Sonoma Valley Portworks Petite Sirah Port 2007 Clarksburg, CA During my trip last spring to Petaluma, I picked up this bottle of port in a surge of jubilation that I had found a winery specializing in dessert wines (613 2nd Street in the Foundry Wharf building). Plenty of wineries offer one or a handful of
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Lost Sonnet Meritage 2007 Napa Valley, CA This is a blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and merlot. One sip at the Trader Joe’s tasting table, and I was sold on it being worth the $9.99 (hey, that’s expensive for TJ’s wine!). The nose is very appealing, with a scent of warmed spices and vanilla
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Lazurro Nero D’Avola 2007 Sicily, Italy The nose of this Italian red smells of fig with clove. It tastes like eucalyptus leaves, fig, raisin, cranberry, and clove. Overall, it’s too tangy but an okay drinking wine. I’m still trying to figure out why it was recommended to me when I said I liked Spanish wines,
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Dynamite Vineyards 2007 North Coast Chardonnay Sonoma, CA This chardonnay is light-bodied. The nose is of hard caramel candy with extra vanilla mixed in. The fruit hits you first on sipping: starfruit and apple. Then a bit of cream kicks in like a low-calorie, french vanilla ice cream, just enough to guide the fruit home
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Yellow Jersey Sauvignon Blanc 2007 Burgundy, France A plastic bottle of wine!? What is this world coming to? Eh, I’m trying to work up wino rage, but I just don’t care that this is in a plastic bottle. The fact that it’s quite good probably helps with that. There’s no nose to speak of. The
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Augey 2007 Bordeaux France This is a subtle wine with a lot of flavor, which may be a contradiction of sorts. It’s full of fruit–the fruitiest wine I’ve had in a while, truth be told. It’s also pretty thick. I like the simple berry goodness; there’s a smorgasbord of blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry all begging
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Napa River Merlot 2007 Napa County Nose: Clove, tobacco, and prune in that order. There’s a lot of fruit in this medium-bodied wine including raspberry, cherry, and prune. Clove notes hang out for the aftertaste. It’s not terribly complex, but it’s a good, easy sipper.