LENNDEVOURS

The Wine Blogging Wednesday Logo Contest Semi-Finals

Before we get to the WBW Logo Contest semi-finalists or discuss the voting procedures, I just want to thank each and every person who submitted a logo or logos for consideration. There were dozens of great entries and it was difficult for the WBW advisors to narrow it down to the 6 you see below. I was planning to post all of the entries, but that would have been over whelming on many levels.

Take a look at the final 6 logos here or at Flickr account I've created for them.

Voting will take place over on the  Wine Blogging Wednesday website via the poll in the upper right corner. The semi-final round will run from today until May 31 at 11:59 p.m. Then, the top 3 vote getters will move into the finals. We'll update the poll and announce the final voting procedure in early June.

WBW #44: French Cabernet Franc: Domaine Gasnier 2006 Chinon Cuvee Les Graves

This month's edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, hosted by none other than Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV, is one I've been looking forward to for sometime for a few reasons.

First, as the founder of this here virtual wine tasting club, it's great to have Gary on board this month. Like him or hate him, he's big time in the online wine world. He's been on Ellen, Conan, Nightline and now he's hosting WBW. You'll notice that we wouldn't let him host WBW until after the other gigs. We had to make sure he was for real and not just a flash in the pan.

Second, I love cabernet franc, as you all know.

Third, this theme gave me an excuse to put down the New York wines for a moment and uncork a bottle of Chinon, one of my favorite French wine regions.

But, I broke one rule that I always have for myself when it comes to WBW -- this is a wine I've had before. In fact, this is a wine that I had once a while back, and I liked it so much that I bought a lot more of it. It's our house red when we want a break from local reds.

I'm drinking this bottle right now as I type this...and it's just as good as I remember. There's plenty of black and red plum up front and a little blackberry too, but there's all of the other things I love about cab franc as well. There's earthy notes, some asparagus (a good thing!), black pepper and a stony, mineral quality on a medium-long finish that is really nice.

It's medium bodied with medium tannins, it's versatile with food too. I've had it with Thai food. I've had it on it's own. And I've had it with pizza.

If you like your cab franc without (or with barely any) oak, you should definitely check this one out.

I bought this wine from Greene Grape Wine in Brooklyn.

Wine Blogging Wednesday #44 Announced: French Cabernet Franc with Gary Vaynerchuk

Just in case you live under a rock and missed it, Gary Vaynerchuk, the man behind Wine Library TV will be hosting the next edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday. His theme, not surprisingly, is French Cabernet Franc.

Gary loves these wines and so do I, so it's a theme I'm looking forward to. Of course, those who love over-extracted fruit bombs instead of nuanced, earthy-veggie-herbal reds, may not enjoy it as much. But hopefully they'll try something outside of their comfort zone.

Join Gary Vaynerchuk on April 2 for WBW #44.

Reminder: Wine Blogging Wednesday Logo Contest

I keep forgetting to post about this, but wanted to remind everyone that the Wine Blogging Wednesday logo contest is well under way.

So far, about a dozen entries have been sent to winebloggingwednesday@gmail.com. Some of them are quite good, but I'd still love to see more come in before our March 31 deadline.

You can read all of the details in the announcement.

We are also still looking for contributions to the prize pack for the winner.

 

Wine Blogging Wednesday #42: 7 Words -- Carlo Massimiliano Gritti 2003 Il Doge

Wine Blogging Wednesday is back today with one of its old-time participants, Andy of Spittoon.biz playing host. Andy is one of the founding fathers of wine blogging, and he's challenged WBW participants in a whole new way this time 'round.

The wine itself this month is easy enough. We had only to choose something red from Italy.

Where the challenge comes in is the tasting note, where we're only allowed to use 7 words.

In the spirit of the theme, I'm not going to go on and on with Carlo Massimiliano Gritti 2003 Il Doge's background either. You can read that where I got it, Bottlenotes. No, I'm going to get right into my 7 words.

Earth, flowers entice. Thin, dirty cherries. Underwhelming. 

Thanks for hosting, Andy. You're a tough editor.

WBW #40 Round Up. WBW#41 Announcement.

Who knew that petite sirah would be so popular as a Wine Blogging Wednesday theme? Well, apparently someone did, because she chose it as the theme for WBW #40 Que Sirah Sirah.

The Wannabe certainly doesn't seem like any sort of poser to me. She's posted the round up for this edition of WBW and we tied the record for number of participants with 54 blogs joining us. Thanks for hosting Megan!

Of course, we can't bask in the glow of WBW #40 for too long, what with the first WBW of 2008 right around the corner.

WBW #41 will be hosted by Jack and Joanne from Fork & Bottle. And, their theme is one that I'm excited to buy for, white wines from the Friuli region of Italy. These are some of the most interesting, unique whites around and they definitely diverge from the insipid pinot grigio that you might think of when you think of Italian whites.

So join us on Wednesday, January 16.

WBW #40: Fleur de California 2006 Petit Sirah

Well, it's Friday and I'm finally getting around to posting my entry for Wine Blogging Wednesday #40, hosted by everyone's favorite Wannabe Wino. Of course, is she really just a wannabe? Some would say not.

But anyway, her theme Que Sirah SIrah, asked us to turn our palates towards a grape that is sometimes overlooked, Petite Sirah.

My experience with PS has mostly been relegated to Bogle's $10 version, which I've alway enjoyed as a value wine for with grilled foods. My pathetic local wine shops just don't stock much of the stuff beyond that. So, I had to do some searching online and eventually I found this bottle from Greene Grape in Brooklyn.  I ordered a couple bottles just in case I really liked it.

Did I? Yeah, I liked it. I'm not going to order more, probably, but I did enjoy it.

I liked that it didn't seem as heavily oaked as the Bogle. I think this wine gives you the opportunity to really taste the grape. And, at 13.8% ABV, I knew I wouldn't be knocked over. I'm used to 12.5% in these parts.

It was dark purple-black in the glass with a decent nose of blackberries, blueberries and spice. The palate is hefty but not overly brawny. There is definitely a juiciness to it to go along with gently gripping tannin. The flavors closely match the nose with the spice coming through mostly as black pepper. With a little time in my glass, I picked up some dark chocolate flavors too.

Overall, it's tasty, if simple, and like I said before, I'd enjoy it with burgers or even steak fajitas hot off the grill. I'd give this wine  (2.5 out of 5 | Average-to-Very Good).

A big thanks goes out to our host this month. It was a great theme and one that has attracted a lot of new participants...which is awesome.

 

WBW #39: La Mere Boitier Macon-Villages 2004

Finding a Silver Burgundy, as this month's WBW host asked of us, proved much harder than I ever imagined. True, I didn't have time to go to my go-to shop for WBW. It's an hour from our house with traffic. But still, I stopped at two shops on my way home Tuesday evening expecting that I could find something. Strangely, if we were doing Chablis or "gold" Burgundy, I would have several options. Not so for this month's theme, however.

But, it was the lovely and talented Mrs. LENNDEVOURS, who found this bottle of La Mere Boitier Macon-Villages at a third local shop later in the evening. For $13.99 no less.

Sadly, because we found our wine so late, and things have been hectic with a sick 9-month old here at the LENNDEVOURS world headquarters there wasn't time for a full-fledge review, meaning that I didn't taste it blind or even pull my notebook out. But that doesn't mean we didn't like it.

I'm not going to pretend that it was some sort of revelation. It wasn't. But it had nice apple and citrus flavors, just a little oak that comes through as vanilla an caramel. Nice, faint hints of minerals too. Nice, but not aggressive, acidity balances the wine nicely and the finishe was a bit longer than I expected at this price point.

So, overall I'd definitely drink this wine again. Nena really liked it too, so we just might be drinking it again very soon.

Don't Forget: Tomorrow is Wine Blogging Wednesday #39

Tomorrow marks the 39th edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, the world's favorite virtual wine tasting event.

Neil over at Brooklynguy's Wine and Food blog is playing host and he's chosen "Silver Burgundy" as the theme.

As has happened the last couple of times out, WBW has snuck up on me again. So, I'll be heading to a few shops tonight after work in search of an appropriate wine.

WBW #38 Roundup and WBW #39 Announcement

I'm a little behind with this, but the roundup for Wine Blogging Wednesday #38, Portuguese Table Wines has been posted over at Catavino. As you can see, we had a nice turnout and the wine lovers behind Catavino did something a little different with the roundup. Certainly as participation grows, it becomes more and more tedious to read the roundup posts (let alone write them). Let us know what you think about the format they tried.

I'm also happy to announce that one of my favorite semi-local bloggers, Brookynguy is taking over the hosting reins for November's WBW #39 with Silver Burgundy as the theme.

Like I told him the other day via email, my knowledge of Burgundy is only sizable when compared to my knowledge of nuclear physics, so this should prove to be an educational month to be sure.

As always, you can head on over to the still-new Wine Blogging Wednesday site for all the news and updates. And, if you have any feedback or suggestions on how to make the site better, just shoot me an email.