January Wines of Note

Three months in a row! Yes, once again I'm bringing you a roundup of some of the most notable wines we enjoyed during the past month. Inspired by the consistent monthly wine highlights from the Hoot N Annie Blog, I've gotten my list together three months in a row, so I think this is now a pretty entrenched Cooking Chat feature you can expect as a resource for finding some good wines for yourself. Perhaps I'm feeling patriotic as the Olympics gets started; this month, the top 3 spots all go to American wines!

2009 Ramey Hyde Vineyard Napa Valley Chardonnay This chard from the Carneros region of Napa would probably have to take my top wine spot of the month. The tasting notes I tweeted "Chard a nice start to our #CA #wine dinner! Floral citrusy notes, restrained oak." " It was part of an overall great night of food and wine, part of an occasional series of wine dinners we enjoy with some fellow local foodies (including our hosts for this one, my sister + brother-in-law!). It went well with the Artichoke Dip with Roasted Broccoli and Garlic I brought, as well as the cheese, pate and other apps available before our dinner. Probably several wines from that night could make this list; I'll add one more below.

2012 Cass Paso Robles Marsanne Rousanne I had fun trying to figure out what wine to bring for the California themed wine dinner mentioned above. The main course was Roast Lemon Chicken with Avocado Tagliatelle pasta, so finding something with some substance but also capable of handling the citrusy lemon and the avocado flavors was the challenge. I got some good input on Twitter and Google+, and selected this Rhone-style white blend for Paso Robles. I was pretty pleased with the way the pairing worked, with some nice minerality and crispness providing what the dish called for. Cass is a SIP Certified sustainable vineyard. This blend is 55% Marsanne and 45% Roussanne.

2011 Soter North Valley Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley. Sorry folks, my notes are a bit sketchy on this one. "Really enjoyed it with the salmon!". Well, my pleasant recall of this wine in particular combined with my general fondness of Willamette Valley pinot earn this one a spot on the list!

I'm sure I had other good values in the month of January, seeing as we managed to come in under our food and wine budget target, but the one that I'll give a shout-out to here is the 2012 Evodia Old Vines Garnacha. I picked up several bottle of these well under $10 a bottle, but this certainly drinks like something a good bit more. It's got big berry fruit, good structure and a nice finish. It's pretty versatile, I've enjoyed it with pizza and a variety of other simple meals.