WINE TASTING ROOM-Completo's
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We are pleased to welcome adults who've been Double-Vaxxed
to our reopened Tasting Room.
Tasting Hours are 12pm until 6ish pm. Monday through Saturday.
UPDATED September 23, 2023
CHÂTEAU HAUT-MARBUZET 2019 Saint-Estèphe
$6.50/taste
This estate often
surprises...a hefty amount of Merlot but fortified with Cabernet Sauvignon, etc.
PRESQU'ILE 2021 Santa
Barbara SYRAH $3/taste
We like the peppery spice
notes in this elegant Central Coast red.
GRADASSI 2021 CHÂTEAUNEUF-DU-PAPE $6/taste
From a tiny Domaine in the
Southern Rhône...Grenache with about 20% Mourvèdre.
SADDLEBACK 2021 Napa "Old
Vines" ZINFANDEL $4/taste
There's a most intriguing
spice profile to this gentle Napa Valley Zinfandel, much like the previous
vintages we have featured.
Too bad winemaker Nils Venge produces but a few barrels of this amazing wine, so
its availability is limited.
APATSAGI 2021 PINOT NOIR
$24.99/bottle $2.50/taste
This has been a Weimax
favorite for several vintages and the latest release just arrived...it was a bit
bottle-shocked at first, but is now opening up nicely.
Still well-priced and thoroughly delicious!
LI VELI 2022 SUSUMANIELLO ROSATO
$2.70/taste
The Susumaniello grape was
nearly extinct, but now a handful of wineries in Italy's Puglia region are
dabbling with it.
We love their red wine and just tasted the recently-arrived 2022 Rosato.
It's a brilliant pink wine...dry and aromatic...mildly herbal, passion-fruit and
berries...
SHIBUMI
KNOLL 2019 Napa CABERNET SAUVIGNON $12.50/taste
From a
small vineyard near Saint Helena in the heart of the Napa Valley comes this
micro-production Cabernet Sauvignon.
Typically they make 6 or 7 barrels of this wine and it's produced under the
watchful eye of celebrity Napa winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown.
TRAMIN 2020 STOAN
White Wine Blend $3.90/taste
This is a customer
favorite here at Weimax.
It's a unique assembly featuring Chardonnay vinified in large wood, so it
doesn't pick up much oak.
Then there's a bit of citrusy Sauvignon Blanc and appley Pinot Bianco.
To put the finishing touch on the blend, winemaker Willi Stürz adds a drop of Gewürztraminer
(as they are in the town of Tramin, after all!).
Very fine.
WEEGMÜLLER
2019 SCHEUREBE TROCKEN
$1.90
We've been fans of the
Scheurebe grape for many years. It had been thought to be a cross of
Silvaner and something else, but it turns
out Riesling is one of the parents. The other is still a mystery.
What's not a mystery is the drinkability and charm of this wine.
Weegmüller is a smallish winery with some 15 hectares of vineyards and only a
tiny bit of Scheurebe.
It's vinified dry but the fragrances lead you to expect a wine with some
sweetness...ha! Surprise!!
IZADI 2018 RIOJA RESERVA $2.20/taste
This was the First Place
wine in a recent blind-tasting of Tempranillo wines...it's well-priced and
immediately drinkable. Classically styled, too.
PRECEDENT 2019 CARIGNANE
$.30/taste
The fellow who's the
winemaker at the Thomas Fogarty winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains has his own
label...
We're typically "allergic" to wines from Lodi, but this one has some
character and the grapes speak
eloquently...
POJER & SANDRI 2020 MULLER-THURGAU
$2/taste
It's not on the tasting
board, but we do have this available if you ask...Light & dry...
DOMAINE WASSLER 2019 RIESLING Grand
Cru Frankstein
$3.50/taste
This is just developing a
bit of the intriguing petrol character we like in Riesling.
It'd dry and has a good level of acidity.
The domaine is a new addition to our selections, imported by a new company...
CHAPPELLET
2021 "Mountain Cuvée" $5/taste
You'll
find dark fruit of the various Bordeaux varieties in Chappellet's 2021 blend
along with some sweet oak.
Very showy and it's a crowd-pleaser.
Sale price is $49.99/bottle
SADDLEBACK 2021 Napa ZINFANDEL $4/taste
From vineyards in northern
Napa, this is a most charming Zinfandel...brown spices!
Young but supple on the palate...
MERRY EDWARDS Russian River PINOT
NOIR $59.99 $6/taste
We usually find this
"regular" bottling from Merry Edwards to be the star of their line-up,
though they do make some far more costly bottles.
Beautifully drinkable now.
MONTEPELOSO 2020 "ENEO"
Tuscan Blend $44.99/bottle $4.50/taste
South of the famous Tuscan
coastal region of Bolgheri you'll find Suvereto.
Prices are usually more modest there.
Sangiovese with Cabernet Sauvignon and some Malvasia Nera...this is a terrific
"Super Tuscan" at a most attractive price.
POMMIER 2020 CHABLIS
$3.70/taste
We visited this impressive
Mom & Pop domaine a few years ago and found the wines to be classically
styled.
They had difficulty with their importer at the time and so we lost contact until
a friend began bringing Pommier's wine to the Bay Area!
We enjoyed a half bottle of this recently when dining at The Morris in San
Francisco.
The wine was $75 for a 375ml and they have it listed on the same page as their
Dauvissat wines noting they think
Pommier is "walking in the footsteps of Dauvissat."
Nice praise.
We have but a few half-bottles remaining...750mls are sold out
LABOUREAU 2020 CHOREY-LES-BEAUNE
$4.50/taste
A young, rising star
winemaker has impressed us with a quartet of good wines.
This Chorey-Les-Beaune shows good Pinot Noir fruit and a touch of
oak...impressive and well-priced.
ISOLE E OLENA 2020 Toscana CHARDONNAY $7.50/taste
We've routinely read
stories of winemaker Paolo de Marchi planting Chardonnay and that he did.
But the back-story is that he had really planted Cabernet Sauvignon, only to
discover several years later, that those cuttings were not Cabernet, but
Chardonnay!
He contacted the nursery after noticing the first crop of grapes did not change
color during the normal veraison period.
After questioning the company, they had to admit that, oops!, "we sent you
Chardonnay."
Well, these days the Isole e Olena Chardonnay is a magnificent wine.
A prominent vintner from another wine region texted to say Paolo's 2020 is
sensational.
Barrel fermented and remarkably good.
The wine is sold out, but you can still buy a taste for curiosity...
BINAH 2022 ROSÉ $2/taste
Beautifully berryish,
here's a terrific, off-dry Rosé from an unlikely wine region and a mystery
grape for most consumers.
It's made of the Chambourcin grape, a French-American hybrid that can produce a
bountiful crop of grape with
some pigment in the freshly-squeezed juice.
LE MARQUIS DE CALON SEGUR
Saint-Estèphe $5.00/taste
Our
little private tasting group evaluated a set of 2019 vintage
Bordeaux. We did not have any expensive bottles as we routinely
search for wines with sensible price tags.
The tasting was pretty good, but damned near everything was
within a narrow band of quality except to one or two wines.
This second label from Calon Segur ran away with the tasting and
it's a bargain at $49.99.
After the tasting we bought some other "first label" wines
from wineries in the same neighborhood and those retail for
$65 currently.
We found those more costly wines to be perfectly acceptable,
but they did not have excitement factor of this wine.
JADOT 2019 LADOIX Blanc $5/taste
We'll confess to not
having found much interesting wine within the Louis Jadot portfolio, but we
purchased a bottle of
this "domaine" bottled White Burgundy and we were shocked to find a
seriously good wine.
It's from an obscure appellation, but the wine outperforms wines from fancier
regions and it's modestly priced.
We purchased the remaining inventory at the local Jadot distributor.
Nicely toasty and creamy.
THOMAS FOGARTY 2018 Cienega Valley RIESLING $2/taste
Some wine geeks know
Fogarty as a good producer of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, but they likely have no
clue this
winery produces a kick-ass dry Riesling.
The vineyard is located in San Benito County's Cienega Valley...granite on top
of limestone.
The fruit struggles to ripen, often needing until late October or early November
to cross that finish line.
With some bottle aging, this has blossomed into a most handsome wine with the
classic
"petrol" fragrances of mature Riesling.
We poured this for a prominent Rheingau vintner who was shocked and even took a
few snapshots of the bottle.
More recently we shared a pour with a top Austrian vintner and he, too, was
astonished to find such a wine
from, of all places, California!
PEWSEY VALE 2015
CONTOURS RIESLING $3.90/taste
The Pewsey Vale winery is
devoted exclusively to Riesling.
Located in the Eden Valley above the Barossa Valley in Australia, this
"Contours" bottling is given extended aging before release.
The 2015 is showing beautifully and it's available today for
tasting...dry...mild petrol fragrances...floral and a bit stony.
Very fine.
QUIVIRA 2021 Dry Creek Valley
SAUVIGNON BLANC "Fig Tree" $2.70/Taste
Not many people know
Sonoma's Dry Creek Valley for much other than Zinfandel and maybe some other red
grapes.
But in the 1970s Dave Stare at the Dry Creek Vineyard made killer Sauvignon
Blanc wines (and Chenin Blanc, too).
Now you rarely see a Sauvignon Blanc with the Dry Creek appellation, but Quivira
makes a classic version.
(Now, they also make a Sonoma bottling...not the same and not as distinctive.)
Here are some distinctions: Mondavi I clone of Sauvignon with the Musqué
Clone.
Acacia barrels and neutral French oak...
And the 2021 vintage produced a smaller-than-normal harvest accounting for
greater intensity of the fruit.
Citrusy...tangerine or Cara Cara oranges???
DAULNY 2021 SANCERRE
$2.50/taste
Etienne
Daulny is an old-timer in France's Loire Valley.
His Sancerre is a favorite here at Weimax and, years ago, we
had a hand in its current iteration.
The local importer had brought in a few vintages and the wines
were perfectly drinkable but not sufficiently compelling for us
to bring it into the shop.
One winter we visited and tasted from tank...perfectly okay, but
nothing special.
We then tasted a tank sample of a single-vineyard, old-vine Sancerre
and said "You know, if you'd blend in a bit of this with the basic wine,
you might have something."
Etienne grabbed a test tube and blended 10, 20 and 30-percent and the
importer requested one of those as Monsieur Daulny calculated its price.
Ever since that fateful day, this wine has been a terrific Sancerre and the
importer keeps its price sensible.
Come see what you think!
TXOMIN ETXANIZ 2021 TXAKOLINA $2.30/taste
Txakolina is made from a red grape
and a white...it comes from Basque country in Spain and it's a low alcohol,
bone dry, crisp, dry white wine.
We often bring a bottle to start a meal at the nearby Basque Cultural Center as
it sets up
a read wine quite handsomely.
PAUL HOBBS Russian River Valley
CHARDONNAY $6/taste
Seven
vineyard sites and a few different clones of Chardonnay make for a rather
complex dry white.
Hobbs uses a fair percentage of new oak for fermenting and aging this wine.
It took about 7 months to complete the fermentation!
Full malolactic gives the wine a creamy texture.
They stir the lees every other week, too, adding texture and additional
complexity.
Full throttle California Chardonnay without the slight sweetness you might
find in many more commercial wines.
GREYWACKE 2020 "WILD"
SAUVIGNON BLANC $3.00/taste
Winemaker
Kevin Judd labored at the famous Cloudy Bay winery for 20+ vintages,
putting New Zealand on the wine map.
These days he has his own brand: Greywacke (a type of rock found all over
New Zealand).
He makes a classic New Zealand Sauvignon and then he makes this
"Wild Sauvignon," a sort of winemaker's reserve bottling.
Wild yeast. A bit of time in seasoned, or neutral, oak barrels.
Malolactic fermentation for a percentage of the wine.
It's a more serious Sauvignon and we describe it as "the thinking
person's
Sauvignon Blanc."
This is special!
TRAMIN GEWÜRZTRAMINER
$3.90/taste
We think this is a
benchmark for Gewürztraminer.
It comes from a special vineyard in the environs of Tramin and displays the
classic lychee, grapefruit and rose petal notes of the best wines from France's
Alsace which are made of the same grape.
This one is dry.
Some years ago I suggested this wine to a customer who was looking at our French
Gewurztraminer wines.
She looked at me sideways...how can Italy make Gewurztraminer?
She purchased a bottle and we did not hear back...until a year later.
"You sold me some Italian Gewurztraminer last year. If you have more
bottles, I'll drive down to Burlingame to buy several more. That was
surprisingly good!"
Yes, indeed.
ONE STONE 2022 PINOT NOIR ROSÉ
$1.60/Taste
From a winery in San Luis Obispo...they are not
far from Pismo Beach and a few minutes' drive from
Morro Bay.
It's made of Pinot Noir from vineyards cultivated with the idea of making a
Rosé.
Beautifully refreshing as it's dry and crisp, with snappy acidity.
And yet the flavors are very much those of Pinot Noir.
Oh...the price is refreshing, too!
ACRE 2019 Napa Valley ZINFANDEL $3/taste
So
many vineyards of various grape varieties have been pulled out in the Napa
Valley
and replaced with the "Money Grape," Cabernet Sauvignon.
Happily there are some growers who cultivate other grapes.
In the Oakville area, though, we're told there are less than 20 acres
remaining of Zinfandel.
This newish label, Acre, is owned by a couple who had been in the
wine distribution business before this project.
We like the mild spice and bramble notes of the Zinfandel and
it displays a touch of oak, having been matured in both
French and American barrels.
ZAHEL "ORANGE T" $1.90/taste
There's
a grape found interspersed with various local varieties in
vineyards around the Austrian city of Vienna.
Many of the little family wineries there use it for their white wine blend
called Gemischter Satz, a field blend of numerous grape varieties all
harvested and fermented together.
The grape to which we refer is called Orangetraube.
It's long been planted in Viennese vineyards and the Zahel family
realized it gives their field blend a unique character.
So in the 1960s, Karl Georg Zahel planted it entirely in a single parcel to
facilitate making it one its own.
We've heard a story suggesting the grape isn't precisely authorized
for bottling on its own -or- it's not an approved or recognized grape type.
As a result, Zahel can't legally label it with the grape name, Orangetraube.
You'll see on the label it's called simply "Orange T."
But don't mistake this for a skin-contact "orange wine."
It is not.
But it's damned tasty and well priced for such a rarity.
LLOYD 2021 Carneros CHARDONNAY $3.50/taste
The 2021 vintage from winemaker Rob
Lloyd is a classically
Californian take on Chardonnay.
Barrel fermented in American oak, it's a big, full-throttle,
creamy, nicely oaked Chardonnay.
Many fans of Rombauer have enjoyed Lloyd's wine and
this 2021 is a showy, flashy wine.
TITUS 2020 Napa Valley CABERNET
SAUVIGNON $5/Taste
We've a couple of vintages of this wine in two blind tastings of Cabernets and
Titus won both flights.
The 2020 is delicious...
Phil Titus and his brother have vineyards in and around St. Helena and they make
a nice range of wines. His day job is that as winemaker at the Chappellet
winery on
Pritchard Hill.
It's a really inky red wine, with youthful purple tones and plenty of dark
fruit.
There's a nice bit of oak here as it was matured in French and Hungarian
barrels.
Something like 60% of the barriques were brand new.
This goes for $62 at the winery.
We sale tag it at $49.99.
TERLAN 2021 TERLANER
(Italian White Blend) $3.20/taste
The
Terlan co-op winery in Italy's Alto Adige makes some pretty damned good wines.
They distinguish themselves with their work incorporating Pinot Bianco.
We visited the cellar a few years ago and they still had a tank of 1979 Pinot
Bianco that is a
"work in progress," awaiting bottling one of these years!
In early June we splurged and bought a bottle of their "Rarity" Pinot
Bianco...2007 vintage and
it's fairly recently bottled.
This was a magnificent wine, but it's price for its scarcity: $180/bottle!
A few days later we popped the cork on a few wines we'd bought in hopes of
making a
discovery and this 2019 "Terlaner" was exceptional. Not only
that, we can buy more than
six bottles of this compared to one of the Rarity!
The 2021 is currently in the shop...
The Terlaner appellation is a bit obscure, but it's a white wine blend based on
Pinot Bianco
with Chardonnay and, in this case, Sauvignon Blanc.
It's mostly fermented in stainless steel, but about 20% of the juice is vinified
in large wood to
add a bit of complexity. Happily, the wood is not prominent here and the
wine displays the
bright, appley and peachy notes of Pinot Bianco and Chardonnay.
SOALHEIRO ALVARINHO
$2.50/taste
The 2021 has been wildly popular...everyone who tastes this buys a bottle (or two)!
This is routinely one of our favorite, off-the-beaten-path dry white wines.
We brought a double magnum of the 2016 to dinner during the
San Francisco International Wine Competition and it was a hit with the
judges (from all over the world, too).
We brought this vintage recently to dinner with some friends at Dumpling Time in
San Francisco...thoroughly delicious!
And more recently we hosted the winemaker, Antonio Luis Cerdeira, at Dumpling
Time.
He was blown away by the food...and we brought some other wines to share,
including some allegedly premium Albariño from Spain...
...more costly and with nice stories but not justifying the $50-$75 prices.
We'll stick with Soalheiro.
Stony, nicely fruity with a hint of a spice note...
FORTIFIED & SWEET
WINES OPEN TODAY:
ALVEAR SOLERA 1927 PX $4.50/taste
From a Solera started nearly a hundred years ago...dark brown and
beautifully balanced...quite sweet...
QUINTA DO VESUVIO
2001 Vintage PORTO $8.50/taste
A special
bottling of Vintage Porto from the Symington Family, owners of Graham's,
Dow's and Warre's amongst others.
KRACHER 2018
BEERENAUSLESE $7.00/taste
The late
Alois Kracher's kids run the winery these days and still make wines of superior
quality.
The winery is in Illmitz near a lake which helps create the "noble
rot" (botrytis cinerea) that can positively impact
grapes being used for making sweet wines.
Kracher was a winemaking "artiste."
GINI 2011 RECIOTO DI
SOAVE $6/taste
Made
entirely from old vine Garganega, they dry the fruit for several months before
pressing the juice from the raisined grapes, yielding a sublime
nectar. The fermentation takes place in small barrels and it's matured
there for maybe a year and a half.
This is typically very expensive...we tasted it when it was priced to sell for
$55/half bottle.
A month, or so, later, it was on an inventory reduction price list and it's
currently $29.99/375ml bottle.
DONNAFUGATA
"BEN RYÉ Sicilian Passito $10/taste
This
comes from the Sicilian island of Pantelleria
and it's made of sweet Zibibbo grapes...
The winemaking is a bit particular, as they continually
add just-picked fruit to the fermentation tank over the
course of several weeks.
It's a benchmark wine.
Half bottles are sale-priced at $49.99.
CHÂTEAU
HAUT-MAYNE 2018 SAUTERNES $4.40/taste
So many Sauternes
estates claim they are "close to Château d'Yquem."
Okay...yes, Suduiraut, Guiraud, Sigalas Rabaud, Bastor Lamontagne and Château
Haut-Mayne.
And the Haut-Mayne, brought to us by a good, honest, local importer, arrives at
a terrific price.
$21.99/375ml.
It's darned near entirely Sémillon, with just a small drop of Sauvignon Blanc.
It's matured solely in small oak barrels with 25% of the cooperage being new.
Nicely honeyed.
BARBEITO 5 Year Old BUAL MADEIRA $2.40/taste
Not exactly dry but not precisely sweet...a nice 5 year old Madeira from a prestigious,
traditional winery.
GRAHAM'S 2006 "MALVEDOS" VINTAGE PORTO $6.50/taste
The Malvedos bottlings from Graham's are routinely very good and this is
showing beautifully!
GRAHAM'S 10 Year TAWNY PORT $3.30/taste
Nicely nutty and sweet!
YALUMBA "ANTIQUE TAWNY" $4.60/taste
They no longer call this sort of wine "Port" out of respect for
vintners in
Portugal's Douro Valley. But the wine is easily as interesting and
delicious
as good Portuguese Porto Tawnies. $24/375ml bottle
ALSO:
CRUZ VIEJA OLOROSO SHERRY $3.80
A well-aged, beautifully nutty dry Sherry...
