Pour Boys Wine Weekend Kick-off continues with red wine tasting with blue cheese assortment
Following our Pour Boys Wine Weekend Kick-off Dinner, early dinner on the eve of our Pour Boys ‘Winers & Diners’ Gala Wine Dinner, we came home and had a relaxed evening socializing, catching up, and sipping some wines with artisan cheeses and fresh fruits.
Inspired by the special feature in the current issue of Wine Spectator on blue cheeses paired with wines, I had gone out and picked up selection of Murray’s Blues - Cotswald, Cave Gorgonzola, Blue Stilton and Smokehaus Blue. We enjoyed these with assorted biscuits/crackers and fresh berries, pears and apples.
All of these were fabulous and enhanced the wine pairing with the red wines. I especially liked the Cotswald and the Blue Stilton!
We have many wines in our cellar acquired with fellow Pour Boy Bill, or tasted at special tastings or wine producer visits together. So it is that we pull these to revisit with Bill when the occasion arises. One such wine is from Arns on Howell Mountain that we visited together during our Napa Wine Experience in 2013 as featured in this blogpost - Arns Napa Valley Estate Vineyards Visit. We tasted and acquired this label at the winery that day.
Here we are with John Arns in the Arns Winery and Vineyarda barrel room.
Arns "Estate Grown" Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2007
This release was part of the flight of Arns Cabs we tasted and subsequently acquired at the winery during our visit in 2013.
This release was rated 92 points by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, and 90 points by Connoisseur’s Guide, 89 points by Wine Enthusiast.
Dark garnet colored with purple hues, medium to full-bodied, focused, concentrated, structured blackberry and blackcurrant fruit flavors with notes of dark mocha chocolate, cassis and expresso on a lingering tannin laced finish.
RM 91 points.
The 2017 Pirouette is a left-bank Bordeaux blend of 58% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, 13% Malbec, and the rest Petit Verdot, crafted from small lots from Washington State's finest vineyards. It was aged 22 months in French oak barrels with 85% being new.
This was a blockbuster release, rated 96 points by Jeb Dunnuck and International Wine Report, 94 by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and 93 by Steve Tanzer.
Dark garnet colored with purple hues, medium to full-bodied, focused, concentrated, structured blackberry and blackcurrant fruit flavors with notes of dark mocha chocolate, cassis and expresso on a lingering tannin laced finish.
RM 91 points.
Another joy of having a cellar collection is to share favored wines with friends. Trolling the cellar, Bill came across and was eager to try this producer label which we opened to enjoy with the cheeses and fruits.
Long Shadows Vintners Collection Pirouette 2017
We’re members of the Long Shadows wine club and hold nearly a decade of vintages of their various label releases.
Checking our cellar inventory, we hold nearly a decade of vintages of this label so we pulled one of the oldest in our holdings, and one year adjacent to a recent earlier release tasting. We supplemented our wine club allocation with several bottles of this label acquired at auction, which we opened tonight.
As I wrote in a recent blogpost - Pirouette Red Blend at Sullivan’s Steakhouse Naperville, this is one of our favorite labels for a Bordeaux varietal red blend, a sleeper, not well known or sufficiently regarded, given the pedigree of the winemaker and the quality of the product.
This is the Bordeaux varietal red blend from the Long Shadows Vintners's Collection that features world class winemakers and Washington State Columbia Valley fruit.
This is the Bordeaux varietal red blend from the Long Shadows Vintners's Collection that features world class winemakers and Washington State Columbia Valley fruit.
This label is produced in collaboration with legendary winemakers Philippe Melka, named one of the top nine winemakers in the world by Robert Parker, and Agustin Huneeus, Sr., another legendary wine producer.
We visited their initial collaborative project, August Huneeus’ Quintessa Vineyards, crafted by Philippe Melka, as part of our Napa Valley Wine Experience back in 2003.
I’ve written about Philip Melka numerous times in these pages including that tasting at Sullivan’s Steakhouse post and previously - Château Boswell Napa Valley Estate Reserve Red Wine 2016. I featured Huneeus in a recent blogpost here - Faust Napa Cab with St Pat’s Dinner.
We’ve featured Long Shadows and their vintners collection in these pages, including our visit to their hospitality center and tasting room in Woodinville (WA), as part of Seattle Wine and Dine - Washington State Wines Tastings in Woodinville.
Winemaker notes - “The Cabernet Sauvignon, primarily sourced from a collection of Red Mountain’s best vineyards, gives Pirouette the structure and textured richness that has come to characterize this acclaimed growing region. A small percentage of old vine Cabernet from Sagemoor Vineyard, planted in 1972, adds complexity. Merlot brings juicy richness to the finished wine. Malbec from Sonnet Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills adds spice. Finally, Dionysus Vineyard’s Petit Verdot enhances the wine’s color and contributes to the wine’s layers of intense aromas and flavors.’
“The 2017 Pirouette has an expressive nose with a firm core of dark fruit and mocha flavors, displaying a layered concentration of black cherry and well-integrated oak spices. Vibrant and full-bodied across the mid-palate, this is a texturally pleasing wine with a broad and lengthy finish.”
Dunnuck wrote - “It can be drunk today but will develop additional complexity with 3-4 years of bottle age and keep for two decades or more.”
Dark ruby colored, full bodied, vibrant expressive expressive vibrant blackberry, plum and black currant fruits with savory accents of cinnamon and clove spice, bitter dark chocolate and crème de cassis with smooth polished tannins on a sumptuous finish.
RM 94 points.
