Happy Thanksgiving! Hello, everybody and welcome to Wine Library TV. I’m your host Gary Vaynerchuk, and this, my friends, is the Thunder show, a.k.a. the internet’s most passionate wine program and a big, massive hug. Hello to all the new Vayniacs watching for the first time because your young nephew or your daughter dragged your arms and you got to see this guy, Gary, he’s really handsome, who do a little bit of beard but you know, really charismatic. He’s awesome. He knows his wines and we got these wines from him and we’ve got to taste along with him, so big shout out to you, Auntie Susan and Uncle Johnny, big shout out to Grandpa Paul, welcome to the Thunder show and I hope you enjoy it and I hope I meet you and get to shake your hand and give you a kiss on the cheek.
Four wines, you guys have seen them on the Thunder pack now. I’m very excited about these wines; two whites, two reds and one that we’ve had on the show before if you rewind, a little more aged, the Zinfandel that I’m using actively right now in my home and I wanted to make sure that you had it as well. A lot of many people have tried as possible. I’m very excited about this show and let’s get right into it. Mott, my cameraman is Chris Mott, great guy, Giant’s fan but great guy.
Bodega Poesia, 2007 Torrontes is the first wine in your pack that I’d like you to try. This wine will sell at 10 US dollars. It is 100% Torrontes which is a white wine grape that is absolutely taking the wine industry by storm, I mean by thunderstorms, ten dollar wine, eight to twelve dollars, aromatically unbelievable. Please pour it to your glasses right now, get settled, and get in.
Let me tell you a little bit about Torrontes. DNA wise, a lot of people think that it has some relation to Muscat, definitely a grape varietal that is coming on strong. A lot of people who drink Pinot Griggio and Sauvignon Blancs have been gravitating towards us, even people that have not been traditional wine drinkers have been gravitating towards Torrontes because there’s a lot of fruit and you’ll pick it up in the nose in a minute, plus the price point, my friends. So a little bit of a tougher economy out there, but we still want to drink well, don’t we? Shake your heads, there you go, I see it.
So we got to drink smart, and that’s what Torrontes is. It’s smart drinking $8.00 to $12.00, great wines in the market place. Please, if nothing else after this one, try another Torrontes in the next three to six months, keep expanding that palate, keep trying this varietal. It’s extremely good with shellfish. I wanted to use it today because I think this is a great wine, you know, for your entry level dishes towards Thanksgiving, maybe when you first walk in, aperitif. If you’re watching this before you have guests over, maybe you can take it out of the fridge now, maybe you can keep it in room temperature and kind of serve it to people who first get there. As an entry level like, “here you go, great to see you, good to see you Uncle Norm, how about those Jets?” you know that kind of thing.
So, let’s give it some sniffy-sniff, because that’s what we’ll do in the Thunder show, Vayniacs explain to your new friends what is sniffy-sniff is. And you could see right up the top, Mott, you’ve got to smell this. This is where this grape really catches its fever and its excitement. It’s very aromatic, extremely floral. You got that acacia flower coming through. I get a lot of honey coming through on the nose as well. I also get bright honeysuckle coming through on the nose as well, muddy grease at the back. And also little fruit breeze action, right? It can make a little messiness in the bathroom and you want to make it smell nice. This is usually what comes in those aerosol cans and makes that whole room smell so delish, and that’s what I get on here.
So the very aromatic, very fragrant kind of like a Muscat in that style; now when you taste it, a little different action, let’s give it a whirl. For all you first timers, who got that beard on, because the Jets are not losing. I will not shave until my Jets lose. Now, here’s what we noticed, you still get that tropical fruit, cantaloupe, honeysuckle coming through in the mouth fill, but you got good acid, right? You feel the acid and that’s a food-friendly wine, my friends. It’s got a varied laser like focus. I almost feel like this wine, flipped out a switch palate and cut me right down in the middle of my mouth because it’s got a really great acid, but that bleed is actually a melon bleed and it’s delicious and floral and just gorgeous; good fruit, very easy drinking. I’ve a lot of, you know, intuition right now that I can pour this around the room.
A lot of early, beginning wine drinkers are going to really like this wine. It’s easy, it’s fun, it’s affordable and that is an EFA. And an EFA, Mott, easy, fun, affordable. An EFA wine, my friends, is the kind of wine you want to be drinking. I really like this wine. It’s coming across really, really strong right now for me. I actually ironically first had this wine in Bordeaux, of all places, with Mott zooming in right here. The gorgeous and lovely Helene Garcin who’s actually a Tour de Force in the Bordeaux world, who’s got some property in Argentina and this is just a delightful aperitif.
To me, an easy 88-89 point wine, even pushing at 90 point Torrontes style. I was blown away then. I wanted you guys to have it for Thanksgiving because I think it’s really special and it’s a very food friendly wine as you can tell. If you pair it up right now with maybe some green beans or asparagus, I think you will find a very beautiful connection between this wine and a lot of food you had today, 10 bones, beautiful, let’s move on.
I’m having fun Mott, thank you. Thunder Cuvee, white 2006, such a big response to Thunder Cuvee in the last secret pack, the red that I put together, we decided to give you the white, rolls in at 15 bones, and this wine rolls in at a very interesting 75% Chardonnay, 8% or so Verdelho, which is a very interesting grape from Portugal that you find in Madeira, but its now starting to be used by itself quite a bit, 7.8% Chenin Blanc, a classic white wine that gets overlooked that is great in Loire Valley and some parts of California. They’ve all reaped up and played it with Chardonnay and were low in the early 80’s, making a little bit of a comeback and 8.9% Orange Muscat.
So three really intriguing white wine grapes with the bounce of the being Chardonnay, so what you’re going to see here is not your classic Chardonnay, you know kind of wine, because you could see it as more of a lighter style in color than your classic Chardonnay. They’re still having a pretty golden tint, I’m going to call it golden like Hulk Hogan slacks, Mott; but not quite that golden actually, so that might be an overstatement? Let’s give it a sniffy-sniff.
One thing you’re going to notice here is it is not as aromatically inclined as the last one. So really, this is an opportunity where a lot of you, almost a thousand of you have the secret pack. So a lot of you have this wine in front of you, so let’s do this together. You’ll notice if you have other one side by side, if you can do that right now, you’ll notice this is much tighter on the nose. I do get a little orange peel and I also get a little minerality, believe it or not, coming through on the nose, a little blue stony action, but it’s much tighter. I think you guys all can recognize it’s much more difficult. There’s a little bit more creaminess, a little like oakey California stuff going on, but overall tight nose in comparison. It’s an aromatically-challenged wine and that makes me go and I’m little bit worried about this one right now.
The way it’s going to show abundance about three or four months, since it’s been bottled. So, it’s happen a little bit disappointment with the nose. Let’s see what’s going on in the palate; though it’s perfumey. Ladies, don’t you feel like there’s a little bit of perfume action going on here? It does feel a little perfume-like. It feels like a little magazine, open, smells like a little Sak’s Fifth Avenue that you try to get through it. It’s a little perfumey to me, a little mangoey kind of pineapple thing going on. Did you get the pineapple? Pineapple’s strong coming through, let’s give it a whirl.
It’s really fascinating wine. Here’s why I’m proud about this wine. Do you feel that length on the palate? It’s a heavy wine. Do you feel that oomph, a little junk in that trunk kind of action? Little mouth feel going on here, coats your palate, has that subtle oak but it’s there. So you kind of feel like you’re in Chardonnay land, but then a little more acid, almost like Chablis-like, but not flinty or minerality driven enough to make you think it’s Chablis. And then you get an explosion of almost like Torrontes, almost like pouring a little Torrontes into a grand-old oakey Chardonnay.
That’s what this feels like because you get the weight, the creaminess and the oak of the Chardonnay but you get the floral ripeness, tropical fruit slash acidity from the other three grape varietals planted in there, and they kind of, that’s what we were going for. That’s what I was trying to do when I created these wines as the wine I put together. It’s really fascinating when we tasted this in the store, to see people’s response, and as you see them, a very kind of interesting wine where it’s been 85% have really loved it, 10% have been “nah”, 5% are just baffled. So be interesting to see where you guys come in, but when I know that you’re docked getting here is the over-oaked kookiness which is what I’m proud of. And again, because of its heavier weight, this is a great alternative too, Riesling or Gewürztraminer to have with turkey.
The intentions of wine like this, very curious, let’s see what you guys think by itself, now go over to the turkey, it can’t be far away, taste it, and try it with this. I think you’ll see a very intriguing transition of how well this forms into the turkey. Again, 88 to 90 point type wine in my opinion, and what came as conundrum, I see a lot of people really gravitating towards this wine as a favorite. It’s a medium bodied wine, not too overdone but it’s very aromatic and extremely food friendly, dying to hear the response from you guys of how it acted with food. Let’s move on.
Let’s get into some of the serious red wines now. So, we stayed pretty good server with the price points on the whites, so we can bring here a little thunder on the reds, rolling in about twenty three to thirty bucks. It’s the Christophe Buisson, 2006 Bourgogne Pinot Noir. This wine rolls in at twenty five bones or so broadened by Kermit Lynch, one of the great importers of premium wine in the world.
Bourgogne Pinot Noir which is entry level Red Burgundy Pinot which I drink a whole lot of because of the price points. So, Burgundy’s got me crazy and I have to give back my watch if I want to drink a real Burgundy. I mean, they got me crazy, but can still get twenty to thirty dollars which is still a lot of money but you can get real berks, and that’s what the Buisson has been in the past; great color, you can see your fingers through it so it has got a classic Burgundian color; very vibrant on the color coming through. It’s just that bright red flavor coming through. You can just really see in there. Mott, getting that, take a look and it’s so pretty, just a classic, classic Burgundian color. I just want to make sure everybody gets that. This is what you look for Pinot Noirs.
If you’re drinking Pinot Noirs in this holiday and can see your fingers through it, I mean it’s not flowing around and I’ve thrown some Sugarone there. That’s all that baloney stuff that I hate, so we let’s give it a sniffy-sniff. Now what I think you’ve noticed is we’re not getting the poop in the barnyard that we get so often in Burgundy. I’m getting really sour, showery coming through, I’m getting a little bit of pine needle coming through which I like on the back and on the nose. I also do get a little sand dirt and gravel kind of action; and do you smell the basil? Are you picking up a little on that basil on the back end? I get a little greenish, very pretty classic nose, let’s give it a whirl.
Wow, I see about far that holding up ice cream? Okay, what’s going on, he’s here, he’s got ice cream? No, what’s it? Sure it was him avoiding up ice cream, very nice, thank you. So this one is classic Old World style with a little bit of bright fruit, very floral. I get rose petals, a little rosemary coming through. Oh but by the way, allow me people watching, I got to remember, that was my dad, Sasha, he’s the man, born in Russia. I was born in Russia. He came over here to start our liquor store. I got involved, I had a baseball card business, then they got me involved, then we build it up Wine Library, winelibrary.com 1997, 2005, 2006, Wine Library TV, that’s why I’m sitting here.
Anyway, great floral component, bright fruit, I got strawberries. This to me is quintessential, you know, textbook blueprint Pinot Noir the way it should be. I have not actually had this before. This was really brand and pushing me to say, “Hey, throw this in the secret pack, I think you’ll like it”. We rolled the dice, I mean the last two secret packs on or the last secret pack, two secret packs ago, we’re almost getting like any of the wines and I’ve gotten scared since then and kind of throwing wines I knew more about. Hide this in Bordeaux, put these together, definitely know this wine, but all the dice a little bit here, trusted BW’s palate, and you know what? I think we kind of under sold it.
We don’t work on that, because this is a really, really good, better than I thought, big expose of fruit. I’m going to score this wine 91 points. To me, this is real Pinot, you’re wasting your money, so many of you on the Sta. Rita Hills, and these, you know Central Otago Oregon Pinot Noirs that are selling you against brand name and big ratings, I just think that first of all, ratings don’t mean anything if you’re watching for the first time, let’s just do it, I’m wrong.
But anyway, I’m just excited because this is really good. I mean, I’m a little bit caught off guard. I did not realize it would have this much complexity. This is what happens with Bourgogne Pinot Noirs. At times you get crazy stuff, much more than the American counterparts. I have noticed Bourgogne Pinot Noir’s just the entry level stuff because the winery is plain and use some better vineyards sometimes in them. You get those one out of every five hundred times. That wine tastes like a seventy or $80.00 Burgundy. And you know what; this could easily pass as a $65.00 to $70.00 Red Burg easy all day. How you do not liked that sour cherry and it’s just gorgeous. Biting into sour cherries, I love this wine, good, good quality Pinot Noir.
It’s very hard to come by under thirty bones these days because of sideways and I’m very impressed. Let’s go 91 points and let’s make that a clear cut champion on this pack so far, really sit down and enjoy this wine, let it sit on your counter for a day or two. It’s going to even open up more, just the tannins are clearly, there are great rose petals. There’s no doubt in my mind, when you leave comments today, which is break down the secret pack for me. That’s the question of the day. Old school Vayniacs, tell your new counterparts what you need to do. The question of the day is, “break down this pack for me”. First wine, second wine, drank this the other night, drank this, just break it down for me. I think this one is going to be the one that gets a lot of attention.
And finally, the Shifrin 2005 Howell Mountain, Napa Zin. This is 27 US bones. This is made up for one of our great employees, Bobby Shifrin here at Wine Library. Mott, can you link up the episode where we had it. If you can able to figure that out, let’s link up the episode where we first show this wine and talked about the concept behind this wine. Listen, Zins as we saw a couple of days ago are really the category where you want to use for Thanksgiving but unfortunately we had a show where we had a lot of clunkers. This is far from a clunker and I tried it a couple of times down.
Howell Mountain is really one of the great places to make Zinfandel. We had the apples the other day which I thought was over-oaked. Let’s see what’s going on here, a little sniffy sniff, just a gorgeous because you can see it’s coming through ripping with black berry jam. I can see on the nose. There’s also a very beautiful light black white pepper kind of thing going on coming through the nose. It really evolved in the last month or two since we had it on the show. It’s opening up more and more. You’re getting a lot more of that black pepper. You get a little white pepper going on there.
This is the one that you definitely want to share with the serious wine people in your family right now, because this has the “umph”, let’s give it a whirl. This wine is getting better. It’s getting better, I think there’s a lot of you that are going to be blown away by this wine. You can just taste the absolute gorgeousness of the black fruit, blueberries, blackberries, little huckleberries, looks like every berry and this is just really, really nice stuff, very intense, very dark and here’s the key my friends, not over oaked.
And that’s the difference, it’s not being hidden. You’re not getting too much of the vanilla or the oak monster, you’re just getting the truthness from the vineyard. Howell Mountain is so special, good ripe fruit, just quintessential text book quality Zin. You know this is the 91 to 92 style, I mean, blew away in my opinion, any of Zins we video today. Of course I am completely biased because I worked on this project and score somebody I love but, nonetheless, do me a favor, you’ll love it that really shook his ego.
We put Bobby’s e-mail on the label when you guys get a chance, why don’t you email Bobby your thoughts. I mean Bobby doesn’t get all this internet stuff that much. He doesn’t like totally believe in it, so Vayner Nation, please seriously, let’s link up and let’s e-mail Bobby your thoughts on this wine as well. That’ll be a perfect Thanksgiving for I want to see him come in on Saturday going, what? You know, it’d be perfect, so please watch the episode with Bobby, if you get a chance to, that model’s going to link up. This is really good to me, you know what? A shoulder above where it was a month or so ago, the length is there, you guys still taste it? I mean can you believe that?
Now, what about some cheese if you have it lying around, guys. Do this with a little bit of cheese, clearly this will go tremendous with ham, turkey, stuffing a very, very flexible red wine for this time of year. It’s just drinking great. Pure power, and great bitter dark chocolate but somewhat sweet, bittersweet, tannins in the back end, try in this that you’re feeling if you don’t like that or if you’re not a big wine drinker. That’s what’s telling you this will age, 5 to 10 years easy, watch this above a crusher, a fascinating bottle, between these two wines. I’m very curious to see what you guys think. I’m really quite impressed with it.
I swear to God Mott, put on a show. We did it up on Thanksgiving, very fascinating wines, what is probably the most exciting thing for me is that I feel that there are hundreds of people watching right now that have tried a Zinfandel from Howell Mountain, or Red Burgundy or definitely a Torrontes, definitely that kind of blend for the first time and it’s about expanding your palate and drinking with your people you love, and I know you’re with people you love right now and I just stepped in and helped you expend your palate. This is one accomplished thing now if the Lions can somehow, shock the world, and beat the Titans, this will go down as a very solid Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you come back and start watching the Thunder show at winelibrarytv.com often. I hope you leave a comment, feel free to email me, enjoy your family, and love your life. We only live it once.
You with a little bit of me, we’re changing the wine world.
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