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11/09/2004 Archived Entry: "New Newsletter and a Wine Buy"

If you are reading this page, you must have noticed the new box at the top. There is a similar sign-up-for the newsletter box on my home page, too. It my new mailing list -- so to speak. I know, I know -- I asked you to send me email so I could put together a list, but this is so much more efficient -- and permanent. And no one will ever again get anyone else's email address because I didn't click on the right box. So -- please, please put your address in that box above. Even if you have sent me mail recently. There will soon also be a more inter-active place on the site, so we can have a conversation going -- not quite like it used to be on the radio, but progress in my efforts to keep the food talk with Arthur going. The only thing I miss about the radio is you all.

Now, here’s Carol Berman’s Wine Buy of the Week. She will be doing one every Wednesday, as in radio days. Carol is back on the radio, not so by the way. She can now be heard on Friday mornings, 7:10 a.m., on WLIE 540AM, which, as its call letters imply, is based on Long Island but can be eard in New York City, as well as parts of New Jersey. For her Class in a Glass services – planning and executing wine tastings and wine-based events -- call her at (973) 324-0989.

GEYSER PEAK SAUVIGNON BLANC 2003

The Wine Buy for this week comes from a Sonoma-based, California winery that has excited me for a long time, and every time I taste Geyser Peak wines my interest is re-awakened. Their Sauvignon Blanc 2003, for instance, made from grapes sourced from different areas of California, captures this now very popular grape in all its facets.

There’s nothing overpowering here. No palate whiplash! Just a juicy, well-balanced wine. Sauvignon Blanc is a chameleon grape. It is produced in many countries, where it adapts to its environment and produces very different wines. In France, in the Loire Valley, you know it as Pouilly-Fume and Sancerre, usually delicate, minerally, lean wines. When produced in New Zealand, Sauvignon Blanc takes on a feisty citrus or herbaceous quality. In California, it wears many hats, and a lot of those hats just don’t do the grape justice. Geyser Peak’s Daryl Groom and Mike Schroeter and their winemaking team deliver a wine that is smooth, medium-bodied and mouth filling, with subtle citrus and melon flavors, and only a hint of the grassy flavor that Sauvignon is known for.

I like this with a good goat cheese. If you want to eat the goat cheese that is made near the winery, try one of my favorite California cheeses, Cypress Grove’s Humboldt Fog, from Sonoma County. It is the perfect pairing with this delicious wine.

The typical retail price for Geyser Peak’s Sauvignon Blanc 2003 is $12.99.