For some reason, the Jade Mountain 2006 Mourvèdre Evangelho Vineyard (née de Contra Costa County) is on sale around here for $10! I imagine that it is because of the logo change that has happened at Jade Mountain. However, this can't be good for the future sales of the wine here in Ohio...though this would seem to be moot, as it appears that they have withdrawn the Mourvèdre from their portfolio.

The new logo is more chic and trendy, but the original logo has a very cool archival feel to it that I am sorry to see go. The picture to the left is of the old label. If you want to see the new one, go here.

Whatever the case, the wine (which used to be $20, as I recall) is a delicious wine. $10 wines don't smell like this one does, and though I've had $20 Mourvèdres with more idiosyncrasy than this, it is soft-edged, so it will appeal to a wide variety of tastes.

Go get some Mourvèdre!

Food and Wine Harmony:

Red Meat! This one would also be good with Pozole if it's not very spicy, but would be better with a white bean and pork concoction (again, not spicy). Pulled Pork BBQ would love to cuddle with this wine on your tongue, and it might even pull the shade....

FWIW:  The 'ho' in Evangelho, a Portuguese word, is pronounced "yo"

Popularity: 4% [?]

Foxen Pinot Noir has always been sensational...and almost always impossible to get, until lately. The 2007 Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir was a lovely example of this--I could smell it from a foot above the glass. Its fruit profile was so sweet that it actually went well with VANILLA ICE CREAM, which not many dry wines will do.

It was actually kind of unrelenting, however. I.e., it is a full-throated wine and it was just as intense by the time I finished it as when I opened it. Sounds perfect, but some might find this a flaw. For me this was just fine, but the wine was not continuously intriguing. I only felt that I needed more than just me on the drinking docket (my wife had some, but not much). I drank it over two days, so that helped.

I never stopped enjoying the heck out of it. Thanks to Foxen for making such a grand expression of Pinot Noir. It's somewhere in the ballpark of $30, so well worth it.

Food & Wine Harmony: The fruit profile of this wine is so extraordinary that you could truly pour some on your ice cream and it would be excellent--weird, yes, but excellent. I also found it good with a parmesan-herb frittata, and a Thai-spiced grilled chicken, but I suspect that I would go with a huge variety of foods from savory to sweet.

For those who care:
Foxen 2007 Pinot Noir Santa Maria Valley 18.6/20
Soaring scent of plums and black cherries--ridiculously sweet aroma--with violets in the background. Santa Maria Valley wines so often have the aura that this wine has as well. Seems angelic, but also rather obvious about its piety.... The flavors back this up, and are so sweet (within the confines of DRY wine, for those of you worried about that) that it is hard to believe.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Marsanne is the source of some of the Rhône Valley's greatest white wines, but is (perhaps owing to the rarity of white wine from this region) a relatively obscure white wine grape as far as the wine-buying public at large is concerned. It is the Falstaff of white wine grapes: its wine is fat, deeply colored, easy to enjoy, and high in alcohol so it might get in you Falstaffian trouble if you drink too much of it.

Marsanne is likely native to the northern Rhône Valley, but is planted widely across southern France. It is increasing in acreage under vine in the United States, and is revered in Australia, where some of the world's oldest Marsanne vines are still producing grapes.

It has aromatic elements that can include almonds, caramel, honeysuckle, unroasted hazelnuts, and pineapple; flavors include caramel, honey, marzipan, pineapples, plums, saffron. Marsanne is a high-yielding vine, whose grapes possess naturally high grape sugar and relatively low acidity. It is traditionally blended with Roussanne, which has pronounced acidity, to achieve more depth (and to broaden Roussanne...). It is also commonly blended with Viognier and Vermentino (which is known in southern France as Rolle).

Marsanne with Food
Chicken, lobster, pork, smoked trout, pâté, risotto, braised endive, fennel, curry, rich-ish cheese.

Popularity: 11% [?]