So, I took my normal wine journal entry, and fully intended to post it... but it didn't feel right.  I knew what this Pinot should have tasted like, and I knew Rodney Strong's strong reputation.  It didn't feel right posting.

So, all there was to do was go right to the source:

Only the Strong

Well, ego bruised, but now I know to trust that what I read and what I taste will indeed line up.  Now, if only I could remember where I bought this bottle I could exchange it for an uncorked bottle and enjoy one of the better Sonoma Pinots under $50...

Hail to the King

Looks can be Deceiving

Aroma

Cedar box, berries, overall very sweet.

Taste

There were many layers to this wine, and the more I savored it the more it opened up to me.  It started with a white pepper that spread into a spiced rum and star anise.  The high acid and murkiness really helped with the layering, and I tend to like less filtered Bordeaux varietals.  Once I adjusted to the acidity, a gram cracker flavor started interweaving with a lemongrass and pine needle undertone.  The last layer of flavor that came out was a strong sense of hibiscus, which some would call a flowery tea mixed with a little tobacco.  This wine truly amazed me, at 16% alcohol I was hardly able to taste the booze.  And, although I like fruitier Merlots, this strong peppers allowed me to enjoy this as a quasi-Cab or Malbec as opposed to a Merlot.

NOTE: This region and winery is well known for Shiraz, a very boozy varietal.  Perhaps they learned how to hide the alcohol well in their Shiraz and applied the technique to their Merlot?

Finish

The acidity starts to disappear leaving behind a very eastern tea flavor profile: some white tea, white peach and ginseng.  The finish is mellow but lasting, with many levels that fade in and fade out nicely.

Pairings

Although it is a big and bold red, I think it would go well with any dessert with strong cloves or nutmeg.  Peach cobbler and spiced baked pears come to mind.  For the meal, I would say pork tenderloin with a fruit sauce //blackberry, pear or mango// or poached salmon with a sweet acidic sauce //Bearnaise?  Or any sauce with cream and citrus//.

Rating

Too many people rate wines, I don't think it makes as much sense as I used to.  I'm not going to do it.

Song

Come Monday by Jimmy Buffet.

Movie

Don Juan DeMarco or The Thomas Crown Affair.

Persona

I like to remember wine by the people bottles remind me of. Every wine has a personality, and this wine is Julie.  Julie was a "Haole" I met on the island of Maui.  She was born into a nice family, raised as a Catholic School Girl, and spent a summer during college in Hawaii.  Instead of returning to UCSB, she decided to stay on Maui for good.  She worked as a bartender serving Longboard to tourists by night, and surfed by day.  By the time I met her, her skin had long since turned copper, and her hair had long since been braided into dreadlocks.  She had no aspirations of returning to college, and I doubt that will every change.

Good Golly Miss Molly

Aroma

Blast of plum, overtone of raw bacon //hickory smokiness with a little lemon grass tang//.

Taste

Medium acidity, a little bite.  Not too peppery, a little bit of tobacco.  Hints of cassis, boysenberry and blackberry.  It is a little too filtered for my taste, I like my Cabs a little murky.  It is balanced, with light fruit, and bold but not too bold.  It could be overbalanced, it doesn't seem to have as much depth or character as most North Coast single vineyard Cabs I'm accustomed to.  I wonder if blends work well with lower amounts of Cab and higher amounts of other varietals //I mean for the wine I want to make, not in general...//.  Its not very big on the booze front, once again too balanced, too restrained.  Same for the texture, it is there, but not too rich.

Finish

This wine really comes into its own in the finish.  Fruits start to drift upward; blueberries, plums and a little spiced pear.  The longer it was allowed to open up in the decanter, the more the fruit asserts itself.

Pairings

I have a very specific dish in mind for this.  There is a french preparation of Veal with greens a creamy mushroom sauce.  This wine is perfect with that dish for a meat course.  I recommend Le Petite Bistro, it has an excellent take on this dish.  You'll have to bring the bottle and pay the corkage fee.

Rating

Too many people rate wines, I don't think it makes as much sense as I used to.  I'm not going to do it.

Song

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room by John Mayer.

Movie

Benny & Joon - make sure you are late in your second/early in your third glass when this scene hits //about 2/3 of the way through the movie//.

Persona

I like to remember wine by the people bottles remind me of. Every wine has a personality, and this wine is Allison //we will call her//. When I met her Allison had recently left her husband, home and children through a series of unfortunate happenings, and moved half way around the world. Her goal was to make enough of a living to be able to provide for her children on her own. She had dark hair, pale skin and got a lot of attention. She didn't handle her new found freedom and attention well, but always had good intentions. Since then I gather she is back with her family, but when I knew her she was spending the later part of her 30s living the early 20s she never got a chance to experience.

The Ghost and the Darkness

99 Problems but a Brick Ain't One

Aroma

A blast of grape and alcohol.  Leads you to believe it will be a fruity Zin.

Taste

With the exception of the alcohol, it is a straight forward and clean Zin.  Not too peppery, not too fruity, a little acid and a little murky.  It isn't bold enough to rival a good Cab, but still very bold for a Zin.  Those familiar with Shenandoah Valley Zins will be used to the boldness in the Zins of this appellation, and the high alcohol.  This wine is definitely big, and to some might be too big.  For me its just right.

Finish

I expected some fruit to manifest in the finish, but all that came up was a little spice and a little black currant.  It was an enjoyable drinking experience, and a very drinkable Zin, but no significant depth or complexity ever asserted itself.

Pairings

Rosemary comes to mind when I think of this wine.  Tri-tip, pot roast, porkchops or pork tenderloin seasoned with Italian spices and a natural meat sauce would be best.  For vegetables, artichokes definitely.  Starch, pan roasted potatoes.

Rating

The Restaurant: for sure.  Find it at Susan's Place in Sutter Creek.
The Dinner Party: consider.  The high alcohol could turn some off, depends on your guest list more than your planned meal.
The Weeknight: pass.  Once again, the high alcohol flavor could put you in the mood for some vodka and caviar, a bad bet on a school night.
Friday Night at Home: for sure.  Get a bottle of this to start, and finish with a cheap bottle.  Share with a significant other while watching a movie to get lost in, I suggest Another Earth.

Scott Harvey - Crimson Sky & Golden Griffin

live Oils.

Although I've been experimenting with French cuisine lately /less oil more butter/, I have recently had the chance to rediscover olive oil.  My holiday acquisition of a stand mixer /by way of a joint Christmas venture between my wife, my mother, my father-in-law, and my grandmother-in-law/ has brought me into the world of bread making.  My wife's favorite bread being Focaccia, the oil side of cooking fats is once again at the forefront of my thoughts.

When I was working my way through Biba's cookbooks /my third stint in Italian cuisine/, my search for the right olive oil focused mainly on which was the highest quality and the appropriate type to use with a given cooking technique.  While I was on my second stint in southwestern cuisine, learning about different oils was very important for frying and sauteing, but the focus there was more on temperature than on flavor.

Bread making, on the other hand, left me in an interesting culinary dilemma.  Without wanting to add any seeds or fruits to a bread recipe, the only real creative latitude offered was in choice of flour, or choice of fat.  When I was first baking bread I remembered thinking, really?  That's it?  Olive oil, butter or crisco.  Hmm...

Having that on the back-burner, I took my son to Old Sacramento this weekend to visit the train museum.  After buying some salt water taffy, and before buying some ice cream /for him, not me, I'm trying to eat healthy/, I stumbled into quite an interesting store.

The Chef's Olive Mix in Old Sacramento

Your eyes doth not deceive you, dozens of oils and vinegars made from and infused with every kind of squeezable or reduce-able whatever.  My first thought was, well I have Canola Oil, Sunflower Oil, Peanut Oil, Olive Oil and Extra Virgin Olive Oil already... I have Balsalmic Vinegar, White Wine Vinegar, Sherry Vinegary, Champagne Vinegar, Distilled White Vinegar and  Apple Cider Vinegar /trust me, I have at least two recipes that require each/... So what reason would I have for buying any of these wonderful oils or vinegars?  So I wandered around, tasted and gabbed a bit with the staff.

Then it hit me... my bread dilemma.  Almond Oil, Procini Oil, Infuse Olive Oils... all these exotic and unique oils could really add something unique to my breads, and give me the creative control I wanted. The vinegars gave me even more ideas.  For Salmon Sushi, for instance, I have a serrano-shitake aioli that uses many things, including honey and balsalmic vinegar.  The Olive Mix had a serrano-honey balsalmic vinegar, that can now replace three of my ingredients and improve the texture of the aioli.  And, what about my espresso rubbed tri-tip?  Everyone loves the flavor, but no one likes the grainy consistency of the ground espresso.  The dark espresso vinegar solved that problem perfectly.

So, if you are ever in Old Sacramento, drop by the Olive Mix and expand your culinary horizons.  If you need additional convincing, feel free to have a taste of my traditional focaccia made with the Tuscan Infused Olive Oil from the very same.  Take a look:

The Mixer and the Oil

The Tuscan Focaccia

"No, if anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlot!" - Miles

The problem was, most of my wine knowledge came from what I had gleaned from my family and the vineyard's clients during meals, get-togethers and the picking-stemming-pressing-shipping process of the annual harvest.  This left me with a lot of buzz words, and info on how wine was made, but no idea of what wine tasted like and what being a wine lover meant. Sure, I had a finger or two in the bottom of a burgundy glass from time to time; but going from high school /drinking mostly cheap beer and cheaper tequila/ to the Marines Corps /not daring the drink under 21 after a mass house-cleaning I witnessed at 19 in which quite of few Lance Corporals got busted down to Private/... I really had no idea what wine I liked or even loved.  I knew my Grandfather grew Zinfandel, and Zin was the most popular grape out of the wine region I grew up in /the Shenandoah Valley/, so I adopted the story that my favorite wine was Zin.  I even had this well put together story about how I liked full bodied wines... blah blah blah... Zin was under-appreciated compared to Cab because of the over marketed Napa labels... yadda yadda yadda.  Truth be told, it was just bits of conversations I had overheard back home.  I really didn't know what I was talking about.

And then, there came Sideways.  It was the perfect movie for the perfect time in my wine life.  I had just turned 21 /this now late 2005 when the movie was still in the new releases section at Blockbuster/ , just started buying and drinking wine, just finished my first wine book /Kevin Zraly's Complete Wine Course 2004ish Edition/ and just had my first real wine experience /which I am sure I will write about in a later blog/.  That, combined with the fact that it is one of the greatest movies ever made, allowed me to adopt every aspect of Miles' wine personality as my own.  Including, but not limited to, his opinion on Merlot.

It made sense to me, after all that one line very effectively conveyed my opinion on a number of subjects.  Take music for example.  I graduated High School in 2002, the era of the teeny bopper and the end of rock and rap as it was once known.  It always bothered me that my fellow Millenials always chose a certain rock/techno band called "Lincoln Park" as their "Merlot".  Basically, if someone didn't know anything about music, and was asked what bands they liked, they would always make sure Lincoln Park was in the list of bands they offered.  Lincoln Park /at the time/ was the most mainstream band with any sort of edge.  Truth be told, the band was pretty much crap.  At the time it straddled this position between the mainstream and the undesirable, making it seem worth mentioning to people that didn't know anything about music, but nails on chalk board to anyone who did.  Miles' perspective on Merlot seemed similar to that.  It seemed to me that if I said I liked Merlot, it would be like the bubbly blonde High School cheerleader saying they loved Lincoln Park.  And I didn't want to be that girl.

As a result, in spite of the fact that my vinographic horizons expanded over the following seven years... I refused to drink Merlot.  Not only did I refuse to drink it, I acted as if anyone who didn't refuse wasn't part of the same cool enlightened wine drinker club that I was /as if millions of people hadn't seen Sideways, and didn't get the reference/.  I did let my preconceptions go in other ways.  About three or four years in I realized that I liked Cabernet Sauvignon /on average/ more than Zinfandel, and allowed myself to admit it publicly /even though I felt a little like I was betraying Amador County, and in a way my Grandfather/.  And /surprisingly/ a few years ago I was at Clements Ridge and picked up a bottle of Gatos Locos Chardonnay to use in a risotto I was making later that day.  While I was stirring my risotto /yes, I am a part of the "To Stir" camp in the world of risotto/, I had a chug off of the open bottle.  It was amazing.  It was fruity and sweet without being overpoweringly so.  I thought all I liked was full bodied, cigar-box and peppery red wine.  This Chardonnay was in no way Oaky.  You didn't have to "pick wood chips out of your teeth" to quote Laura Lawson.  It was clean, and sweet, and subtle... like a peppy, shy and brilliant first year Psych student unawares what the next four years in the real world might have in store for her.  As a result, about a year ago, I even came to open my mind and admit that I actually liked some white wines, and /thankfully/ not the kind that I was supposed to.

However, in spite of all of those lessons learned, I still wouldn't drinking Merlot. Finally, just six months ago, I decided to shed my last preconception.  I had opened myself up to French wines, Italian wines, Washington Wines, Oregon Wines, Australian Wine, Argentinean Wines, etc. etc.  I was finally able to open myself up to the young blackbird.  I bought a bottle of 2009 Bogle Merlot, prepared a dinner of tri-tip with an espresso dry rub and had at it.  It turns out, I didn't hate Merlot at all.  I liked it.  I actually, kind of loved it.  I could see how it is a sibling to Cab, and why Bordeaux uses it with some of my favorite varietals.  Come to think of it, one of my favorite blends under $10 /Ménage à trois, which interestingly is much better than 3 Girls/ uses Merlot.  Merlot is this interesting, slightly fruity and serene but still very impetuous version of Cab and Zin that bridges the gap between the Syrahs and the Pinots of the world and the previously mentioned knock-your-socks-off reds that are nearest and dearest to my heart.

So now, I am drinking a glass of Sterling Vineyards 2008 Merlot, thinking about my upcoming trip to Calistoga during which I will ride the tram and look out over acres of Sterling's Merlot Vines, and will inevitably contemplate my own pretension and hypocrisy.  And, if I am lucky, while I am suspended in the air, seated next to my wife and drifting languorously while filled with saudade, I'll have a glass filled with 8-12 ounces of Merlot and a smile on my face.  And, if I'm really lucky, I will appreciate the irony.

The Merlot of the Moment

I have been a fan of ID since elementary school, and have played every game from Commander Keen to Quake III. I have owned copies of Doom for Dos, Windows 95, iPhone, Motorola Doom RPG, XBOX 360 and I even once hacked an iPod to run a Linux version. I found what you were able to accomplish as young as 21, and most of the things I have heard you say about game design and innovation to be a consistent source of inspiration.

I say this all mainly because I would love it if you could take the time to read this and not dismiss it as the normal trolling fanfare any game can expect to receive.

Before I get to the real point, I have some basic questions:

1. Why can I not shoot through 1/2 inch thick wood planks with fully automatic weapons?
2. There are all of these cool weapons the guys I am killing are wielding, why can I not pick them up after they are dead?
3. Look at all these amazing places... wait I can't explore them further because of this six inch high retaining wall blocking my way...
4. Why is it that this enemy doesn't flinch while I shoot him three times in the chest, yet stumbles all over himself when I barely clip his arm?
5. Why isn't this game any fun?

I very much understand this isn't an action rpg, or a realistic war shooter. I get the genre you are trying to portray the game from. That being said, for a shooter to be cutting edge in this day and age there are a few things it has to have:

1. Some level of destructible environments.
2. Some level of realistic terrain behavior.
3. Some level of responsive modeling: i.e. shooting an arm off, blowing a leg off etc. etc.

There are many points in the positive column and the negative column, and I could spend hours dissecting the game. I believe the core of the issue with it is outlined above. It lacks an immersive quality, and a consistent payoff.

Before the iPod was first demo'd Steve Jobs noticed when the headphones were plugged in there was no clicking sound. He made the team go back and change the jack so it had a clicking sound. He knew that sound and feeling was satisfying, and helped with the immersive quality of listening to music on the go. The same holds true for Rage. When I shoot an enemy square between the eyes I expect his head to explode. If I see an enemy on the other side of a wooden board I expect to be able to shoot him through said board.

Every time a player runs up against something they intuitively feel they should be able to do, and can't, it reminds them that they are just playing a game. You don't want that. You want the player to forget they are playing a game.

The environment is beautifully sculpted, but that was a poor allocation of resources. You could have pulled half of the detail away and no one would have noticed. That time would have been better spent on the responsiveness of the models and the terrain.

I don't want ID to fall into oblivion, not only because of my nostalgic loyalty to it, but because I see it has great potential. Today Valve does everything that ID should be doing. Half-Life 2 is the game that Rage was trying to be, and at the end of the day succeeded six years earlier with a fraction of the budget. Look at Minecraft and Portal and all these other titles, the aesthetic value of the environment is the least important factor in whether or not a game is immersive. Less is more, and the player will only notice so much.

If you want to be a pioneer once again, now is your chance. Do what no one else would dare do. Fix Rage, fix all these problems with it, make it a better game and release these fixes as a patch. It will endear the ID brand to a whole new generation of gamers, and set the tone for a quality of craftsmanship and professionalism that will define the industry for the next 20 years.

UPDATE:  I changed my mind.  It's pretty cool.

Signed,

Your Lifelong Fan