Arbor Crest: 2008 Riesling

In The Way of All Flesh: The Romance of Ruins, Midas Dekkers has a wonderful chapter exploring many of the food and drink we’re accustomed to and their roots in preservation and spoilage. This chapter came to the front of my mind while tasting the Arbor Crest Riesling. If you consider the primary purpose of wine as preserving grape juice, then this wine is PERFECT because it has come incredibly close to maintaining the original grape flavor.

It has no complexity whatsoever… it’s a refreshing, clean, sweet and fruity blend. If you are new to wines and looking for a sweet, unhaughty and unpretentious white wine, then this is a really great wine to stock up on… but I wouldn’t keep too many on hand at a time. This tastes very much like a wine you’d want to drink soon after purchasing it.

As to food pairings… not much comes to mind. It would make a good aperitif or dessert wine. I could also see it being a very interesting contrast to brie or other nutty cheeses, but it’s not quite my bag. I prefer the more mineral Rieslings from regions with heavier slate content in the soil, like Trimbach.

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March 10, 2010 by in Food & Wine, Tastes Journal
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Sympathising with sardines

Taking the auto ferry from Red Hook, St. Thomas to Cruz Bay, St. John. this is turning out to be an amazing & somewhat terrifying adventure. First waiting in the hot parking lot, then putting your car, your sanity, and your life in the hands of the true Tetris mastery of the ferry crew. They keep putting just one more car on.

Then, when the ferry is full, they run between all the cars, randomly telling people to pull forward pull their wheels hard to the right and back up again… suddenly, there’s two more spots… and nobody can open their doors.

As it is, I’d swear we’re hanging off the front of this ferry… well – we’ll be the first off! Pity we can’t get out of the car to go up to enjoy the view… and not because we’re not allowed… anyone wishing to leave their car has to resort to Dukes of Hazard strategies…

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February 16, 2010 by in Travel
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Waking up on Saint Thomas

Woke up this morning to this view and the newfound revelation that, yet again, the cartoons lied to us about how bucolic farm life works… roosters do crow when the sun comes up.

They also crow every two minutes afterwards.

Last night, we hit XO Wine Bar and followed Alex’s lead… and just got appetizers. Huge plates if delicious eats! Then it was off to Duffy’s Love Shack for some significant drinking. Those drinks are great, and you get to keep the souvenir glasses… and… figure out how to get them home.

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February 14, 2010 by in Travel
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Igloo!

When I was growing up in the South, I always thought the kids up north got to have so much fun in the snow… sledding, snowball fights, building igloos…

So, I admit… I still get like a little kid when it snows. I never got to burn out, like all you Northerners.

Also, there was something fun about building a snow castle before heading to the islands.

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February 12, 2010 by in Uncategorized

Flying post blizzard

It’s going to be an interesting day of travel. Two feet of snow last weekend followed by another two feet last night.

Everyone in Philadelphia that could worked from home yesterday. That was working out OK for us until power cut out for our neighborhood late afternoon. This has lead me to a new conclusion… oil heat might be nice, but with electric thermostats, it’s not as convenient to store all your fuel in your basement when the power cuts out.

I’ll have to figure out if there’s a manual override when the power returns… no luck trying in the dark… and the cold. Fortunately, we had already pulled out our camping gear in preparation for our trip, so plenty of cold-weather, no-power gear readily on hand.

So Philadelphia airport still hasn’t finished clearing their runways. Our flight isn’t cancelled, but it is delayed 2 hours, and the plane that has to leave before ours is still covered with snow.

There’s a small army of zamboni-like snow plows on the runway and they’re still kicking up impressive amounts of snow and ice as they move through.

Granted, the iPhone doesn’t really capture the look because of all the glare, but here are a few shots out our window.

Nope… crap… flight just got cancelled.

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February 11, 2010 by in Travel
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Arbor Crest: 2007 Merlot

I’m not sure how I’m going to do this just yet, but I received a Wine Club subscription for Christmas, so I’m going to be getting some new wines over the next few months… and while I do have a broad set of favorites, I’m going to try to record the first impressions of the new ones. I’ll get fancier about these over time – but for now, I’m just going to try to get some notes out.

The back label of the Arbor Crest Merlot promises that it will “… yield layers of raspberry and current framed by spicy, vanilla-scented oak with lingering flavors of chocolate and blackberry.” All in all, I’d say this was pretty accurate. I’ve never had a palette that was good at identifying the raspberries, currants, and blackberries that other people describe in wines, but my first impression on trying this one was a strong fruity flavor without being overly sweet. After the fruit flavor, you get some of that oak – but very subtle, not a strong wood flavor like you get in some wines.

The label was accurate also in what it didn’t say. This is a very fruity and light merlot – but didn’t have a lot of earthiness or umami. I don’t know that I’d pair this one with oily savory foods – maybe not a main course wine. But I’m sure it would go great with cheese and appetizers.

I’d also recommend this one to friends trying to make the transition from sweeter wines to the more earthy/dry ones. It’s a nice, fruity, light wine that still isn’t sweet.

Their website… ugh… uses FRAMES and has a useless splash page with an all-too-large animated GIF.
Arbor Crest Wine Cellars
Merlot – Four Vineyards 2007

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February 7, 2010 by in Food & Wine, Tastes Journal
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