 Welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host Matthew Horkey. Hi I'm Shereen Tan. Welcome back to the show. We're excited today because we are going we spend a lot of time in Europe and a lot of winemakers a lot of our European wine-loving friends say how do I get some American wines how do I get a chance to taste them because some of the most of the best wines in America never leave the US so. So today we're tasting American wines that are available in Europe. In the EU from our friends at 8wines.com. I have to let you guys know that the video has not been sponsored or paid for in any way but there will be a discount code if you want some of these wines at the end of the video and we do get a small commission for those wines so for whatever that's worth just not know that. Okay we're gonna taste three wines from California. Yeah and what's interesting is the three wines actually most of the grapes do not come from Napa Valley. Yeah so very interesting you know we do our our name our company name is exotic wine travel and we do like weird pockets of California of course Napa is exotic to people from Europe actually true but there's some really interesting wines being made so let's get into it. First of all we have actually a quite famous wine we have not tasted this yet. Shereen is very excited to taste this. This is the Oren Swift Mannequin 2015 mostly Chardonnay with some semi with no sorry Sauvignon Blanc and Muscat. So I picked this wine for as a sample because it's supposed to be a cool weather Chardonnay. And already I can smell it just pouring from there. Super peachy white melon floral stunning floral nose. Oren Swift is famous Dave Finney's the wine maker famous for the prisoner red blend also a saldo which we're gonna taste big massifies expect it was expecting this to be oaky sappy and I don't like it but this smells great right. The oak doesn't jump out at me. There's a little bit of this sweet spiced vanilla nose but it's not straight up oak on your nose it actually smells a little bit more bright you know creamy on the nose but the floral you know the floral really stands out to me. Well it's a great you get the I think I get the muscat too a little bit of flower the old flower let's give this a go. Freaking creamy and smooth in the mouth and pretty good acidity. It is full body oaky got malolactic the oak doesn't rip your face off nice fruit bright acids bright this is 15-5 alcohol and I'm not feeling. It sticks out a little bit for me it does it doesn't it doesn't bite into the fruit you still taste the flavors but there's a little bit of warmth in the throat for me. Okay I appreciate this a lot and I think people who like the full-fledged malolactic you know bigger shadow name would like this and and I think it's true to what is what the winemaker says and this is a cooler weather shadow name. I'm a good 4.4 point 2 out of 5 on this I think it's easily a wine that's good 90 point type wine what do you think? Oh certainly definitely more like a point. A lot of nuances to it. Really and the nose is killer especially for a white oh good good start to the show let's move on. One of Shareen's favorite grapes she is so excited we're gonna be tasting the GoldenEye Pinot Noir from Anderson Valley 2015 GoldenEye is a project of the Duckhorn family they started in 96 in Anderson Valley for just making Pinot Noir. I love cool climate Pinot Noir this is not a warm weather Pinot Noir as Shareen says. I was going on and on about it right because after this video and shoot we plan to do a tasting with the Croatian wine lovers and consumers as well so one of our friends messaged us and said oh I'm gonna get you a great Pinot Noir because it's warm weather you know along with your hot weather California wine and I was going on like come on this area Anderson Valley is not a warm weather place so just so you know I think a lot of people actually if you know American wines you would know that the average temperature in Anderson Valley is about 12 degree Celsius there are days that it gets up to 38 degree in day but the but it drops to like 8 to 10 degree Celsius. It's closer it's just north of Sonoma. Yeah closer to the sea let's give this a go. Darker color for a Pinot for sure this is an entry-level bot right away. Recaro, brown sugar spice. Grand cranberry a lot reminds me a lot of Sonoma Pinot Noir. There's a bit of this crunchy granny-smeaf apple nose to it like it's very fresh on the nose. Not floral or perfume more more like red fruit driven in terms of Pinot Noir let's give this a go. Oh spicy more of a full-bodied Pinot Noir. What do you think? I like it a lot. Nuance more full body. I'm telling you what this is something that I would highly recommend for people in Europe to try because this to me is is is really quintessential kind of Sonoma Anderson Valley Pinot Noir. We're more familiar with Santa Barbara Pinot Noir that have different flavor profile but this to me tastes a lot like what you're gonna get out of that part of California don't you think? It's it has a phenolic brightness that you would get from from Santa Barbara as well as Sonoma Anderson Valley really great mid-palate and the finish really shows the acidic backbone and cleanses the palate. It's not as fine and nuanced as some California Pinot Noir I've tasted but I definitely for me I think I'm enjoying this a lot I'm definitely like a 4.3 out of 5 on this I think it's pretty darn good. What about your what do you think? Yeah so this is 2015. I'm good to drink now but definitely has potential to evolve. You like it? Very much. Financial level bottling very nice job but actually I'm surprised actually was expecting to actually to find a little bit of a dud in here but so far so good. Oh and the M Pella is really long for the Pinot Noir. We're moving on to the to the prisoner wine company Saldo this is Zinfandel there's 15% Surah and Petit Surah on this. I think Constellation Brands bought this from Dave Finney the winemaker of the prisoner wine brand so so funny Shareen has wanted to try this for a long time back when we were in the States like years ago she was like will you buy that wine because I like the label. I mean when you look at a label it's actually there's no label at all it could be the world's smallest label. 16% alcohol. Wow so let's give this a go. Blue fruit, herbs definitely, jam like kind of like a jammy blackberry. Oh it's definitely crossing into jammy but it's too fresh like it you get the rightness but at the same time there's freshness to it. That's why I like it's not too woody either which I kind of like. Let's give this a go. Oh definitely lots of black berry plum clove very nice sweetness in the mouth. Jammy you definitely can feel the alcohol almost becoming a little bit port-like-esque because it's so rich in jammy don't you think? I seriously think that this is a wine that our Croatian friends would love. Yeah I think people are big masters for me that's not the type of wine that I enjoy drinking so much but people that want big red wines this is complete there's no holes or no look it's even though it's very right the palette is not heavy it's not the texture is not heavy in the mouth and I think that's a lot of nice freshness to it. I like zinc, California Zins with a little bit more herbal notes a little bit of nuances too but still this is pretty this is pretty this is a good example of California Zin. Do you like it? I like it for one glass to be honest it's not really the style of wine that I would drink a lot of but if you give it to me and with some beef stew or something I think it'll be really nice. For me I'm gonna say 4.0 out of 5 I think I can see a lot of people saying this is like 91 92 point wine getting super excited I think it's just solid but overall solid shallowing by California and anything you want to add on these wines? Don't don't don't pass on the salto wine because it's got beautiful sapo tannins it's just if you like that style of wine the biggest style this is beautiful. Well I'm gonna put the discount code up on the screen if I can't get it up on the screen I will put it in the description box you guys can get 15 euros out of 100 if you place an order of 100 euros if you want these wines or any other wines on 8wines.com yeah check it out. If you like this video please subscribe to our YouTube channel Exotic Wine Travel and we will see you in the next episode.