One of the reasons I like to watch the football experts on Sundays instead of the political talking heads is a sense of accountability.  On the various NFL morning shows the experts make their predictions about who will win the games that week.  They keep track of the success of their predictions throughout the season.  At the end of the year, someone receives a meaningless award for winning & the last place person is mocked mercilessly.  They really need to try that on the political talk shows.  Donna Brazile & Charles Krauthammer are wrong much more frequently than they are correct.  It would be nice if they had to own up to the frequency of their errors.

In keeping with that theme, here are some of the things I got right & wrong on this blog in 2013

1)      I was probably wrong on my first blog when I said Wes Welker should stay a Patriot.  I still think that he might have done better to stay in Foxboro, but he had a solid year with Denver.  His receptions and yards were down this year, but his touchdowns were up.  I think that moving to Denver was the best place he could have moved.

2)      A couple of blogs later I wrote that it would be almost impossible to trade Darrelle Revis.  At least I qualified that with “almost.”  In the end, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers traded for him.  The Jets used the pick they acquired from Tampa to draft Dee Milliner, who had a shaky start, but won Defensive Rookie of the Month in December.   Tampa used Revis in zone coverage primarily, which isn’t his strong suit.  That may have contributed to the firing of Tampa Bay’s coach & general manager.  Now they have hired Lovie Smith to coach the team & he uses a Tampa 2 defense that features lots of zone coverage & very little press coverage.  It will be interesting to see how Revis fits in next year.  I guess what I should have said was that Revis would be hard to trade unless the Jets found a sucker.  That trade didn’t cost the GM and coach their jobs, but it didn’t help.

3)      I was right about the pre-season talk about Miami winning free agency didn’t necessarily translate into the playoffs.  They missed out on the last game of the year.

4)      I said that I would be shocked if the Rams equaled last year’s 7-9 record & that Jeff Fisher was a career .500 coach.  The Rams did finish 7-9 again.  I’ll stand by the career comments on Fisher.

5)      I was right about Harry Douglas crushing his previous production.  He had more yards this year than in any two previous years combined.

6)      I was right about the Cardinals being a good team if they could just find a running back.  They did & his name is Andre Ellington.  The Cardinals are in a tough division, but they are building a solid team.

7)      I was probably wrong when I said that the Raiders might be a team on the way up.  That was irrational exuberance.

8)      I was right in saying that the Patriots should always be open to trades from Tampa Bay.  The trade of Jeff Demps & a 7^th round pick for  Legarrette Blount looks even better now for the Patriots than it did a few weeks ago.  Blount had 334 all-purpose yards last week, which broke the New England record & ranked #12 all time.  Demps had 14 yards for the year.  This might also have contributed to the firing of the Tampa Bay coach and GM.  I don’t expect them to trade with the Patriots in 2014.

9)      The biggest issue where I was right this year was the officiating.  I tried not to harp on it each week, but I did write about it a couple of times.  This year had the worst officiating I have seen since I started watching football, and I am including the replacement refs.  The capper on the whole mess was the game between San Diego & Kansas City in week 17.  With 8 seconds left in a tie game, Ryan Succop attempted a 41 yard field goal to win the game for the Chiefs.  He missed.  Chiefs coach Andy Reid called a time out to get the referees to review the play because the Chargers had an illegal defensive formation.  He was told it wasn’t reviewable.  The game went into overtime and the Chargers eventually won.

If the play had been called correctly, there would have been a 5 yard penalty & Succop would have had another chance to kick.  There is no guarantee that he would have made the kick, but he was 15 of 16 on the year from 40 yards or less.  I would have bet $1,000 on him making the second kick.

The NFL even admitted that the referees got it wrong.  They issued a statement on December 30^th which said in part “On the play, San Diego lined up with seven men on one side of the snapper. This should have been penalized as an illegal formation by the defense.

The fact that the referees screwed this up is worse than the usual referee goof.  In this case, winning the game put the Chargers in the playoffs.  If Succop had hit a second field goal try, the Chargers would have finished 8-8 & by virtue of a tie breaker, the Pittsburgh Steelers would have gone to the playoffs instead of the Chargers.  That is a huge screw up.  There are people whose jobs might be on the line based on whether they make the playoffs.  On a financial note, players in the Wild Card round of the playoffs each make $19,000 for the game.  That means that the Chargers players net $1,007,000.00 that probably should have gone to the Steelers.  I have made a lot of mistakes, but at least none of mine cost over a million dollars.  I guess I will take that as a win for the year.

Here are my top 15 wines that I reviewed last year.  I probably tried other wines that I liked more, but if I didn’t type up a review, I don’t remember them.  This list skews more than normal towards Napa wines, but that was just a result of trying a higher proportion of Napa wines this year.  I’m sure that if I had tried as high a percentage of Bordeaux, it would be reflected in the reviews.  We’ll see what I can find to taste this year.  The wines are not in any particular order.  I did manage to get a rose’ into the top 15.

1)      Domaine Carneros Le Rêve Blanc du Blanc 2006 $99.00
Le Rêve means “the dream.” This is a 100% Chardonnay (Blanc du Blanc means white from white) sparkling wine.  There is a long finish to the wine.  It tastes like toasted bread with a tiny hint of mushroom.  There are creamy cheese notes to the wine.  I would love to try it with some soft gooey cheese.

2)      Blankiet Paradise Hill Red Napa 2008 15.2%
82.5% Cabernet, 16% Merlot, with the remainder made up of Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc.  Blankiet has only been around since 1996.  They are in the Mayacamas Mountains above Yountville. There is ripe fruit on the nose.  I get big plum & blackberry.  There is delicious blackberry & chocolate on the palate. This is a big & juicy wine with lighter tannins, or maybe just lighter, compared to what I have been trying.  I taste cassis & blackberry, & chocolate… with maybe a bit of cherry.  The tannins come up a little as I drink it so I think it will age well.  I like this a lot.  I tried it a second time & I am really wishing I had a steak with a red wine & cherry sauce.  The tannins are good, so the first time around it may have been a reaction to the tannins on the other wines.  There is a long finish that accents the chocolate.  If I were going to spend $190 on a Cabernet, this is one that would be worth it.  Robert Parker gave it a 95+ rating.

3)      Premiere Napa Valley Sterling Cabernet 2010 1st Calistoga 15.2% 20 cases produced

Elegant fruit.  This is a “wow!” wine. There is raspberry with cocoa dusting on the nose. I get big tannins, but they don’t overpower the wine.  It has a very long dry finish, that leaves you thinking about it & reaching for more.  At the core of this wine there is a fresh fruit center. This is their 1st Calistoga designated wine.  It sells for $110.

4)      Mayacamas 1992 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

Delicious.  This was frankly better than I expected.  Fruity, red fruits, tannins are light, but still there.  This is a bright & fresh example of classic 1990′s Napa Cabernet.    There is an earthiness that would make you think of St. Emillion if it weren’t for the fresh fruit.  I am impressed with this wine.  Dark red with fresh red edges.  It doesn’t look like a wine from 1992.  Here’s a review from a big name reviewer, who went a bit more over the top than I did…

“It restores the will to live”…”Elegance, finesse, allied to concentration. Balanced and sleek, slightly tarry fruit, moreish and good acidity. Lovely. The balance is like being released from prison: a sense of lightness.”

—Margaret Rand
The World of Fine Wine (London)
on the Mayacamas Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignons of 1992 and 1999, respectively

5)      Kungfu Girl 2012 Washington State Riesling 2012 Evergreen Columbia Valley Charles Smith Wines
11% alcohol
Green apple, guava, great acid.   I tasted papaya, followed by even more green apple.  It finishes dry or just off dry, but it really tastes like a green apple Jolly Rancher. It smells like white flowers & a little bit of green apple.  It doesn’t smell as intense as it tastes. I had this with smoked turkey fried rice.  This has great mouth feel & a mouthwatering, lingering finish.  On the finish I got some slightly creamy lime.   This was on spectator top 100 wine this year & definitely worth it for the price.

6)      McCrea Cellars Rose’ non vintage
This is a blend of Carignan & Grenache.  I have tried to find out a little more about it, but have only found information about some other rose’s that they have made over the years.  This is a full bodied rose’ with nice spice.  It has a long finish.  It’s really one of the nicest American rose’s I have ever had.

7)      Schramsberg Blanc de Noir sparkling wine 1988 magnum
This was fantastic. I actually wasn’t expecting this.  The bottle had been lying around for a long time & hadn’t been kept in ideal conditions.  I felt like it was something that might end up getting poured out.  I was wrong. It was a fantastic wine!  It had a real Pinot Noir taste to it.  It was full bodied with great mouth feel.  If I tasted it blind, I would have guessed that this was Champagne instead of California.  It has lots of taste notes due to autolysis.  For those who aren’t wine geeks, this just means the wine sat on the dead yeast after fermentation.  Usually the dead yeast, (lees) is stirred on a regular basis.  This can make a white wine taste bigger, which usually is called mouth feel.  It also can lead to toasty or baked bread flavors in the wine.  It can be tricky to get right, but it is a key component of the best Champagne.

8)      Chateau de Beaurenard Chateauneuf du Pape Boisrenard 2001 magnum
This is full of berries.  There is blackberry, boysenberry, & blueberry.  Paradoxically, it seems to get even more dense as it opens up.  This is just an amazing, mouthwatering wine.  The oak has integrated so nicely that it is more about structure and it isn’t overtly “oaky” in any way.  Robert Parker liked it as much as I did apparently.  He gave it 97 points & wrote “There have been a number of spectacular vintages of Domaine de Beaurenard’s luxury cuvee, Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Boisrenard, but the 2001 may be the finest they have ever produced.”  Wine Spectator gave it 95 points & said it would be good through 2021.  Mine didn’t make it that long. I would love to try it again in a few years, but I doubt I can afford it!

9)      Jacob Franklin Petite Sirah 2000 (Napa Valley/Howell Mountain)

This was an exceptional wine.  It smelled of blueberry & perfume.  It tasted like dark liquorice, blueberry, & chocolate.  The tannins were still strong. It was an amazing wine at almost every level.  As great as it was, it tasted to me like a youthful wine that still had plenty of time to settle in.  I would highly recommend this wine if you can find a bottle.  The label says that there were only 16 barrels made, so that is about 400 cases.

10)  Premiere Napa Valley Saint Supery Rutherford Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 #40 of 240 14.8%
One of the tasting notes with this said that it had a “brandied oak” taste.  I have no idea what that means, but I know where they get the brandy idea.  This wine doesn’t taste hot at all, but it really has an almost port/brandy finish to it.  It does have noticeable oak, but it is pretty well integrated.  I think the only part that stands out as oaky is that the dryness of the finish is distinctly from the oak rather than something else. There is cassis & licorice.  This is a delicious, complex Cabernet.  I don’t know if this is the best of the batch, but it is probably the most interesting. 2nd tasting.  This has a really dark color.  I think that there was some concentration of flavor & alcohol here from evaporation from the barrel.  This is called the angel’s share of the wine.  As the wine sits in the barrel, oxygen slowly enters and matures the wine.  At the same time, some of the wine evaporates, and that is the “Angel’s Share.”  This evaporation isn’t consistent across the board.  The alcohol in the wine doesn’t evaporate as quickly as the other liquids.  So you end up with higher alcohol and a more concentrated flavor.  That gives me that brandy taste.  Some people might associate that taste with being oxidized, but that isn’t the case here.  On this second tasting I’m getting more of the herbal notes of the wine.  I don’t know if that is from this bottle being open longer or just thinking about it more. I also taste mocha, cherry, and black currant.  After tasting it a second time I think this is currently drinking the best of the batch.  That doesn’t mean it is the best, or will be the best long term, but right now this is a darn tasty wine.  This is $160.

11)  Delas Les Lanes 2009 Crozes-Hermitage
Good tannins. Beautiful blueberry & blackberry .  It has almost a perfume nose.  In fact if they sold a perfume that smelled like this, high quality winos would beat a path to the sales door.  It has deep flavor with layer after layer of flavor.  Maybe some tobacco.  It is a delicious wine. The wine actually says it is Syrah on the back. It looks like it was added by the importer. The only reason I mention that is because although all Northern Rhone reds are Syrah, they don’t usually list the varietal on the label. They just assume that everyone knows that the Northern Rhone reds have been Syrah for hundreds of years. That might work for a small percentage of the population, but I think it would be great if everyone would provide varietal information. This wine was fantastic by itself.  It would be great with steak, lamb, or char-grilled chicken. Actually this is good enough that I might drink it with just about anything.

12)  Groom Barossa Valley Shiraz2008

To me, this was a wine that could only have come from Barossa Valley in Australia. The wine was so dark that it ranged somewhere between dark purple and black. It had dark brambly fruit that was extremely deep. There were layers of plum, blackberry, and dark cherry. The wine had a long finish. It had good mouthfeel and enough acid to pair well with food. The tannins were solid, but not especially pronounced. As the wine opened up it showed deeper fruit and a longer lasting finish. This would be a great wine with a Montreal steak. The heavy fruit would soften the spice of the seasoning and the acid would make the steak melt in your mouth. For those who care, it received 92 points in Wine Spectator. I tried it with some chocolate that had lemon and cracked black pepper in it and it was fantastic. I know that wine books tell us that red wine doesn’t go with chocolate. I know that experts will say that the polyphenols, acids, and tannins that chocolate and red wine share make them a terrible match. I know that you are only supposed to have chocolate with Port or a Muscat based dessert wine. I also know that lots of people love red wine and chocolate. This is a great example of how the two can work together. The fruit in the Shiraz translated into sweetness compared to the spice of the black pepper in the chocolate. You can believe the scientists here, or you can try it for yourself. Anyway, the wine tasted great. It also was a wine that made me think of Australia and the red dirt in Barossa. It felt like it came from somewhere.

13)   Duckhorn Patzimaro Vineyard 2010 Estate Grown Cabernet Sauvignon 18 months French oak
83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc
This is a wine with depth.  The tannins are solid, but not to the point where they overwhelm you.  There are dry cocoa and some mushroom and earthy notes. There are blackberry, raspberry & plum flavors.  There is a minerality here that gives the wine a backbone.  It is just an excellent example of Napa Cabernet.  This has an incredibly long finish.  I was sitting around 5 minutes later & realized I was still tasting it.  The vineyard is in the St. Helena appellation at the base of Spring Mountain. According to their website, “the site was named after the town of Patzimaro de Aviña in honor of the Hurtado Family, an essential part of the Duckhorn Vineyards winemaking team who migrated from this small village to the Napa Valley in 1987.”

14) 

Trefethen Family Vineyards  Cabernet Sauvignon 2010
There is spice on the nose with some licorice & cherry.  It has deep flavors and solid tannins.  I get primarily dark fruit, plum, cherry, & blackberry.  This wine will be better in 5 years than it is now.  I taste cassis, caramel, & a tiny bit of black pepper on the finish.  It has a really good dusty taste on the finish.  It doesn’t taste like Bordeaux, but that dustiness reminds me of Saint-Émilion.  The fruit is from the north western corner of Oak Knoll.  That puts it near the Yountville & Stag’s Leap appellations.  Wine Enthusiast gave this a whopping 97 points.  It is an excellent Cabernet and I really want to see what it tastes like in 3-5 years.

15)      Delas Haute Pierre 2008 Chateauneuf du Pape
Pepper. There is a ton of pepper. Plenty of tannin.  I opened this right before dinner & it was just all right.  The next night I pulled it out again & was amazed at how nuanced & textured this wine was.  There is dark fruit, pepper, plum & an umami taste (if I have that right).  It is almost like duck fat. That tastes better than it sounds I promise.  This is a wine that still has time to age. The wine is so purple it looks black in the glass, with just a hint of red at the surface. I have 1 more bottle & I am torn on whether to wait a year or two to see how it evolves, or to crack open that bottle right now.  I heated up some leftover lamb & it was a special combination.  The lamb had  marjoram & spice & the combination was terrific.  There was a synergistic effect & both tasted better together than alone.  Definitely decant this wine before drinking it.

 

Those are the ones I chose today.  I’m sure that if I thought about it tomorrow I would come up with a different list.  I will say that you can’t go wrong with any of these wines.  Give them a try if you get a chance.  Feel free to let me know what your favorite wines of the year were too.  I’m always looking for something new!