2006 UNTI Petit Frere

I took this up to Lee and Nancy's for the 2009 rendition of "Pumpkin Festival.... North." On deck for dinner were simple thin pies (think Roman style) from Mezza Luna in town. 

This nice, dry Grenache, Mouvedre & Syrah blend, while called "little brother", really just isn't. It's a nicely bodied Rhone blend with enough blackberry fruit up front to balance the Rhone sensibility on the back and providing a pleasant balance for everyday southern European inspired cuisine.

Mick Unti is doing a great job of very reasonable, drinkable and well-paired juice for food. 

2006 Unti Sonoma County Petit Frere

~$20

89 points

Gig Review - Aaron Parks @ Yoshi's SF

Ran up to the city to catch the 8:00 set by Aaron Parks on Monday, 20 Oct, 2008. Aaron's a gifted musician who's music I recently discovered. He's very contemporary jazz (not smooth jazz) focused and is currently touring in support of his new CD, Invisible Cinema. Joining Aaron was his regular guitarist, Mike Moreno, and new supporting rhythm section of Thomas Morgan on bass and the young Marcus Gilmore on drums.

Aaron's past is quite an interesting tale. A Seattle native, he entered U of W when he was 14, was a National Merit Scholar at 15 and at 16 packed it up with his family and they all moved to NYC where he studied at The Manhattan School of Music with Kenny Barron. Surely a difficult, but wise choice!

I was really looking forward to hearing this music live and the quartet delivered the goods! The title, Invisible Cinema, is very telling. I often feel like I should be seeing a film while listening to a soundtrack,  or I'll start playing scenes in my mind as if I'm FFC directing a scene..trying to find the right setting and story for the music. Very emotive!

Opening with Peaceful Warrior, the set was gentle, relaxing and engaging until the speed bump of a standard. When you have such wonderful music, does it make sense to disrupt the flow with something out of character? Perhaps. Perhaps not. For me, I would have preferred the flow, but was very satisfied with the set in general. It was a warm and rewarding evening.

There's a nice article on SFGATE.com that's a good read. It was written just before this gig. 

Workout Schedule Week of Oct 20, 08

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pINZkpd-qBKkaYsl-OJblIw&output=html

2006 Summers Napa Valley Estate Charbono

..she said..."Rambo, what means "Charbono?"

He said "huhhhh?" in his most Scooby-Doo like inflection.

Now, although Bill got all in my face and called me full of $h*t and a wine snob at the Rains' luau and it was all the zen master I could muster to not break his finger as it dented my chest, I really don't think I am, especially since I'd never heard of Charbono. Accordingly, in my geekdom, I did some research before I tackled this and stumbled across some really interesting info.

While there's too much to post here, I do recommend taking a look into several of the links in this search as it's kinda fascinating.

So, here's the reader's digest version....

* Only 80 acres grown in the USA. 100% in California.

* Imported by Italian immigrants in the 1800s

* Is a Piedmontese varietal - possibly related to Charbonneau (fr.)

* Is the 2nd most popular varietal grown in Argentina

Ok..Cool. Now what? Well, try some.

I know. Too far out of the box, too difficult to find, blah-blah-blah-blah. 

No? Good...actually, Great!

So this Charbono has wonderful mouthfeel that's extremely soft and delicate, but with significant bright fruit, mainly dark berries, but not a Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot type of berry. When I say significant, I mean subtle. Huh?

How can that be? Yeah, I know, but I don't know any other way to describe it.

I had this with a hearty fall soup, but it would also play well with most meats (non-beef), fowl (particularly Duck or Ostrich), and several other fall-style vegetable dishes.

2006 Summers Napa Valley Estate Charbono

~$25

90 points