While I was supposed to be tapering and hydrating this week as I prepared for the Peachtree Road Race 10k tomorrow, I couldn’t resist attending a couple wine tastings around the town.  Hey, it’s not like I’m going to win the darn race — it’s more like a party with 55,000 of your closest friend anyway!  Happy Independence Day!

First up was Chris Gaither, the neighborhood wine guy and mixologist, at Parish on Wednesday down in historic Inman Park.  It was supposed to be a focus on New York wines, but due to some last minute unforeseen circumstances, Chris had to change gears.  He made a nice recovery and everyone seemed to have a good time trying some different wines and learning some new stuff about wine, grapes and regions.  Yes, Chris has a flip-chart, an aroma kit as well as the Oxford Companion to Wine by Jancis Robinson and used them all in a deft and fluid manner while keeping it FUN!  The “I ♥ NY” tee-shirt was a nice touch too, Chris.

Two wines we found interesting and really enjoyed were:

2004 Leon Beyer – Pinot Gris from Alsace – Golden in color due to aging and oxidation.  The nose brought on some caramel and taste was full of tart, Granny Smith apple carrying to the finish.  Crisp and refreshing.

2007 Lioco Indica from Mendocino – Chris got a kick of informing everyone (more than once) that Indicia is a type of cannibus (shhh! – not sure how he knows this) – the wine is a blend of Carignan, Petit Sirah, Mourvedre and Grenache.  There was a potpourri of blackberries, violets and toffee on the nose followed by more black fruit, black cherries and light spice on the palate.

Next up was the very next night at Dynamic Dish where I accompanied Hardy from Dirty South Wine and some new acquaintances to try over 20 Rieslings from NY.  It seems Hardy has a well-known love affair for this grape.  There were no unforeseen circumstances here as our online, pubslisher wine friend Lenn Thompson from LennDevours provided this fare and I was fortunate enough to have an invitation.  I can’t list all the wines we tried due to space, but man, there was a ton of stuff about Riesling I did not know (nor did I profess to know, since I’ve historical been a red wine guy), and it was a great time hanging with some local wine and food groupies.  Thanks to Bob, Jimmy, Broderick, Bill and Matt who were also there!

To start the evening, Bob educated me on a very distinct characteristic/aroma of Riesling that I had not experienced before, but smacked me in the face (the bouquet, not Bob) right off the bat in the first wine: something he called “Petrol.”  It’s almost like smelling Kerosene and threw me off a little at first, but by the end of the night I had become friends with the good stank as other bottles produced more “acceptable” levels to my particular nose — to others, it may well indeed be most undesirable.  Technically speaking, this is the result of TDN (I won’t bore you with the full chemical name) which will become more detectable in Riesling as it ages.  As Bob also pointed out, you can be the smarty at the blind tasting party if you get this aroma because it is distinct to Riesling.

Two of my favorites:

2007 Dr. Konstantin Frank – Finger Lakes – lemon grass, apple and hint of spice.  The taste was like biting into a granny smith apple both in flavor as well as mouthfeel.  There was some sourness at the finish, but this was well-balanced and crisp.

1999 Marcel Deiss Saint-Hippolyte – The color of this aged wine was much darker, even toward golden.  Yes, it had the petrol up front, but with more honey that helped me enjoy this one much more.  There was good acidity to it  and showed a lot of tart citrus on the palate toward the end.  It was a favorite just to say I had the experience of tasting this wine with some very unique characteristics and to compare/contrast Rieslings of different age.