Grocery Outlet Ticks Me Off

Chateau Larkan 2010 with a steaming dish of Cioppino

I have this strong policy about writing anything bad about anyone.  But today I'm feeling like I need to bend my rule a little bit. 

Grocery Outlet, a company that I have written several columns on over the past 3 years is giving me the cold shoulder.  Apparently they don't think that I have the pull.  My readership stats are quite substantial, and by and large my readers like it when I write about Grocery Outlet wines.  There have been over 1000 reads on my various past GO writeups in the last month alone. 

They reached out to me initially and asked me to write for them.  The only compensation was that they would supply the bottles for the tasting.  I could say anything that I wanted.  With my policy in place, if I tasted a crappy wine there I just didn't write about it.  It was a good relationship, or so I thought.  There have been some ownership changes at my local store, and the company representatives claim that they are looking at their "blogger relationships". 

This is where you come in.  I need you to do a couple of things for me to prove my worth.  If you don't do these things then it will simply prove me wrong and that's ok too. 

First, I tasted a bottle of 2010 Chateau Larkan Bordeaux that I purchased from there last week.  Initially it opened in the bottle with a little sulfite and oxydation, but once I gave it some air and swirrled it in the glass a little the wine opened up beautifully.  This French Bordeaux from Gironde is a beautiful soft red.  It offers up soft cherry and chantrelle notes on the nose, with a fruit forward mid palate and a very nicely balanced finish.  At $5.99 this bottle was a steal of a deal so I went back and bought a case for myself.  The Kennewick store has five or six more cases available as of yesterday.  I suggest getting down there and buying as much as you can.  Go ahead and empty the shelves. 

Along with that, the owners of the Kennewick store, Aaron and Lisseth, are holding a wine tasting on February 16th from 5p.m.-7p.m..  The tasting is free and offers four whites and four reds.  My ask is that you attend, drink their wines, and buy some while it is an additional 10% off.  While you're there make sure you tell them that I sent you and that you want them to put my notes back in their store.  You can also email them at kennewick@groceryoutlet.com and let them know that you enjoyed my wine notes in their store.  

Thanks, and Enjoy!!  

Zefina Wines A Great Example of Horse Heaven Fruit

Located out in the far reaches of the Horse Heaven Hills is a vineyard named Alder Ridge. It is a beautiful place, although remote, where wine grapes are able to become all that they need to be in order to make great wines. Next door to the most highly acclaimed Champoux vineyards, where some of the Northwest’s most prestigious grapes are grown, Alder Ridge may not have the same geneology, but it isn’t bad either.

Enter a young, highly trained winemaker, whom I’ve written about before concerning his own private label “Thirsty Pagans”. Rob Chowaneitz lives and breathes everything that is Alder Ridge. Under the financial and management support of a great company called Corus, Rob makes wine for the Zefina winery.

As part of the Corus family of wines, Zefina is not open to the public. The only way you can find the wines is by buying them through distributors or grocery retailers. I hadn’t seen the wines before, but found them on a local at my neighborhood Grocery Outlet shelf and decided to give them a try.

I took the time to taste some of the Zefina wines this week, and found them to be very satisfying, and also very affordable. Here are four of the wines I tasted:

The Serience White is chowaneitz’s white blend of 50% Rousanne and Viognier. I will admit that I was a little afraid of this one, because the vintage was a few years old. However, I found the wine to be quite free of oxidation. Bright and straw-like in the glass, the wine offers nice notes of orange blossoms, mineral, and lemon rind. On the palate, I tasted fresh gooseberry and lemon. The acids cleansed the palate nicely.

The 2007 Viognier also offers bright straw colors in the glass. Bright fresh tropical fruit on the nose, with hints of baking spices. The flavors are more of the same. The tropical notes take off and add in a nice cinnamon on the center of the tongue, with added bonus of a little bananas foster on the finish. I would serve this with a nice creamy fish dish. If I had some camerones la crema while tasting this wine I would have loved the pairing!

Next, I tried the Serience Red Blend. Once again this was a 2007 vintage. I think that this was possibly my favorite wine of the night. This blend of 44% Syrah, 40% Grenache, 11% Cinsault, 3% Mourvedre, and 2% Counoise is very rich and smooth indeed. Dark red, leading to purple in the glass it definitely looks like a wine with full-bodied potential. The nose is rich with blackberry, dark cherry, and even a little blueberry with vanilla mixed in for measure. The flavors are rich and very smooth. I loved the careful balance of fruit, alcohol, and tannin. This is definitely a wine to be enjoyed by itself as well as food.

Last, I tasted the 2007 Zinfandel. One of the things I love about Horse Heaven region Zinfandel is that it tends to be rich in flavor, without being too cloying on the finish. This one definitely shows some natural sweetness at the end, but really that is just an afterthought. The wine is deep red in the glass, with the spicy richness of bing cherries and light oak. I enjoyed this wine very much with a Putenesca sauce and pasta.

At $5.99 per bottle each, all of these wines were well worth their price and a whole lot more.

Enjoy!

Enjoying Myself A Budget Pinot “Palooza”

I’m not sure what took hold of me the other day. Maybe it was the lack of heat in this cold, wet spring. Possibly it was the mountain of work I’ve got in front of me this month. Whatever it was, I decided that I wanted some Pinot Noir really bad.

The problem with Pinot Noir, is that most of the stuff I drink costs a little more, and that gets in the way of paying my fuel bill these days. So, loaded with two Andrew Jacksons in my pocket I headed for two of my favorite shopping marts for wine, Safeway and Grocery Outlet to see what I could find. The concept of my shopping spree was bang for the buck. I wanted to buy the largest selection I could with my $40.

At Safeway I found Sutter Home Pinot Noir, Mirassou, and MacMurray Ranch on sale. The Sutter was $5, the Mirassou was $6, and the MacMurray was $8 on sale. I have had these wines in the past, and I knew they were very drinkable options even though they were inexpensive.

Next, I headed down to the G.O. and picked up a few more bottles. My finds this day were South Sound, Sacred Hill, and Rainbow Creek. These wines were all $5 each. I also picked up a bottle of Toasted Head Reserve that was $8, which made my total “Pinot Palooza” experience go over my budget by $2, but I figure the kid’s college fund was worth spending on my experiment.

I hadn’t tasted several of these wines before, and the few that I have had were not something that I’d tasted in many years. The only wine that I could verify that I’d had in the last year was the MacMurray.

By and large I can say that all of the wines were overall very good in quality (for the price).

The MacMurray offers muted flavors of semi-ripe stone fruits and a slight smokiness. Conversely, the Mirassou had a nice ripe cherry flavor with a short finish. The Sutter Home and the South Sound were wonderfully fruity as well, with some hints of mushroom on the mid palate, and a fairly short finish. All of these were wines that I would easily grab from the shelf any time.

The one wine that stood out to be a fantastic buy for the money was the Rainbow Creek. Like the South Sound wine, it is from the famed Marlborough region in New Zealand. The wines from this region have good structure, yet are very supple. This particular bottle has a mixture of bright and dark fruits. It has a beautiful, earthy nose normally found in expensive Pinots, and has a lot of linger to the finish.

The Toasted Head and the Sacred Hill both offered up very elegant noses, as well as bright fruits on the front of the palate, but had a lot of alcohol on the balance of the wines, which means I’ll use them to make sauce with.

The next time you’ve got just a limited amount of money to spend on your wine I suggest going out and buying your own tasting palooza. You’ll have a great time, and get to enjoy some new wines you haven’t had before.

Enjoy!

No April Fool's Day Joke at Grocery Outlet Today

Wheeehaaw!

Ok. Be still my racing heart. I just came home from Grocery Outlet, where I seriously scored some amazing wines for uber cheap.

I know you're thinking, "aw Rich, It's April Fool's Day and you're playing a joke on us". No!! Seriously!

Let me tell you what I just picked up off of their 20% off sale this afternoon. Don't worry, as soon as I can get the wife to free up some more allowance I'll be back for more.

First, my friends at Claar cellars had a private label made a few years ago. 2002 to be exact. The wine is called Wooded Island. They had a bunch of the Merlot left over and liquidated it out to the G.O. company a few weeks ago. I just opened it and it was fantastic! Just know that anything this old isn't going to open quickly, and every few bottles is going to have a bad cork. Be prepared to decant this one.

Second, I picked up a bottle of Hayman and Hill 2007 Dry Creek Zinfandel. This Sonoma is filled with pepper and blackberry. Spicy and good.

Another fantastic find was Toasted Head Barrel Reserve Chardonnay and Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. I purchased the Pinot Noir, and was very pleasantly surprised at the earthen flavors mixed into the bright fruit of this wine. It's a touch hot on the alcohol, but at $5 it's worth it.

Third, I found a bunch of splits of Sageland Red Blend and Canoe Ridge Merlot for $2.99 before the price break. I love love love splits of wine. Perfect for the one to two glass evening when you don't have time to kill a whole bottle. I haven't tasted them yet, but I'm excited for the opportunity that presents itself!

Last, and possibly the best wine purchase I've ever made at Grocery Outlet is the 2005 Reserve Merlot from Canoe Ridge. OMG! This is a fantastic purchase at $5.99. Not to mention that there is an additional 20% off of that price. Rich with fruit and full of flavor, this wine is supple and features a gorgeous finish.

G.O. planned for a big sale this time, and the back room is filled with many more treasures to come. I say get down there right away and buy big. Like all Grocery Outlet wine bargains these wines won't be around long.

Hey, and while you're in the store, do me a huge favor. Ask to speak to Dane, the owner and thank him for owning and running the store this past year. He and Jamie, his wife have been absolutely fantastic to work with, and have been a great addition to our community. In spite of the crappy location that the company chose for this store, They have done a fantastic job of making a success out of it!

Enjoy!

Rich

Covey Run Quail Wines Are At Grocery Outlet

I’ve known about it for a few weeks. Dane and Jon at Grocery Outlet Kennewick tipped me off. I have to admit that my heart gave a little jump when I heard that a limited amount of Covey Run was going to be available on the shelves soon.

Covey Run, one of the wineries that I consider local to this region, is located in Prosser, Washington. The winery was started in 1982 by local families, and is still in operation today. Truly a pioneer brand for the Washington State wine industry.

Winemaker Kate Michaud, who has worked for several industry leaders such as Bonny Doon, and Canoe Ridge, came to Covey Run Winery in 2007. Since then she has become a substantial name in the Washington wine industry while making the famous Quail label wines at Covey.

As you already know, there are many reasons why wines go to Grocery Outlet. In this case, there were a couple of years where the vineyards produced more supply than there was demand. This drove prices down, and the supply remained until the next year’s crops were ready to go into the barrel and bottle. That means great deals to consumers!

The three bottles of Covey Run that I tried this week were the 2008 Fume Blanc, The 2006 Cabernet-Merlot blend, and the 2007 Merlot.

Fume Blanc is truly a beautiful wine. The 2006 is made with 100% Fume Blanc, this wine offers up a nose and palate of citrus right off the top. Lemongrass, herbs, and lemon-lime flavors mix in the glass to make a bright, crisp wine for drinking alone or with creamy dishes.

The 2006 Cabernet-Merlot shows dark ruby red in the glass. It is somewhat fruit forward, meaning that the nose and the palate show a wonderful bouquet of fresh fruit right from the start. The cherry, vanilla, and chocolate aromas and flavors make me want to just keep pouring more from the bottle. Great with a steak or all by itself!

The 2007 Merlot is also rich with fruit, but shows a great maturity in the glass. Plum and cherry meet the nose, and a rich dark ruby color lines the glass. The flavors are much more complex than expected. The fruit comes forward, followed by a rich smokey finish with long tannins.

The best part of these wines is not only their flavors, but also their price. I picked them up for $3.99 a bottle. I remember these vintages selling for up to $15 when they first came out, but at this price I might buy a case of each.

Vertikal Riesling 2007

Along the Mosel river in central Germany lies some of the world’s most successful Riesling vineyards. The Mosel region is renowned for producing very high quality sweet white wines due to its reasonably temperate climate and steeply sloping hills.

A few years ago Precept brands acquired the importing and bottling rights to the Vertikal brand. Vertikal offers several different types of varietals including Spatlese, Auslase, Muller Thurgau, and Pinot Noir.

The 2007 Riesling Qualitatswein was the result of optimal growing conditions in Mosel that year. The blooms came on heavy and early, giving the grapes plenty of hang time before harvest. The sugar levels were just right. It was truly a “boom” year.

Because of the great harvest, the winery was able to produce 2001 cases of pretty good juice. This lowers the supply and demand curve, making this wine very reasonable for the quality.

My impressions of the 2007 Riesling were very pleasant indeed. Definitely sweet, but not overly cloying, the wine comes in at about 2.5 percent sugar with a relatively low alcohol level of 9.5%. This makes the wine well balanced and full of flavor. A nose and flavors of fresh peaches and pear, with a nice clean finish balances the wine very nicely.

I got this bottle from Grocery Outlet. The cost is a great $3.99 per bottle, and the Kennewick store has about 10 cases left. I suggest you get there and make your purchase soon. Also, realize that this is a 2007. It needs to be consumed in the next few weeks or months. White wines do not usually increase with age. This is no exception.

Cheers!!

Washington Hills Summit Reserve Chardonnay Tasting

Hey there folks! This week's advertisement for Grocery Outlet features Washington Hills Summit Reserve Chardonnay at $3.99 per bottle.

You've probably seen past posts by me about Washington Hills winery. It is part of the monsterous Precept winemaking business, with literally hundreds of labels under their belt. Some unknown labels, as well as labels and brands from some of the region’s most fantastic winemakers.

Washington Hills is made almost exclusively out of Columbia Valley AVA fruit. I can totally appreciate this because it comes from our own local vineyards. Hal Landvoigt, winemaker for the Washington Hills brand has been making wine for 20 years, with 15 of those years focusing on wines here in Washington.

The 2007 Summit Reserve Chardonnay that is featured at Grocery Outlet is not one that I’d had before. While working in the distribution I had tasted and sold a substantial amount of the regular labeled Chardonnay, so I was excited to see what the Summit Reserve Offered.

The wine has a nose of pears and crisp apple that envelopes the glass as you pour it. The flavors open up with apple flavors and then turn to butterscotch and a hint of pineapple juice on the finish. Well balanced, this wine finishes clean on the palate.

I would highly recommend this paired with the store’s Cryo-Frozen Tuna steaks from the freezer section. Grill them and serve them up with Wassabi Mayo and shredded fresh ginger on a toasted bun. Dang that was tasty!

Enjoy!

Taking A Trip Down Avery Lane Tastes Pretty Good

Ok. So something happened this week that I thought was totally cool. I got asked to taste some wines. I know what you're thinking: "So what? You're the wine guy and you're always tasting somebody's wine. Right?"

Well, this is sort of true, and sort of not true. Usually I dive bomb into wineries without staff knowing who I am, pay my fee, and walk out just like any other customer. That is unless somebody knows who I am. This situation is a little different though.

My relationship with the owners of Grocery Outlet in Kennewick has been growing over the past few months. This week, Dane approached me and asked if I would taste some new wines that he had just brought in. These are wines from Avery Lane, one of the Precept Wine brands from Walla Walla.

Precept is well on its way to becoming one of the largest wine producers in the United States. Using talented winemakers from throughout the state, the company uses juice from many of the state's famous vineyards, bottles it, and markets it. Frankly, some of their wine brands are simply fantastic. Not only that, but the prices are out of this world!

One of the Precept brands is Avery Lane. A beautiful label, bottle, and cork. This wine is fit to be served anywhere from weddings to dinner with friends and they'll have no idea unless they read this column how much you really spent.

The wines I tried are as follows:

2008 Riesling: Peach blossoms and honeysuckle aromas fill the nose as you inhale. The initial taste is brilliant citrus, followed by a nice creaminess on the mid-palate. The finish is crisp and sweet with just the right amount of sugar balanced with acid to cleanse the palate. Enjoy with spicy home-made ceviche for a great meal pairing.

2007 Merlot: Cherry and vanilla fill the senses both on the nose, and in the mouth. When the wine is decanted or swirled in the glass the alcohol flavors make way for a delicious layering of cherries, dark berries, and vanilla. The jammy flavors make you want to have another sip! Enjoy with pork, beef, or a grilled salmon fillet from our freezer section.

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon: Dark cherries, blueberries, and currents on the nose. The flavors are dark berries, vanilla, and a hint of leather. Silky tannins on the finish. This bottle tastes like a rich, dark berry cobbler ready to be gobbled up.

Now for the kicker...this stuff hit the shelves today at $3.99 a bottle at Grocery Outlet. I don't know how much there is, but I've already picked up my case!

Grocery Outlet is located on the corner of 4th and Olympia in Kennewick. I hope you can make it down there and check out some of their great wines. When you do, let them know I sent you!

Enjoy!