{"id":2205,"date":"2015-03-11T20:32:12","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T20:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/2015\/03\/11\/christmas-at-my-brother-s-house-california-australia\/"},"modified":"2015-03-11T20:32:12","modified_gmt":"2015-03-11T20:32:12","slug":"christmas-at-my-brother-s-house-california-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/2015\/03\/11\/christmas-at-my-brother-s-house-california-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas at My Brother&#8217;s House (California \/ Australia)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" alignright size-full wp-image-2204\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Christmas_2014_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"220\" \/>(December 25, 2014) &#8230;<\/strong><\/em> It&#8217;s my annual Christmas dinner at my brother&#8217;s house, we exchange gifts (thanks), quiz my niece on what she got (what are kids interested these days?!?), and eat like we&#8217;ve never seen food &#8230; I also bring over a selection of wines.&nbsp; I went with a completely new world theme this year, for no actual reason other than I could; carrying in 2 Californian and one Australian; starting with a <strong>Grace Family Vineyards 2007 Blank<\/strong>.&nbsp; Now I had read somewhere that the Blank is better when young and does not age well; I would have to disagree for the most part here.&nbsp; The nose was loaded with aromas you&#8217;d like to wrap your lips around, namely cocoa, cassis, vanilla, and cinnamon; the palate had some lovely dark berries, and black cherry, along with smoke and cedar &#8211; sadly the alcohol does show thru a little more than it should, but that was the only detractor on this wine.<\/p>\n<p>Next up was an eleven year old bottle of <strong>Jekel Vineyards 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon, Central Coast<\/strong>, yes it showed its age, but it also had some real complexity in its own way.&nbsp; Aromas were earthy, dried cherry, and anise notes followed on the palate by dried cherry, raspberry and cedar, finishing with flavours that were earthy and dried fruit-esque.&nbsp; With time it became rather one dimensional:&nbsp; smooth and supple with dried red fruit. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The last bottle was a <strong>Peter Lehmann 2008 Layers<\/strong>.&nbsp; I enjoy Lehmann&#8217;s wines for the most part and this was no different and aptly named.&nbsp; A blend of Shiraz, Mourvedre, Tempranillo, Grenache, and Carignan, the wine is not only layered with flavors and aromas but with grapes too.&nbsp; Nose was blackberry, eucalyptus, and white pepper dominated followed on the palate by white pepper, spice, blackberry, boysenberry, and blueberry.&nbsp; Quite lovely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(December 25, 2014) &#8230; It&#8217;s my annual Christmas dinner at my brother&#8217;s house, we exchange gifts (thanks), quiz my niece on what she got (what are kids interested these days?!?), and eat like we&#8217;ve never seen food &#8230; I also bring over a selection of wines.&nbsp; I went with a completely new world theme this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-im-drinking-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.michaelpinkuswinereview.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}