Judging from my repeats of certain wineries, you can see I don’t have nearly the network or name recognition of Isaac Baker. But I do enjoy flexing my wine reviewing muscles on occasion, when new books and films are in short supply, and producers are kind enough to reach out with samples.

In the Groundhog Day days of COVID-19 home life, I’ve also been thinking about the experience of the everyday. Instagram isn’t reality, and I’m usually experiencing these wines in the course of everyday life. Picture me handing a glass of these wines to my wife as she’s coming downstairs from putting our seven-month-old to bed and asking her, “What d’you think of this?” On the other hand, taking a page from Henry James, an author I’ve read quite a bit, I do believe there is something to be found worth writing about in the common, the mundane, the routine. 

Anaba sent me their Spring releases recently, and here’s how I experienced them.

Anaba 2019 Rose of Grenache, Sonoma County (SRP $30)

Way past boredom, I’ve started unboxing old things from the attic and selling what I can on eBay, mostly trading cards from childhood. I’ve also been cooking up a storm, and pairing the few wines I’ve received in recent months. We drank this rose slightly chilled with soy marmalade salmon and curry roasted butternut squash and golden beets.

The first thing you’ll notice is this wine is far more orange than pink. It has a fresh, chalky nose, like wet stone after a summer shower. For some reason it brings me back to the North Fork of Long Island in summer, looking out over the water toward Connecticut. It hits me with bright acidity and the muddled chalkiness of freeze dried strawberries. My wife thought it was a bit too “alcoholy” at first, but after letting it breathe she said it got better. After an hour, in fact, it began to hit our noses with ripe peach and those candy peach rings! 

Nothing to complain about with this wine. It has more body than I’ve typically encountered in rose, so it probably pairs well with heavier summer fare.

Anaba 2017 Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast (SRP $48)

I’d planned a special meal of seared scallops for our wedding anniversary, and picked this bottle to go with it. I poured it into two Riedels about thirty minutes beforehand. I used a portion of the bottle to deglaze the pan and make a reduction sauce, which tasted so wonderful mixed up in the roasted beets, carrots, onions, and blistered tomatoes on our plates.

Our glasses blossomed with tart strawberry, blackberry, handfuls of dirt, and star anise. This is an incredibly fragrant wine, and I was quite enthused about gulping it down.

The taste and mouthfeel were a letdown for me. The wine seemed to wash over my tongue and quickly disappear, without much in the way of discernible flavor. I expected more acidity too. I found it a bit thin, flat maybe, and lacking in that “calling me back for more” quality.

My wife, on the other hand, loved this wine. So there you go, the subjectivity of wine drinking at its finest.

Anaba 2017 Chardonnay, Carneros J McK Estate Vineyard (SRP $46)

Another night, another amazing meal prepared. This time with some local pork, and I again used the wine to make a pan sauce. This 2017 Chardonnay is golden/straw colored and full of wonderful lychee aromas, reminiscent of these Asian gummy candies I once had at Epcot. There’s also golden, super-ripe pineapple (indicating to me more sugar than tartness) and those Juicy Pear flavored Jelly Belly jelly beans.

Halfway through my meal prep, skillet in one hand and wine glass in the other, a thirty-foot limb fell off the tree in my front yard. I wasn’t sure about the wisdom of running my chainsaw after a couple glasses of wine, but fortunately I was saved by the police and emergency crew who showed up to clear the street. The tree would wait until the next day.

Returning to my wine an hour later, I enjoyed its slightly creamy mouthfeel, but would have liked a touch more acidity and staying power. Still, it had just enough of both to beckon me for another sip on this 92-degree day.