Friday Night Wine Blogging

Sadly last night's wine blog was cancelled due to the impact of a very busy week. Cool stuff. Very cool in some cases, but no real time for blogging last night. So, I planned to do it tonight, but I settle in, turn on my tv and there before my very eyes is Ginger Baker.

And he's alive!

And he's playing with Jack Bruce!!

And they're both playing with Clapton!!!

Yes, it's the Cream reunion filmed, I think, earlier this year.

Whoa I think I just had a flashback.

How cool is that? Ok, it turns out it is a WTTW pledge week special so I am now watching to hopelessly square suburbanites try to be cool, and in a way, that 's entertaining too.

Now, in my first post on "How to drink wine", I did say that for true appreciation you've got to concentrate so, technically any wine blogging tonight would violate my rule number 1.

So we have "Pursuit's Rule Number 2": Go with the flow baby!

Tonight's spotlight wine is a very special surprise. You may recall that a couple weeks ago I blogged about a 2001 Tinto Pasquera Ribera del Duero. Well about a week after that I walked into my office at work and there before my very eyes was a bottle of 1999 Tinto Pasquera Ribera del Duero! How cool is that? I had been talking Spanish wine with the guy who dropped it off so what we had was a little coinky dink as we say in the wine world. Does anybody else get free wine at work?

Anyway, I thought that it would be interesting to see what the differences between the two vintages was, and get a feel for how the additional three years of aging would impact the wine. So lets give this cork a pull and see what we've got shall we?

Cream is back on by the way. Excellent it's the opening riff to Sunshine of Your Love.

Ok corks' out and the room is filling with floral accents. Could be the flashbacks again, but no...I'm pretty sure it's the wine. Right off the bat I'm seeing the fruit as less pro-nounced on the nose, and I pick up much more depth to this wine. Not the smokiness that I've had in the Rioja's but still very earthy and rich. That cedar scent is what is providing the earthiness.

First taste and I'd say its a little lighter than I expected, definately less fruit and different fruit.

Oh crap, show's over! Well, I had to sit through Badge, and got to hear Sunshine of Your Love, so all in all not bad.

Back to the wine. I'm getting a strong vanilla finish to this wine with a good lasting mouth. Second taste is showing a very nice wine, some good structure with a cherryish fruit, some earth, no smoke yet, and a vanilla finish.

Here is my post on the 2002 vintage....very interesting there is a real similarity between these wines. I made a point not to look at my description, although I had a pretty good memory of the original, and there is a stong similarity between the two.

Wow, now Springsteen circa 1977 is on playing Thunder Road. So this is pretty cool. You know, if PBS had this stuff all the time I might actually contribute!

Ok back to the wine and hold on folks we have some news: It has been about 10 minutes (10th Avenue Freeze Out, Spirits in the Night) and we now have smoke. Not a lot, but a decent amount. Just a wisp on the nose as I sniffed the glass, and a whole lot more on the mouth. In fact it seems that the vanilla that I was tasting before is almost converting in flavor to the smoke. This didn't happen with the '02; could it be the extra three years allowed it to develop a little? Perhaps.

Well It's been about 45 minutes to an hour now and I've got what I'd describe as a spicy glass of smoke. What a wine! I'm not saying this is the best wine I've ever had, but at a 20 dollar price point it is tough to beat these Spanish wines. They're deep, they evolve in the glass and if Pasquera is indicative of all producers there is definately some aging potential here.

Backstreets now, and I must say this concert is very good. I've never been a huge Springsteen fan, but 30 years later these tunes definately hold up. Time to enjoy the rest of the show.

Over and out.