2019 Catena Malbec with a Pepperoni, Jalapeno, Kalamata Olive pizza
Adventures Of A Black Belt Sommelier
The perfect Tuesday night pizza wine
So I think it's a really beautiful place, isn't it? Well, at least that picture of it. It's really beautiful. But I think it's really beautiful. Last night, I rarely eat dinner that I didn't fix myself unless I go out to eat. But I rarely bring dinner home. But last night, I went to a formal wine tasting of wines from a winery that's very acclaimed and the wines should have been marvelous and they just weren't. And I sat through this hour and a half, almost two-hour wine tasting of wines that I was really looking forward to tasting, but was really disappointed in. It was a possible robals winery that has new owners and is in the case in a lot of California wineries. The new owners aren't really doing what the old owners did. So it was long. It was also the tasting that was conducted by Master Solier, a friend of mine, who... He's a great guy. He's obviously very knowledgeable about wine, but he's really pedantic and it makes for kind of an excretion experience. He's not exactly the most charismatic guy. But anyway, it was just a long evening of disappointment. And I freely admit, I may have just had an off night because I don't think these wines were really as not up to snuff. My perception of them was they all, to me, had off flavors and off aromas and were really heavy handed in their use of oak. Well, he even bragged about how ugly they were, but he works for the winery. Anyway, it was a long, not very fun night. And so I assuaged my hurt feelings by stopping at my favorite pizza place on the way home. If you're watching this in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, it's called Buongiorno. It's a deli in Lilydale, and I think they do have the best pizza in the Twin Cities. It's excellent. So anyway, I picked one of those up, far baked, and took it home and put it in the oven for a few minutes to finish it. It was pepperoni and jalapenos and chalomata olives, which is kind of from my go-to pizza. And so I wanted to have a glass of wine with it that I would enjoy more than these disappointing wines of lofty reputations that I had sat through earlier. And so I opened a bottle of 2019 Katana Balbeck because it's, you know, it's a reasonably priced wine. It's kind of a pizza, wine, rice, wine. And it's a wine that with whom I have a great affinity. I've had so many events with the Katanas that I almost feel like they're close friends or family now because I had their head winemaker, a nasty bida at a event here in the Twin Cities a few years ago. I've done a zoom wine tasting with him. I think I've done three zoom wine tastings with a lot of Katana. So, you know, when you spend an hour and a half with somebody for three times, you get to know them pretty well. They're an extraordinary family. Nicholas Katana, it was a visionary. I'm not sure that he was a visionary in anticipating global climate change so that he was a good idea to plant vines up in foothills of the Andes. Most, a lot of people, most people, I think at the time thought he was crazy. He'd never get ripe up there. It's too cold. You can see it's pretty close to the mountains. But what he did see, what he did was visionary in envisioning visionary and envisioning. He was, well, he was a visionary twice. Was that in the cooler climate that winds would be better balanced and they would be more interesting and compelling than Mobic from the valley, from lower elevations where it wasn't as cool. And he was right and he makes, you know, he's one of those guys, like Angela Gaia in Italy and Robert Madami in California. He kind of elevated everything around him by deciding that he was going to make world-class wines in Argentina, which, you know, there were other people making good wine, but he kind of, he kind of put Argentina on the map the way Angela Gaia put a multi on the map and Robert Madami put Napa Valley on the map. So he did see this potential for making world-class wines in Mendoza, mostly Mobic-based wines, although he makes Chardonnays that are about the equal of any of the world and he makes Cabernet, so we know him that is extraordinary, but what he's really known for is Mobic. His family, his kids now run the winery. He's retired pretty much. They're incredible. People, all three of them, have PhDs from Oxford. Lauda, who is technically the director of the winery, isn't, well, she was. I'm not sure she still is, but one time she was an emergency room physician in San Francisco, in addition to being in charge of this amazing winery in Argentina. And during COVID, she donated two years of her time to evacuate, to vaccinate homeless people against COVID. That's an enormous contribution. You know, you think about the financial sacrifice of the surgeon two years of their time as extraordinary. So I have tremendous respect and admiration for this family. And this wine, you know, it's like any other one. Every vintage is a different wine. Well, it's like every other naturally, naturally made wine. Every vintage is a different wine. This wine, this vintage, the 2019 is absolutely a fabulous one. It's about $20, so maybe a little bit over $20, but it would be around $20. It is textbook and mauvec, it is textbook, very high quality, quality moment. It is not kind of insipid, not complex, mauvec, like a lot of the big, a lot of the mauvecs you see stacked everywhere in wine stores. It is a legitimate wine of high quality. It's medium body plus, it's a lot dark, dark fruit. It's subtly oaky, it's rich, it's dry, obviously it's dry. It's kind of leathery, and for one of a better word, it's pretty masculine wine. Honestly, it was absolutely the perfect wine with high pizza. My jalapeno, jalapeno, jalapeno pizza. By the way, the jalapenos were fresh, not pickled. I just love this wine. I really, really love this wine. I generally have a tendency to love container mauvec. I really love their high-end mauvecs. The ones that sell for $300, they're among the world's great wines. For a $20 bottle of wine with pizza on a Tuesday night after a disappointing wine tasting, this was absolutely perfect. It helped that it was five years old. I would say, perfectly mature. Not that you need to be in a hurry to drink it, but it was perfect. The next bottle, last night, was perfectly mature. It was wonderful with this pizza. Come to think of it, it kind of tastes like calamity. Which is a good thing. It kind of tastes like pepperoni and calamity. It's what it tastes like if you want a descriptor. If you ask me for numerical rating, I would give it 92 to 93 points. In 92 and 93 points for me for a $20 wine, that's a very high rating. I think it's deserving of that. When you drink a bottle, you can think of this beautiful, beautiful scene behind me. That's kind of what's in the bottle. It's the air in that place. Some of what's in the bottle is the air in that place. From those mountains and those vineyards. That slope. This amazing, amazing place that Mendoza is. Thanks for tuning in to Adventures of a Black Weltcell A. As always, we appreciate your attention. And if you're so disposed, please share our podcast with your friends and comment if you'd like. And thank you very much. [BLANK_AUDIO]