult point, however: how much should price be a factor? The Martini is $2 less than the Sebastiani, and close to $4 more than the St. George. Really our biggest knock on the Martini was the price. We all agreed that we would pay $2 for the Sebastiani, and there were several cheaper Cabs that we would probably pick before spending $13 on the Martini again. Our ultimate conclusion is that if price were no factor, we would all pick the Sebastiani. Two of us think, however, that when price is considered, the St. George at the least becomes a much more appealing alternative.
On the whole, we liked the Martini the least. However, two big factors in that analysis include the price and the fact that we were comparing it in the sitting of at least one and depending on your perspective two better wines. The Sebastiani was our favorite all around, but two of us questioned whether we would want to spend the 50% price premium on a daily drinker. We all respected the St. George, and two of us thought it was a fair value, though it’s not necessarily the choice either of us would make if we were in the market for a $9 Cab.
Scores:
Sebastiani (previously reviewed) – 94
St. George – 88
Louis. M. Martini – 86
Old Vine Zin – Head to Head
Time for another highlight – trying two recommended old vine zins side by side to pick the best. On one side we have the 2004 Zen of Zin, which hails from Sonoma and promises “zenlightenment” whatever that may happen to be. The other contender is the 2006 Gnarly Head Old Vine Zin from Lodi. No promises here, only a strange and creepy looking tree to entice you.
Ok so first impressions:
Gnarly Head – this is a zin. Walks like one, talks like one, and tastes like one. This wine is smooth. It’s slightly sweeter than the zen of zins and a little easier on the palette. It’s more complex than the zen and sort of buttery. However, it should be noted that this wine doesn’t smell that great. As my brother puts it “it’s a wine that I think I’m enjoying more because I’m stopped up.” The smell doesn’t necessarily pass over into the taste region, but it does still smell pretty rank.
Zen of Zins – definitely more “tart” as my brother puts it. Much less sweet from the fruits that come out in it. This one doesn’t smell fantastic but it is better than the Gnarly Head.
Here’s where we disagree though: I pick the gnarly head in all tests over the zen. My brother picks the gnarly head in most of the tests. My brother contends that the Zen is something that he would drink at night just to have a glass of wine. He says that if you want to think about your wine then this is what he would drink. I, however, still contend that I would drink the Gnarly Head just because it tastes better. I think the key is this – the Gnarly Head tells you what it’s all about when you first taste it, whereas the Zen of Zins takes a while to get to know and love. I think this might come down to personal taste, but we did both agree that if you’re having a glass with dinner, the Gnarly Head gets the nod.
So in the end, we still disagreed, but since I’m the one writing the review, what I say goes. If you want reviews of the wines by themselves, and done by someone else, those are on here as well, so check those.
Gnarly Head score: 87
Zen of Zin: 82
Hefeweizen Challenge
Posted by Jeff in Ales, Beer, Challenges on 5 December 2008
Hefeweizens hail from Germany, and are a classic example of what is good about the Fatherland. A good Hefeweizen should always be enjoyed in moderation. Deciding that was a bad idea, Seth and I decided to review 6 of them in one sitting and report our results – the first of our hopefully many challenges. Traditional Hefeweizens combine citrus, banana, clove and sweetness in an unfiltered beer that still manages to remain bright and not terribly heavy. In order to see how much variation there was, as well as to try some new world offerings, we decided on a blind taste test. Here are the contenders.
First, we selected three traditional Bavarian Hefeweizens from traditional Munich breweries. Paulaner, Hofbrau, and Hacker-Pschorr are long standing and well respected names in German brewing. Another familiar name, Warsteiner, offers the Konig Ludwig Weissbeir, reviewed previously on this site. Rounding out the field were two American contenders, Shiner and Pyramid. Do German Hef’s still reign supreme, or can the New World win the war again? Simply put: the constest goes to the Krauts.
The clear loser in our contest was somewhat surprisingly the Shiner. It’s not so much that we thought it would be better, but we were both shocked that it didn’t compete at all. The Shiner is dominated by excessive citrus flavor – as one of us noted, “While Hefeweizens are traditionally served with a lemon, that is certainly not necessary with this one.” In fact, it seems as though Shiner thought they would do us all a favor and save us money on fruit for our beer. Unfortunately, we would both happily pay the extra 25 cents per six pack to end up with something we actually want to drink. To be fair, one of us did note that “if this was all we’d bought, I would be happy with it.” However, when compared to its more refined German cousins, Shiner tastes nothing short of artificial.
One German beer that did surprise us quite a lot was Hofbrau. We expected the Munich breweries to be fairly difficult to tell apart, but Hofbrau was distinctively less enjoyable than its two competitors. We both liked the smoothness, and thought it was the easiest to drink in many ways, but at the end of the day, the sterile flavor really put us off. In a lager, a clean flavor profile is desirable, but in an ale, especially a Hefeweizen, it is the interaction of the flavors that make the drink interesting, and the Hofbrau clearly didn’t have the complexity of any of the other drinks. Down on flavor, down on score.
Third worst was the Pyramid. This beer might be the hardest to rank on the grounds that we both really like it, but neither of us really think it is a good example of the genre. There is a pronounced lack of citrus compared with the winners, and slightly more bitterness than we’d like to see. If this were a review standing on its own, we would score this beer relatively high, but in the context of evaluating a Hefeweizen, this really just doesn’t fit.
It’s important to pause here to note that there is a huge gap between the bottom three and top three in our test. We’d each gladly drink any of the top three if given an opportunity, and each has a slightly different character that, while distinct, clearly remains a Hefeweizen. The bottom three, while we might enjoy them in isolation, simply don’t rise to the level of quality shown by the top three brews.
Our third place winner was the Konig Ludwig, a beer I previously rated very high. We found it very similar to our top choice, but with an aftertaste strong enough to be distracting. The Warsteiner is the most expensive of our choices, and we both felt it offered the most complex flavor. In the end, though, we both thought it was just a bit too much. If it wasn’t sitting next to the second and first place beers, I don’t know that we would have come to that conclusion. One thing of note to the purist, this is is a filtered beer, and thus doesn’t have the traditional cloudiness of our other contenders. While we both like the beer, taste aside the biggest problem is the price: at close to $12 a six pack, this simply isn’t worth the money, espeically with arguably better beer for 1/3 less.
From here, it’s very difficult to pick a winner out of our final two. Both are excellent beers, and both of us switched our opinions on which was better several times. You simply won’t go wrong buying either of them, but there are some subtle differences in their taste. Ultimately, we did like Hacker-Pschorr slightly better than Paulaner, though at that point it sort of felt like splitting hairs. Paulaner was less citrusy, slightly more bright, and definitely more balanced than Hacker-Pschorr, but at the end of the day, Hacker-Pschorr was more complex and more interesting. The Hacker-Pschorr offered many of the complexities of the Konig Ludwig without going overboard, and that to us was a slight edge over the Paulaner.
The real lesson to be learned from this is that, if you’re standing in the beer aisle and can’t decide what Hefeweizen to buy, you’ll be perfectly happy with any of our top three. We can’t really recommend that you spend the extra money on the Konig Ludwig, and Hacker-Pschorr may suffer some availability issues in your area, but are good choices. For most people, Paulaner will probably be the winner of the taste/price/availiblity competiton, as it is reasonably inexpensive, commonly available, and was in a near tie for our favorite. Our final results, then, are:
- Hacker-Pschorr (if you can find it)
- Paulaner (if you don’t want to think about it)
- Konig Ludwig (if you want to pay for it)
- Pyramid (if you don’t really want a Hefeweizen)
- Hofbrau (if you value smoothness over taste)
- Shiner (if you enjoy biting into raw lemons)
As one final note, our review of the Konig Ludwig scored it as a 93, and we didn’t encounter anything in this review that would cause us to change that review. However, we wouldn’t rate the Hacker-Pschorr higher than a 94, which hopefully illustrates the small difference between the top three contenders.