With lunch with my sister at Caffe Museo (the Museum of Modern Art restaurant) in San Francisco. Drank with a delicious "yuppie pizza" (creamy pesto, mushrooms, potatos on a cracker crust. My sister had "ham stew" Given the oh so lovely chilly fog (I suffered through 106 on Thursday) these were great meals....
Anyway-the wine by the glass offering was a major surprise, a Robert Pepi Sangiovese 2004. According to the Website, this was Sangiovese Grosso. This has to be one of the best California Sangiovese's I've ever had! There was nice acidity to cut through the creamy sauce on the pizza (and the stew), some nice dark cherry fruit, and plenty of funky, earthy mushroomy notes. Almost every California Sangiovese I've tried is sharp, over acidic, and often has an unpleasant "candyish" character. Not this Pepi wine. I know they are a big producer, and this is not a cult wine by any means, but I thoroughly enjoyed this. **** Jess Jackson strikes again!
One of the owners of Wine Styles tonight gave me a taste of a lovely small producer in Saint Emillion-Saint Valery 2002 Grand Cru. Definitely a Bordeaux in character. Even this young, it was delicious black in color with a nice Bordeaux nose of tobacco, blackberry, and cassis. This followed through pretty nicely on the palette, with blackberry, cassis, leather, and tobacco. I like. I like a lot ***1/2