Sunday, December 07, 2008

Bouchaine 2005 Rockin' H Vineyard Pinot Noir


Last night we decided to dip into our "nicer" wine cabinet and enjoyed a 2005 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir from Bouchaine Vineyards. This is one of the wines in their Bacchus Collection, which according to the back of the wine bottle, "represents thoughtful selections from the array of wines produced by our family-owned winery each year. These are the wines we find interesting and intriguing. They are liited bottlings of 10 barrels or less." It was excellent!

We visited this winery a few months ago on our first trip to Napa, and we loved the winery's quaint charm and the very friendly people there. It is a very small winery far removed from a lot of the other, more commerical, wineries.

Back to the Pinot - we were having fish so we didn't want a wine that was too full-bodied. This proved to be the perfect pairing. The interesting thing about this Pinot is that it's not as light-bodied as most. Wine Guy and I liked that because we generally lean towards the medium-to-full bodied wines. It definitely fit the Bacchus description on the back of the bottle, as it was very interesting and intriguining...definitely unlike any Pinot I had ever tasted. I found myself swirling the glass and enjoying the aroma just as much as I enjoyed the taste.

Wine Guy said he tasted dark cherry and other dark red fruits when he drank this wine. He also noted that it was fuller-bodied than any other Pinot. This echoes the description of the wine on Bouchaine's website, which said, "Winemaker Mike Richmond used his Carneros sensibilities to sculpt dark berry, black cherry and leather character from a one-dimensional to a multi-faceted gem."

This wine can be purchased for $35.00 on Bouchaine's website. You'd better get it now, as only 300 cases were produced!

ENJOY!