The Glenlivet Nadurra

I hate to say it, but some single malts can be boring. The Glenlivet's Nadurra is a case in point. Michael Jackson (the whisky and beer writer, not the singer) described the Glenlivet's house style as flowery, fruity, and peachy and suggested it as an apertif. Certainly this bottle (bottled in March 2008 from batch 0308E at 56.2% ABV) is quite floral on the nose, but also very flat and closed at first. The color is a very light, golden straw, which leads me to think it must come from a first-fill bourbon cask, or even a naked cask. There is some cereal (wheat?) on the nose, but it takes a long time (15 minutes or more) to open up just a tad more. Then I get some honeysuckle and a little vanilla. Perhaps a little dry biscuit. It starts sweet and bright on the tongue, but then develops an off taste the longer it lingers in the mouth. With water there isn't much more to the nose and it does grow a little sweeter on the tongue, but otherwise I find little to interest me in this one.

These are my first impressions and I will certainly give this another chance (have to, I have a whole bottle), but my first encounter is not encouraging at all.

Finding a Wine to Drink With Offal - The Atlantic Food Channel

Finding a Wine to Drink With Offal - The Atlantic Food Channel

Shared via AddThis

Preparing offal can be quite laborious, but the results can be quite stunning. This piece from the Atlantic's food channel talks about the whole process down to paring a wine with the beef heart described in the article. Makes me want to run down to my local french restaurant and demand some offal!

Too many Virginia wine events?

The title is somewhat facetious, but it can be quite confusing tracking events when Virginia is now replete with wine events. It certainly confused me as we headed out to what we thought was the Virginia Wine Festival this weekend. Last year's festival was held at the Fairfax County Fairgrounds, which was awful in many respects. Earlier this summer I received an email announcing that the wine festival was moving back to the Plains near Middleburg. Except it wasn't the Wine Festival we were used to; rather it was wine and polo at the Plains. And none of our favorite wineries (Barboursville, Am Rhein, Keswick, Chrysalis, Veritas, etc) were there. Frankly, most of the wineries were not very good at the Wine Festival at the Plains, but there was at least one rough gem we discovered. Gabriele Rausse, one of the original founders of Barboursville and Jefferson Vineyards, was there in person to sell his new wines under his own name.

As soon as I saw Gabriele, I knew he was a real old-world wine maker. Wearing a sweater over his button down shirt and with his jeans, his hands spoke of decades spent in the fields. The experience shows in his new venture that clearly outshone the others there. Both his reds and his whites are very good, including a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Touriga, the basic bianco, and a Trefosco, which is a little-grown, and little-known, grape from the upper northeast of Italy near the border with the former Yugoslavia. Not everything works perfectly, but I'm sure more time will lead to better wines. And Gabriele is passionate about using french oak for his aging, despite the expense (upwards of $1000 a barrel). We bought several bottles of each.

And so, it's on to the "real" festival this coming weekend to see some old friends...

Evan Williams Single Barrel 1999 Vintage

Evan Williams makes some excellent bourbon and has released single barrel vintages since 1990. The latest in stores is the 1999, bottled in February of this year, so not quite 10 years old. It's bottled at 86.6 proof, or 43.3% ABV. 10 years is a long time for bourbon to spend in a barrel, and this one shows it. The color is quite a light gold, but the wood hits the nose right off the bat. Vanilla is in there (as one would expect from oak barrels) and it is spicy and sweet at the same time. It has a very round mouth feel -- soft and smooth. Adding water brings some more sweetness forward, but it still has lots of wood. I would recommend trying this one on ice. The chill softens the wood and brings out more of the spicy notes.

Bowmore Gold

Bowmore is getting ready to release another extremely rare bottling to go along side the Bowmore Black and White of recent release. Unless I win the lottery, I am not going to have the $7,000 needed to buy this new one, but one can always dream (I did enter their sweepstakes to win a bottle of the Bowmore White, but I guess I am not a winner of a golden ticket). Here are the details John Hansell provided on his blog today:


Gold Bowmore is the third and final release of the three limited editions:
o Black Bowmore – 827 Bottles Released in 2007o White Bowmore – 732 Bottles Released in 2008o Gold Bowmore – 701 Bottles Released in Fall 2009
• Release date: September 2009
• Suggested Retail Price: $7,198.00 / USD
• Availability: 701 Bottles worldwide
• Packaging: Hand-numbered bottle presented in a Burr Elm box
• Gold Bowmore is 84.8% proof
• Gold Bowmore was distilled on 5 November 1964
• Matured in three (3) Bourbon casks and one (1) Oloroso sherry cask then married together
• 45 years of aging in the famous Bowmore Number One vault – below sea level
• Colour: Rich Gold / Aromas: Passion fruit, papaya, and vanilla
• Flavors: Ripe exotic fruits, creamy vanilla, hint of smoky peat
• Other: The oak Oloroso casks retain a tremendous amount of sherry walnut flavors resulting in a darker, reddish-amber whisky color
• The casks are aged below sea level in Bowmore’s coastal cellar – the Number 1 vault.
• Floral notes are deeper, flavors more profound, color is darker than usual allowing it to develop in a fashion similar to a fine vintage port.

New York Times on Sustainability and Healthcare

There were two interesting pieces in yesterday's NYT that I wanted to bring to everyone's attention. The first was a front page piece on the Hoki fish from New Zealand, which apparently is the fish you usually are eating in a fish filet from McD's or in frozen fish sticks. The story reminds us that there is no permanently sustainable fish stock -- what's plentiful today can easily be over-fished tomorrow. I was also interested to see how political pressure can result in continued stamp of approval from the Marine Stewardship Council, even after evidence begins to emerge that a fish is no longer plentiful.

The second piece was an op-ed by Michael Pollan pointing out that many of our current health-care issues can be traced to our eating habits. You may agree or disagree with him, but it is an interesting argument to address.

Gordon Ramsey's Rep

His restaurants have been voted most overpriced and disappointing in a recent poll. I have eaten at one of his restaurants (three years ago) and thought it was good, but not great. Rabbit was over-salted, if I remember correctly, but the service was excellent.