A Russian River Pinot Noir

I reviewed a bottle of Sonoma-Cutrer Chardonnay for the blog last year, which I have to admit I wasn’t a big fan of, not that their was anything wrong with the wine. So I was delighted when I received a bottle of their Russian River Valley Pinot Noir 2007, as its one of my favourite grapes. I’m always a bit dubious about Pinot Noir from regions that predominately have hot climates, such as California, it’s such a difficult grape to grow even in the most perfect climate, but I thought I’d give it a go.

Situated about 1 hour north of San Francisco and just inland from the Pacific coast, it benefits from having a cooling fog that descends across the valley, helping to drop the daytime temperatures by as much as 40 degrees. This also helps to extend the growing season giving the grapes time to reach their full flavour maturity, making it the perfect place to grow most type of grapes.

In the glass it had a deep ruby colour, with wonderfully pronounced aromas of black cherries, blackberries and damsons, once you got through all the fruit you then got the sweet spice of cinnamon and clove, intertwined with a hint of smoke. On the palate all of the aromas came through wave after wave and combining beautifully, but instead of the smoke, the oak came through in a meatier characteristic. It had quite a low level of acidity, but it was just enough and soft silky tannins that just glided of your tongue.

This is an absolutely stunning full bodied red, with great flavours and complexity that I would highly recommend; it’s great to drink on its own and will also go amazingly well with a roast. It’s currently available from Waitrose, Ocado and Everywine for £21.99; yes I know it’s a bit pricey but definitely worth every penny.

A Great Full Bodied Classico Chianti

My girlfriend asked me to make a lasagne for her the other week as a friend from work was coming for dinner, being the good boyfriend that I am of course I agreed. While checking what I needed for the lasagne I asked who was coming, as said her name a sense of dread came over me, she’s Italian and I’m cooking lasagne!

I needed to pull out all the stops for this, so I went down the shop and bought all the best quality ingredients I needed and raided my wine rack for what I could find. Fortunately for me I had a bottle of Don Tommaso Chianti Classico 2006, which couldn’t have been any better.

On opening I obviously needed to taste the wine to check that it was ok for what I was cooking. On pouring, it had a beautifully opaque ruby colour, with wonderfully pronounced aromas of blackberries and plums and a touch of smokiness coming through. Now to taste, you got all those flavours of the fruit and the smokiness which had come from the 18 months of oak ageing it had received, but you also still got these very robust tannins which you almost had to chew your way through.

There was a lot to this wine, and you could see the complexity in flavours and what it was going to become, which was its problem, it needed several more years of ageing before it would be really ready to enjoy fully.

Would I recommend this wine, yes I would, but probably worth buying a few bottles and putting them away for several years to enjoy them fully, but if you’d want to drink it now, serve it with something that would be able to stand up to it such as a roast or a steak.