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 normally, but on the sad Mondays when your team lays an egg and you sit in the stadium and get soaked on, completely soaked on because you’re three rows ahead of the overpass, so they’re all dry behind you but you get soaked on and because you’re such a hardcore fan that you know misplace, that you sit in that rain until the end of the game, you know you’re down by seventeen for the last seven minutes of the fourth quarter. That’s what happens sometimes and I give a big shout out to the Denver Broncos. Well, they play an extremely good game. They really came prepared. They played well. They faked injuries. They stop or know how to hurl offense which, you know what, it’s the job I’m share you in.
So, I’m upset but I’m also shaved and that does mean that I’ll be clean shaven for my appearance on CBS early show on Wednesday so set your cables Vayniacs. I will be on the early show, I think between 7:00 and 9:00a.m. I’ll get more details more if I have them. I hope you join me and check me out and Twitter it out, pass it on to friends. I love for them to see it. I’ve got a pretty good segment in mind.
And I was able to also to grab a little candy bars on set today on the Thunder show because this is the long awaited wine with candy bar pairing show, you’re here. It’s like Oprah’s big giveaway. You know, Mott, you got a candy bar. I mean, you like a little fake and I get sacked that’s why I didn’t get it.
Anyway, I’m so very excited, what wine goes with candy bars? You know, we’ve paired wine with a lot of different things through the years, but I don’t know if people realized the candy bars. Of course, with tremendous candy bars like one hundred grand which I think is just tremendous. Candy bars, my friends go extremely well with wine, and I’ve got four wines here all of which I’ve had in the past but not recently. Wines that I’ve loved and through my notes internally, I’ve decided are the wines to pair with candy bars.
So, we’re here on the Thunder show where 99% of the shows are wines that I’ve never had before. These are all wines that I’ve had before and they’re here for a reason because they pair with beautiful candy bars. Do you like the Crunch bars, Mott? Take some little pieces, okay, Your Giants did a good job again. They are the doom of planet that everybody right now.
Also, before we get into the wine, this Saturday in San Francisco, two events. If you’re in the Bay area, one, I will be at the Jets Niners game on Sunday but if you’re in the Bay area, two events; one, book-signing, Mott, a book stint in Chestnuts Street. Mott, let’s link it up, speak to Mott if there’s a Facebook invite thing or just got to be some good link for that; and the Fort Mason tasting on Saturday, let’s link that up, second annual batch Vayniacs will be there, looking forward to that. Let’s get into the wines.
The first wine, friends, if you’re a candy bar eater that I recommend is the 2006 Monteflores Merlot. This is one of the better Merlots that I’ve come across from Argentina, a couple of things I like about this, ten bones, great price quite for Merlot, very hard to find, good value Merlot at ten bucks. You know, Merlot is, oh by the way, here’s a ticket from yesterday’s game, Mott, you want to zoom in on this. Just so they see is the one ticket right in, you know this ticket from the game. I just want to show everybody what I think about this game. That’s what I think about the Jets-Broncos’ game yesterday.
Anyway, hard to find great Merlot for under ten bones in one of the sneaky parts of the world that I’ve been seeing that was producing Merlot of a very capable value in the $8.00 to $12.00 range is Argentina. I’ve been coming across more and more of them and this Monteflores, ten dollar Merlot has brought Thunder in the past. Let’s see, I’m having that for about six to seven months; good chocolate nose on the nose, so you’ll like that, little dark chocolate. There’s also a really nice little play of like red beets coming through on the nose, and heavy dose of black currant on the back end. So, it’s very nice nose, let’s give it a whirl.
Good breakthrough but not “candy ass”, as the rock would say. It’s got firm tannins, and I think it’s a little bit more like Bordeaux. Now, when you take out, let’s say a KitKat. Let’s go KitKat with Argentinean Merlot, and take a Kitkat and you eat it because it’s delicious and you pair it with the Merlot. What you see is the chocolate accentuates the black fruit, and believe it or not, calms down, the tannins strikes you at the back end. So, what you’re getting is a hedonistic dessert-like opportunity, delicious, dynamite.
It might be a shot but I didn’t come up with that; a beautiful pairing, the Merlot really works well with this KitKat. It goes tremendous with milk chocolate. A lot of these wines are going on basis of having hints of milk chocolate more than dark chocolate since most candy bars are milk chocolate and there’s also little things in the notes. What I look forward in a red wine to pair with chocolate a lot of time on my palate are the tasting notes currant blackberries, even a little hint of pepper and what I call sweetness of fruit.
And I don’t use them on the Thunder show as much as I use it on my tasting notes which is kind of ironic, but there’s a sweetness of fruit that I think is imperative to match with this candy bars that you look forward. This wine of course, needs a classic 88 point wine, just a brilliant effort for Merlot, and if you’re trying to figure out if you like Merlot or if you haven’t liked Merlot or if you used to like Merlot but Hollywood told you not to and you want to come back and try it for ten bucks, I highly recommend finding them up of course, around the country and trying it cause they’re very good effort. Do you know what I mean? It’s just real wine, right? It’s just real wine and for ten bucks that doesn’t happen everyday and so I’m very impressed with the Monteflores, seeking out good start, sure pretty well.
Next, Cantus Carmenere from Chile, 8 U.S. dollars, so you can see the theme right now, right up the back, is valued 8 bones. I’m very excited about this Carmenere. This one really hit my scene about three months ago, had a supplier come in, try this. They’re looking little gimmicky with the labels, a lot of them with flavors. I loved them. I bought up all the flavors, just brought them in. During Thanksgiving, a lot of people bought them. A lot of people came back to speak and bought them 8 bucks, so it looks like it’s going to be a pretty popular brand for us, but the Carmenere stood out for me.
Now Carmenere, very interesting grape varietal, I have to look it up, but I think four thousand acres planted in 2006 the last time they gave the numbers of Carmenere now in South America. Chile is really doing well with Carmenere, a grape varietal that has its origins in the Medoc in Bordeaux. Carmenere was really one of the go to grape varietals, phylloxera in Bordeaux, and has great tradition as a very serious grape and is now really resurged itself in South America, though we’re starting to see some play, believe it or not in Venetto, where you know with the Amaroni touch style wines in Italy.
So we’re seeing a lot of resurgence in this grape varietal. It has been bringing very, very exciting metrics and quality through the South American scene especially in Chile, and this wine really gets you really stymie. It was really one of the best examples under $10.00 that I’ve had come across at the time. It was probably the wine within the whole Chardonnay, Shiraz, all the different flavors that we carry. Wine of the bunch that really kind of gave me the excitement of this brand, let’s give it a sniffy-sniff.
This is a wild nose, very herbaceous, covered with also like a truffle component, very herbaceous. Mott, I think you need to see this. This is like classic indication of like dark cherries, meats, herbaceous greenest meats like a truffle violet kind of thing, really big nose, isn’t it? What do you think, hate it? Like it? Not bad, oh, you want to throw Jets, huh? Oh, you get some pointers to the Vayniacs out there. Listen, you may have the better football team but we have the better human beings. I mean our players don’t go out and start shooting themselves in the legs and endangering people and then have their teammates hide the gun in.
Let’s get a little hairy in Giant men. Violets, crushes up rose petals, mix it with green like basil, mixed with high levels of raspberries and wild red fruits, very intriguing $8.00 nose worth the price of admission just on the nose, my friend. So, if you want a word about wine, you want to expand your palate or your nose. This wine alone on the nose is worth the eight bones, very cool.
Now, to me this would go great with the classic Hershey’s milk chocolate. I mean, is there anything more classic than delicious Hershey’s milk chocolate candy bar, just classic, Mott, right? I mean not for like a chocolate connoisseur but, maybe, I don’t know it’s just really good. See what happens here? Now, I went into the pairing of the chocolate and the fruit. What really happens here now with this is this really accentuates, believe it or not, the herbaceous aspect of this wine.
What really starts to come up is the raspberry fruit and the greenness like a bell pepper component. Now, there’s a reason I really like this. This Carmenere mixed with this crispy chocolate begins to kind of act almost Chinon-like because the bell pepper and the greenness that comes through almost Cabernet Franc-like and for my palate that’s a real play. But for a big audience out there, this pairing with the milk chocolate can get a little too green on the bell pepper.
Now let me just do another thing. Let’s say we pair this with a Butterfinger instead. Butterfingers are good too. Amazing! The Butterfingers actually coats your palate and almost gives you indication of a little bit of an oak component; believe it or not, because the butter kind of style and really smoothes out this wine. So this wine I think will be far more popular for the fans out there to go Cantus with Butterfingers. This is the pairing. It’s really quite amazing how completely different it tastes with the Hershey’s chocolate and then with the Butterfingers. You get a much creamier floral component.
To me, this is a beautiful 87 point wine in both ways. It really just depends on your preference if you like the Old World Bordeaux, Loire Valley palate, you might like it with the pure milk chocolate of Hershey’s. If you like a little bit more fruit and a little smoothness and just the majority of people out there I think would, you’re going to like this with the Butterfingers. It brings the creaminess and the vanilla component. The Cantus really wraps itself much better around the Butterfingers. I still prefer the edge, the bad boy image, and the way it acts with the Hershey’s but the Butterfingers cannot be denied about being a more polished effort, a very good wine for eight bones, great pairing with Butterfingers, kudos to Butterfingers. And again another wine I think is worth while to seek out to expand your palate at a very low cost.
Now, let’s move on to the next wine, Mott. This is a very special wine to me. This is one of my favorite wines in the store right now and what we’ve been carrying in a long time. This is Sottimano; Sottimano Bric del Salto, 2007 Dolcetto D’ Alba, 15 US dollars, 90 points Antonio Galloni Dolcetto which converts to the little sweet one. It’s one of my favorite wines in the world from the Piedmont region. Baby Barolo Barbarescos, people like to call it sometimes. A lot of fun and just very high quality wines for 15 bones for any wine drinker out there.
The Dolcetto grape produces some of the most interesting value-driven wine in the market place overshadowed by the big Barolo Barbarescos craze that we have in the US and then the Tuscan craze that overshadows the Piedmont craze, but these are two real big areas in Italy that produced wine and I think Dolcetto is probably the most undervalued value-driven of anything going on in those areas, more than Chianti, more than just Sangio from Tuscany, more than Barbera, I’m just a big Dolcetto fan. I love the wines, great color, let’s give it a sniffy-sniff.
And here’s the thing with these wines, the perfume aromatics are just always so gorgeous. I get beautiful cherry juice meets mulberry and very candy asked, almost like Dillon’s candy shop in the city, just beautiful. Let’s give it a whirl, big, really dried tannins; even more so than I remember. It has really serious rustic flavors coming through. I get almost like rusted iron meets nails. I mean just really like rustic, very serious. I get dark, dark black high 95% coco count chocolate coming through on the mouth feel. I mean, this is about as dry and tannic of a wine that we’ve had in the Thunder show; come across much more than I remember.
We take a little Butterfingers. They come in pair a little bit; the Butterfingers’ coming through but it’s coming in different direction. A little Three Musketeers, Mott, this is not a candy bar that I’m very high on you. I’ve never been a bit Three Musketeer’s fan, let’s see what happens here. It’s boring, what is that in the middle? What do they call it? Mott’s on top of his game, 45% less fat now, let’s see what happens here.
It’s ironic, the Butterfingers kind of took a lot out of the Dolcetto, creamed it out kind of made it a little boring. The Three Musketeers though I don’t like the candy bar still is working extremely well with this. It’s kind of I’m in the middle ground between that really tannic flavor profiles I was getting when I first tasted it to the boring cream right down the middle though. This Three Musketeers is doing a nice job with this awesome and tasting a little bit more blueberry. I’m tasting a little bit more of the violets that are coming through; getting a little bit of a mushroom component at the back end now, like black forest mushrooms at the back end.
This is still one dry nouvo. If you like really dry wines I highly recommend you seek this out. It’s just dry. 90 points colony, I probably get low 89 points. It’s not showing us well as I remember. As a matter of fact my last score on my tasting this when I bought it was 91 plus, so a little bit down on this, not showing as much. It’s just so dry. I’m having tough time getting to any of the other component flavors but a good wine, very well made probably a little bit of disappointment on the scheme of things but it is what is. You got to keep it real in the Thunder show, Mott.
And finally, the Casali Di Bibbiano Argante, 70% Cabernet, 30% Merlot, super Tuscan, 30 bones. This is the expensive one so if you’re a baller and you want to ball out some expensive wine while your eating your Twix, you know you’re in the park and like, what a baby, you see this Twix. I like the $30.00 dollar Vino with Twix; if you want to do that, this is the wine they want to do with it. This wine I loved, but it rivaled many $50.00 to $80.00 super Tuscans when I tasted it three months ago, let’s give it a sniffy-sniff.
You get this beautiful like cinnamon spiced wood component coming through the nose. You get this really beautiful kind of oaky, creamy cream, brulle meets chocolate-dusted raspberry torte kind of thing going on. Very New World Cabernet meets Sangio, just classic Tuscan style. Cabernet, Merlot, Bordeaux varietals in Tuscany, very beautiful nose, definitely new world, no doubt, let’s gives it a whirl.
Absolutely divine with the Twix for me, break it down one more time, great appropriate length, this one last for about seven to ten years and would go well with many foods including Twix; where this combination is just creamy and powerful and very focused. The blackberry jam in the mid palate of this wine is inescapable. It’s very intense and very focused, very rich and very delish. This is the wine that I can really wrap my head around. I score it 92 plus by itself. I think it’s showing about 91 plus 92 right now. It’s extremely good, great length and if you’re super Tuscan fan and absolute producer that needs Siegel; great structure has all the stuffing and complexities you look for in a serious wine. That being said, three total bottles of this instead of one of those is a debate because it’s like both the Merlot and the Carmenere from Cantus and Monteflores showed extremely well tonight.
I'm highly disappointed with the Dolcetto but could be a combination of all the different things going on. I mean let’s be honest. I was tasting all sorts of different things going on here. Again, one to two years drinking, there’s a three to fiver, this can go seven to ten easy. All wines that can go with a magnitude of foods like burgers, hotdogs, pizza night, and these ones are great. A little pasta, you know, real Parmesan, classic Italian dishes, this is going to be a great fit especially if you’re looking for a high tannins and dryness. I mean this is really, really dry.
And again, this is just one classy little player. This guy can really match up within a magnitude of different foods around the complete gamut from top-like cuisine to really casual fare and I thought the Argante really, really showed well. Big kudos to the candy bars, they were really the start of the show today, good job. I mean, the hundred grand is my favorite of the bunch and I even opened a Milky Way. It’s all kind of Giants and when you’re eating my Milky Ways, I like this good.
Thanks for hanging out, hope you enjoyed the show. It’s a lot fun. I really waited to match up the candy bars, this is serious guys, I’m not kidding. Candy bars are great plays with wines, so if you want to do something cool for date night, you know maybe take out your girl to have her over for dinner, right? I’ll cook, have her come over and have like eight candy bars and a nice bottle of wine; it’s kind of sweet, it’s kind of cool. So, definitely a play there, question of the day; “what is your favorite candy bar?” You, with a little bit of me, we’re changing the wine world.
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