Tasting Notes From the 1st Weekend of April

I've got a lot of catching up to do. We had quite a few different wines over the weekend and I somehow wasn't able to find the time to blog about any of them yet. I must admit, after all the various wines over the past few days, my notes are a bit fuzzy, so I may be brief on a few of these.

First a quick shout out. Apparently our friends who brought the Colorado wine over weren't thrilled with my review, so they decided to make up for it by bringing all kinds of good wine over this weekend. Here we go....first up a Stonehedge Reserve Zinfandel from Mendocino, CA (retails around $17.99). This was a good wine, especially if you don't want an overpowering Zinfandel. It had just a hint of spice to it, but a lot of nice blackberry and other fruit flavors. I would say give it a try, but before you do you may want to check out their $10 Cabernet which is really good itself.

Next we opened a bottled of 2005 Harlow Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon. Everyone was very pleased with this wine (I believe it retails for under $10). I don't remember much about the nose on it, but the flavors were gentle, fruity and finished with just the right amount of tannins. Both of these wines however were just warm ups for the real show stopper of the night.



Our friends had been saving a bottle of 2002 Stag's Leap Merlot from Napa Valley. If you aren't familiar with Stag's Leap, let me take a little diversion here. The winery has been around for over 100 years and is one of Napa's most famous and prestigious wineries. They are probably best known for producing the Cabernet Sauvignon that won the 1976 Judgement of Paris blind taste test between French and California wines. If you haven't seen it, there is a very entertaining movie just out on DVD called Bottleshock which is based on this event - while not totally accurate (what movie is) I highly recommend the movie! But back to the 2002 Merlot. Simply an incredible wine. Perhaps here is the best way to sum this up - my friend kept saying "I don't like Merlots so I'm not sure I'm going to like this". To which I replied, trust me, a good Merlot tastes nothing like the junk that has been over produced lately, and much more like a good Cabernet which I know you like. After one sip he was amazed. On the nose I got strong floral aromas, like wildflowers, mixed in with pear and other tree fruit. The best part was the taste in the back of your tongue and the texture as it went down. Simply one of the smoothest wines I have had. This wine can be found in the $30's and at that price is an excellent example of what a Merlot should be - go find some right away. Thank you to our friends for brining this over, and thank you for reading - enjoy the first miracle.