First night seder, we poured the 2005 Casa da Corca, Douro. Picked it up because it was non-mevushal. Standard Port-mix of grapes. This was poor QPR for Portuguese wine at $19, but decent wine on the whole. Like dry port- a nearly identical bouquet. Lots of menthol. Surprising amount of acid and tannin---this was actually shut down a bit, me thinks, and could benefit from aging. I'm just not convinced that Port-without-sugar makes a delicious wine, but this was fine for Kosher stuff. Didn't match up well with the sweet potatoes (what wine does other than big Zin?) but handled the other Passover foods (turkey, spring veggies, matzoh-stuffing) with aplomb.
Second night we went to friend's house, where I was presented with two wines to sample- I was told they were a viognier and a grenache from CA.
The viognier: Very(!) overripe. Dried apricots everywhere, almost like dried apricot & pineapple compote. Not much structure here. Interesting that given the overripe style I didn't pick up any oak. Really tough to drink--my mother made my father finish hers, described it as "stewy". Guess that's where I get my sensitivity to stewed-fruit aromas from.
The grenache: To quote my mother, "Yikes, cooked plums!" This is strange stuff, very hollow and thin, with lots of stewed plum on top. Underneath the stewiness there's a confected raspberry thing going on, so its possibly recognizable as grenache but I think I would have guessed Santa Barbara Pinot or something like that. It's actually not particularly hot for a grenache, especially one that shows such overripe aromas. Its just disjointed and strange- really one of the worst wines I've had in a long time and I feel bad because based upon what the hosts are saying, it wasn't cheap and it was bought at the winery. Tasted from two different bottles with identical results.
Turns out the Viognier is a 2007 N0vy Russian River Viogner; the Grenache is a 2005 N0vy Judge Family Vineyard Grenache.
I've said it before on this board and been criticized for it, but I'll say it again: I think Adam Lee is incompetent.
It was also interesting to see that my mother is just as sensitive to stewed fruit as I am. I'm not surprised that there might be a genetic component to that--normally when I drink wine with my family I bring bottles I know I'll like, so I've never seen her react with those sort of "ultraripe" aromas before.
There was also a kosher (mevushal) Goose Bay Sauvignon Blanc from NZ floating around our side of the seder table-- I didn't catch the year. I thought this was OK, nicely balanced, but was missing a lot of the aromatics that I usually associate with NZ Sauvy. I thought this suffered from the flash pastuerization, but I could have been reading that into a wine that I already knew was kosher.