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Thursday, Kymber came by with Jeff Gordon. No not the race car driver, but the owner of Gordon Brothers Family Vineyards in Pasco, Washington. I was looking forward to this visit because I met Jeff out in Washington on my now-infamous Road Trip WA Wine last year. Jeff was hosting a lunch at a restaurant in Richland, and from there, I was part of a team that went out to Jeff’s winery and I got to work a bit with Gordon Bros. winemaker Tim Henley.

Jeff was in town, showing off his wares, and came in with 5 of his wines for Shannon to try and me to revisit:

Kamiak White Wine Columbia Valley 2007. Grade=Outstanding. This blend of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Geuwrtztraminer shows off some nice stone fruit and tropical fruit character, a light-to-medium-bodied context, and some nice balanced acidity. A nice crowdpleasing white wine for everyday drinking.

Gordon Brothers Chardonnay Columbia Valley 2007. Grade=Outstanding. Medium-bodied with splashes of tropical fruit aromas and flavors, with 100% malolactic fermentation lending to its butterscotch, toffee, creamy vanilla finish.

Kamiak Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot Columbia Valley 2005. Grade=Outstanding. Soft, supple, medium-bodied red with splashes of red and black berry fruits, some spicy oak, and hints of chocolate.

Gordon Brothers Merlot Columbia Valley 2007. Grade=Outstanding. Has a bit of Cab and Syrah blended in, giving it a medium-to-full-bodied character, showing off lots of black cherries, dark plum, blackberries, cedar and earth tones. Supple tannins lead into a lingering finish.

Gordon Brothers Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley 2007. Grade=Outstanding. Supple, velvety Cab with small amounts of Syrah and Merlot adding complexity. This full-bodied red displays a lot of blackberry, cassis, cinnamon roll, milk chocolate and white pepper. Very nice.

Friday, Kymber dropped off a bottle of Gordon Brothers Cabernet Sauvignon Clone Six 2008 (Grade=Amazing), a new release from Jeff and Tim. This 100% Cab is rich and robust, with massive black cherry, blackberry, dark chocolate, espresso bean, tar, baked earth, dark roasted coffee, with slight mint and pepper undertones. Simply gorgeous.

It was definitely cool to see Jeff again. And for a little bit, I was once again back in Eastern Washington, rediscovering a place that I may one day call home. Until then, I will continue my work as unofficial ambassador of Washington State ambrosia.

Our good friend and Heidelberg rep Kymber (filling in for our favorite wine mama, Wendy) brought by a kind of grab bag of wines:

Robert Stemmler Chardonnay Carneros 2007. Grade=Amazing. This is an incredible rich, full-bodied Chard with harmonious tropical and stone fruit aromas and flavors, creamy oak, buttered brioche, butterscotch, lychee nut, caramel and vanilla bean. Finishes dense and long.

Casabella House Jam Chillin’ White Italy NV. Grade=Outstanding. Pretty interesting blend of Malvasia Bianca and Chardonnay, coming off with honeyed apples and apricots, a hint of orange blossom, and some candied peaches. Very nice.

Casabella House Jam Smooth Red Italy NV. Grade=Outstanding. Intriguingly semi-sweet Bonarda, showing off some raspberry and red currant jam, a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg, some white chocolate-covered cherries, finishing with a bit of cranberry relish.

Back on Wednesday, our good friend and Vintner Select sales manager Jeff came by with some ports and a very unusual Chilean white wine:

Cucao Pedro Ximenez Elqui Valley 2009. Grade=Outstanding. Usually, when you think of PX, you think Spain, and you almost certainly envision something sweet. One big mindf… this light-bodied, quite dry white wine shows off some cool lime zest, chayote, lemongrass, verbena and white tea notes. Finishes with a lot of lively acidity.

Kopke White Port NV. Grade=Outstanding+. Slightly dry, this is a great introduction to white port, perfect for patio sipping. Not cloying, this medium-bodied wine displays nice notes of stone fruit, chalk, and hints of lime.

Kopke Fine Ruby Port NV. Grade=Outstanding. Young, juicy red fruits in a sweet jam context, with a slight hint of peppery spice, red and black raspberries, cinnamon dust, and chocolate ganache.

Kopke 10 Year Tawny Port. Grade=Outstanding+. Delicious notes of caramel, toffee, milk chocolate, vanillin oak, coffee, baking spices and mocha. Has a beautifully creamy finish.

Kopke Late-Bottled Vintage Port 2001. Grade=Outstanding+. Rich, dense, with some dark berries, chocolate, baking spices, vanilla and cocoa bean, dark plums, and brownies smothered in raspberry and blackberry coulis. Pretty tasty.

Our good friend and RNDC/Barkley rep Lou came by some old and some new wine:

Middle Sister Sauvignon Blanc Surfer Girl NV. Grade=Outstanding. Very nice, expressive, light-bodied SB with fresh-picked lemon, grapefruit and guava characters.

Bearboat Pinot Gris Sonoma Coast 2008. Grade=Outstanding. Light-bodied, very floral, with a lot of mineral and melon characters. Nice value.

Bearboat Chardonnay Russian River Valley 2007. Grade=Average. Reminiscent of a Maconnais or a Cote Chalonnaise style. Has a lot of herbaceous and earthy qualities mixed in with stone fruit and mineral notes. I liked it at first taste, then was confused, then liked it and finished up very perplexed.

Bearboat Riesling Central Coast 2008. Grade=Outstanding. Pretty, floral Riesling with some nice peach and apricot notes. Semi-dry. Finishes soft.

Middle Sister Pinot Noir Goody 2 Shoes NV. Grade=Average. Cherry cola, sweet tarts and some plum jam. Soft, fruity with some sweetness make this a nice poolside red. Wouldn’t be bad to chill a bit.

Bearboat Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast 2007. Grade=Outstanding. Nice, showing some Burgundian elements with earth, truffle, mushroom, cherry and roasted nuts. Medium-bodied with nice acidity.

Bearboat Pinot Noir Russian River Valley 2006. Grade=Average. This tastes a bit dirty and tired, as if the fruit is on its way out of town. Still has some left in a hangers-on kind-of way. Very earthy and dusty, with a hint of forest floor (that one is for you Lettie).

BRIEF ANNOUNCEMENT! UTGT welcomes another future wino into the world. Our favorite wine mama, Wendy Huff from Heidelberg gave birth to a healthy baby girl on Wednesday. Baby Lucy joins clan Huff healthy and happy. Congrats to Wendy, her husband, and Lucy’s new big brother Jake. (I have been so afraid Wendy was going to give birth in the middle of one of our barrel-top tastings, it’s been borderline neurotic - so her going to the hospital was a relief to me as much as it was to her, I am sure).

Cheers!

Our good friend Martin from Martin & Co. came by with more stuff from his growing portfolio:

Humberto Canale Extra Brut Patagonia NV. Grade=Outstanding. I was surprised at how good this unusual sparkling blend of Semillon, Pinot Noir, Merlot (yea, I said Merlot) and Sauvignon Blanc shows off a very tart, green apple-influenced sparkler. Very nice.

Bodegas Benegas Clara Benegas Chardonnay-Sauvignon Blanc Mendoza 2009. Grade=Outstanding. Wonderful Chard/SB blend that shows off lots of tropical fruit, mineral, and dried herbs.

Claudia Springs Pinot Gris Mendocino County 2008. Grade=Outstanding. Very Alsatian in style, with lots of lemongrass, dried herbs, limestone, slate, white flowers and lime zest.

Humberto Canale Pinot Noir Patagonia 2008. Grade=Outstanding. A revisit from a previous post, I was again, marveling at how good this was for the price.

Humberto Canale Intimo Reserva Patagonia 2008. Grade=Outstanding. My second taste of this terrific blend.

Recently, I decided to bag the Grape Therapy newsletter, incorporating it into the ongoing Buzz Bin, in an attempt to streamline some of my various besotted musings. The newest issue of the Buzz Bin has been expanded to 9 pages, and will eventually morph into a 12-page newsletter, featuring all the wine, beer and spirits brouhaha you can handle.

Also, we’ve unveiled our new DEP’s Twitter Tasting schedule, kicking off September 22nd, from 6-8 pm, and featuring the wines of Yakima Valley’s Airfield Estates. The first of each month, we will begin offering a Twitter Tasting kit, containing 4 of the featured winery’s wines, at a discounted price, and participants will have until the day of the tasting to purchase. Then, all you need to do is go home, power up your laptop, crack open the bottles, and log onto Twitter (and/or Facebook). You can follow @k2whino and @depsfinewine to see our comments on the wines, and post your own either solo, with a friend or a group of friends. Make dinner or apps and turn it into a party. Make sure all your comments include the “hashtag” #DEPStwitter so that we can round up all the comments for our blog here the following day. For more information, contact K2 at [email protected]. And check out the schedule here.

Monday night, Shannon, one of our part-time guys, Steve, and myself went over to downtown Cincinnati restaurant Nada to join our good friends at Cutting Edge as they hosted a dinner with Pedro Llanas, winemaker for Bodegas Borsao and Alto Moncayo. Nada features their creative (and delicious) bent on Mexican-style cuisine, and is situated right next to Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center, and right in the heart of what I immediately realized was a blossoming restaurant district.

We should up and immediately found our Cutting Edge rep/good friend Lauren, as well as CE wine manager Steve Tucker, and of course Pedro. Along with some other local friends/buyers, we sat down to quite a feast, as well as just about every wine Pedro makes:

Bodegas Borsao Borsao Rosado Campo de Borja 2009. Grade=Outstanding. Lively, pretty notes of strawberries and rhubarb tartlet. Quite dry with good balance of acidity.

Bodegas Borsao Vina Borgia Campo de Borja 2009. Grade=Outstanding. 100% tank-fermented Grenache shows a bright, juicy red cherry and plum notes. Very approachable.

Bodegas Borsao Borsao Campo de Borja 2009. Grade=Outstanding. This Grenache/Tempranillo blend is a consistent value, with red and black berry fruit aromas and flavors. Soft, fragrant and easy-on-the-palate.

Bodegas Borsao Borsao Monte Oton Campo de Borja 2009. Grade=Outstanding+. One of my favorite value wines, this 100% Grenache has a lot to offer than the previous two reds, with more dense and opulent red and black fruits, a bit of baking spice and fresh herbs, and even a touch of chocolate.

Bodegas Borsao Tres Picos Campo de Borja 2007. Grade=Outstanding+. This gorgeous Grenache is rich, robust and filled to the brim with black cherries, dark plums, white pepper, dried herbs, mineral and a hint of cedar smoke. Finishes long.

Bodegas Borsao Crianza Campo de Borja 2007. Grade=Outstanding+. This Grenache/Tempranillo/Cabernet Sauvignon blend shows some prowess with its red and black currant, black cherry, blackberry and baking spice character, intermingling with notes of red and purple flowers, slight baked earth, mint and dark chocolate. Really nice.

Alto Moncayo Alto Moncayo Campo de Borja 2007. Grade=Amazing. 100% Grenache that is oak aged to perfection with unctuous notes of dark red and black fruit aromas and flavors, cracked black pepper, creamy vanilla, mocha powder, earth and black truffle tones, and a plush, full-bodied finish. Gorgeous!

Alto Moncayo Aquilon Campo de Borja 2006. Grade=Amazing. Unbelievably delicious with its full-bodied delivery of violets, blackberry, black raspberry, blueberry, black truffle, white pepper, cumin, cinnamon, baked strawberries, and mocha notes. The midpalate is rich and layered, and the finish seems never-ending. I am obliged to insert a gratuitous Christina Hendricks reference here now. And then I’d smoke ‘em if I had ‘em.

The dinner was amazing, as the staff at Nada really delivers the goods. I had pork belly tacos for dinner, which anything pork belly to me shoves me into a state of gi-normous arousal (forgive the visuals). Pork belly is essentially meat candy, with all the goodness of its lush, decadent fattiness, crispiness and slow-roasted succulence intact. I should have had the server call me an ambulance after dinner because I was stroke-bound, I was sure of it.

A good time was had by all, as Pedro talked about blending and auto racing, and we all bantered about industry gossip and all things Jorge. Thank you Mark, Steve, Pedro and of course Lauren, and all the folks at Nada for a great evening.

Over the weekend, I wanted to do some cooking, and decided this would be a great opportunity to get to the bottle of Oberon Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley 2009 (Grade=Outstanding), sent to me courtesy of Susanne Bergrstom, PR Director and Partner of Folio Fine Wine Partners. I love Sauvignon Blanc, and my wife does too, so I hoped to make a good dinner and serve the Oberon alongside.

Oberon always sparks a bit of my English lit studies back into play, as I think of Oberon as the King of the Faeries from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which makes it right at home considering 2 of my 8 cats are named Moonshine (a clown) and Peaseblossom (a faerie), both minor characters from the same Shakespeare play.

Saturday night, I made pan-seared sea bass with steamed Hawaiian potatoes and vegetables, and the wine married well, though I wasn’t as stoked about the sea bass as my wife was. The sea bass was a bit too glycerol while the Oberon, not quite as chilled as I had hoped, was full of fleshy lemon meringue, Key lime pie and fresh guava and gooseberries. There were slight notes of dried herbs, yet the partial barrel fermentation lent a creamier texture, rounding off any harsh angles. The overall wine was smooth, fruit-driven and delicious.

Sunday night, realizing there was still some of the Oberon left, I decided to broil a couple of huge pork chops, with some braised cabbage and buttered corn. The Oberon again, paired well, but I dried out the pork chops (I am usually a better cook than this) so thank God the wine was good. Being enclosed in screw cap meant the wine was as fresh as if I had just opened it. (Take that all you cork-ophiles!)

I was really impressed with this Napa Valley white and I think you will be too.

This week has been something of a blur, and for the life of me, I couldn’t explain to you any particular reason why. It’s been all over the map, really. We’ve had a few shake-ups personnel-wise at the store, my wife is home recovering from a broken ankle, there have been several brands shuffling amongst the various distributors here in Kentucky, and I’ve reached out to several wineries in Washington, and even an Arizona producer that I’ve been dying to get here in the Commonwealth for several months now. All this while our customers’ kids are heading back to school this week – which means a very uneven flow of business for the next few weeks, which comes unfortunately about the same time as the arrival of several direct import items and our impending Labor Day weekend inventory.

In other words, it’s just another day in the life…

The reason for all this reflection is the resurrection of the same conversation my wife has with me from time-to-time, concerning my career in this business, and where I am going from right here, right now. I’ve alluded a few times to the fact that my dream gig is to be a buyer at Berry Bros. & Rudd, a prominent and historic wine shop in London, England (with stores in Hong Kong and Dubai as well). They’ve been in business for over 300 years – that’s what I said, 300 years! – so they obviously know what they are doing. I get the impression every buyer is a certified Master of Wine (literally), so I’ve a ways to go before I would probably qualify, but that hasn’t stopped my wife from immersing ourselves in BBC America nearly every night, and swallowing up Brit culture like it will disappear tomorrow.

Now, I am not saying that I am leaving my current post anytime soon. On the contrary, barring any colossal screw-ups on my end, I hope to stay here at DEP’s for quite some time. No, we all have those pipe-dreams where we’d like to end up in our lives, whether it’s owning a bar in the Caribbean, a Bed & Breakfast in the Colorado Rockies or on the coast of Maine, a winery in Napa/Bordeaux/Rioja/wherever, a farm in upstate New York – you get the idea. It would be very cool to be interviewed for a position there in the distant future, where I could perhaps put my passion for Italian wines to good use, travelling to Barolo and Brunello, and all over the Italian countryside in search of the best of the best for the clientele of BBR. My wife is always on me to plan for such a position, beginning with compiling a portfolio of letters from winemaker friends and business associates, news articles regarding my wine self-prostitution, my certifications, Web stuff, Blog stuff, etc., etc. Sometimes it’s cool to work on something like that, but as with anything else in Life, Life tends to get in the way.

I’ve been putting off the next certification tests for some time now. I’ve bitched and moaned about this several times in the past, I seem to be far too busy to dedicate any time to study. While I remember not too long ago, managing a restaurant nearly 60-70 hours a week and still carrying 12 credit hours (or more) in college for 5 years straight. But then I wasn’t married, with a more demanding job, yada yada yada. I know, but fuck, they don’t call me K2 “Whine-O” for nothing, right?

Life can take you in multiple directions. I’m living proof. One day, I am headed to Florida for Naval Basic Training, and the next minute I am headed to Los Angeles via South Carolina to chase a rock ‘n’roll dream, only to come back to Ohio, get my degree, get married, and wind up hocking grape juice for a living. Certainly never had any idea that watching Grandpa Keith bottle Elderberry wine in empty Little Kings Cream Ale bottles would lead me to one day buy wine for a pretty decent sized wine and spirits outfit like DEP’s. Tomorrow, my tired old vampire novel could get published after sitting in a drawer for 14 years, and I could end up bigger than J.K. Rowling, buying a house in Washington State, and becoming a writer-recluse cranking out more work than Stephen King, Dean Koontz and R.L. Stine combined. You never know.

I got a few phone calls, and one of my FB friends contacted me in regards to another Kevin Keith, this guy sitting on Death Row in Ohio, sentenced to die September 10^th of this year. Supposedly he was wrongly convicted, with the Innocence Mission getting involved in a last ditch effort to have him exonerated. If Fate was different, would he be writing this blog and I sitting their counting down my last days? We all have many other “me’s” out there, people who share our names, yet have completely different lives. Last I checked, there is Kevin Keith, the Chapman Stick player in Los Angeles; Kevin Keith, afternoon D.J. at Lite 97.9 in Mississippi; Kevin Keith, photographer from NYC; Kevin Keith, molecular biophysicist from Chicago; Kevin Keith, attorney in Dallas, TX; and of course, Kevin Keith, death row inmate in Columbus, OH. People who aside from a name, have nothing in common, yet all roaming around this world, all part of Life’s grand design. (I can hear everyone out there cringing at my descent into metaphysical philosophy or what-have-you).

So I am sitting here in my office right now, cranking Morphine’s “Wishing Well” and contemplating the future, short-term and long-term. You never know what lies out past the horizon until you get there.