Another Cincinnati International Wine Festival has come and gone.  My wife and I had too much wine (just like every year), but it was fun.  I attended the festival with a dilemma this year.  On one hand, I wanted to take really good notes so that I could write all about it here.  On the other hand, I just wanted to enjoy myself and not worry about all that.  The solution: takes notes with a camera! 

I took along my camera this year and snapped photos of the wines that I found particularly good.  I didn’t tally scores as that’s a fairly tedious process.  And I didn’t take detailed notes either.  I just took pictures of what I enjoyed so that I can track them down later and do a more formal evaluation another day.  You won’t get the full details just yet, but here’s a glimpse of some forthcoming reviews.

I even got a picture of my ugly mug to put on the site.  That’s me, enjoying some Maryhill Zinfandel which has loads of rich dark berry flavors, a chocolaty mouth feel and an exciting complex spiciness.  Maryhill also had a nice Cabernet Sauvignon on hand which I enjoyed as well.  Both wines had outstanding concentration of flavors, good complexity and good balance.  They sell for $17-20.  I’ve been tasting more and more Washington State wines lately and these from Maryhill fueled my growing love affair with wines from that region.

Speaking of Zinfandels, the hands down best Zins I tasted at the festival where at the Four Vines booth.  They had three different Zins available that where all outstanding.  Unfortunately, only one of them falls into my $20 and under target price.  They also had a very good Naked Chardonnay that sells for about $13, but Zinfandel is what’s really special about Four Vines.  They also get accolades for having the most friendly reps working the booth and fun marketing.  I’ve seen a number of brands with great marketing for their wine, but mediocre product.  Four Vines had some “rock star” marketing and incredible wine.  The reps and I discussed the value of wine ratings as they have not sought out reviews from any of the major wine publications because they don’t want to play the game of catering to the critics (although they’ve gotten great ratings from Wine Spectator).  I encouraged them to engage the online wine community where independents like me provide an alternative voice.

Napa Cellars had another great Zinfandel that isn’t as spicy as some others I’ve had, but was still loaded with dark berry flavors and had enough pepper to make it interesting.  The festival judges also liked this Zin enough to award it a bronze medal.  This one sells for about $20, so it is at the high end of my target price range.  By the way, a series on Zinfandel is in the near future for this site.  I’ve started collecting bottles to taste for that already.

The best bargain wine I tried was the PKNT Carmenere, which retails for about $7.  The nose on this one actually smells a bit like a hot pepper, just like the one pictured on the bottle.  It’s a really full, flavorful and spicy wine.  It’s well worth the price and scores another point for Chilean reds. 

Speaking of bargains, I should mention that Toasted Head Winery won two golds, for their Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir.  That is outstanding for wines in the $10-15 range.  I didn’t make it to their booth, but I’ll be sure to pick up some of their wines to taste.

In the “wines I’ve wanted to try but haven’t come across” category, I was excited to try the Six Foot Six Shiraz Viognier.  I’ve been seeing a growing trend of winemakers adding a small amount of Viognier to Syrah in order to soften the palate and add a bit of complexity.  In this case the end result is packed full of brambly berry, chocolate and black pepper.  It’s a really well rounded wine and retails for about $18. 

Another producer who I was impressed with was Zaca Mesa.  They had an outstanding Syrah and their Z Cuvée (a Rhône-style blend) was also very enjoyable.  Both of those wines will run you about $20.  They have an interesting story too with all of their wines being 100% estate grown and bottled.  That’s something you’ll find in only about 1% of the wine you find on the shelves.

There were numerous great wines and I have an even longer list of wines I need to follow up on than I’ve listed here.  As they say, stay tuned.