Pedroncelli 2006 Pinot Noir

Another post from vacation at the North Carolina shore. Tonight my wife and I had a kid free night to visit probably the nicest restaurant on Oak Island - Island Way. We were both in the mood for a Pinot Noir so I chose a medium priced one from the Russian River Valley in Sonoma - a Pedroncelli 2006 Pinot Noir. I'm not sure what this would retail for in a store, but the restaurant was offering it for $35 so I'm guessing a retail of around $20. To be honest until tonight I had yet to find a Pinot Noir from CA that I really liked - I'm just too much in love with Oregon Pinot's right now to find the CA ones that much to my liking. However, the menu notes on this one said "soft and velvety" which sounded good to me. The notes were right - this wine was a perfect Pinot Noir. Maybe it just complimented my oysters and seared tuna perfectly, but I loved this wine. There was a bitter of pepper on the nose, then in the mouth it was exactly as advertised, soft and velvety with a slightly spicy finish. I must admit, a California Pinot Noir I really really like. Again, I haven't seen this in a store before, but if you do I would encourage you to pick up a bottle. If you do, let me know what you think, and what you pay for it if you don't mind! Enjoy the first miracle.

A SUPER Deal on a Napa Merlot

It's been a while since my last post, probably because of how busy I've been with running a marathon and planning for vacation. My family and I are on vacation this week at Oak Island, NC. It's a great place, imagine Myrtle Beach with about 10 people for every mile of beach. So here's the interesting wine story related to our vacation at Oak Island. On our first night here we went to the local (small) Food Lion to stock up on some goods for the week. In the wine section I noticed a sign that said Weekly Wine Special - St. Clement 2005 Merlot $7.99. I could hardly believe it! When we were in Napa last summer my wife and I visited St. Clement winery on recommendation from a friend at work. It's a beautiful small winery that sits on a hill, and I could clearly remember that NONE of their wines were much less than $30 a bottle. So even though I couldn't remember their Merlot that well we agreed to buy 1 bottle to see how we liked it then come back for more if it really were as good as we expected. Well the wine is terrific. Very dark with a deep cherry nose; very soft in the mouth with hints of chocolate and berries. So next we looked it up on their website to confirm what we thought - the wine retails for $28 a bottle. This wine was $20/bottle off - needless to say we headed right back to the Food Lion to buy them out. There were 7 bottles left out and I talked to their wine guy to see if they had anymore. Unfortunately he explained that each week their distributor brings one wine to put on special and whatever they have is out on display. Funny enough I've never seen St. Clement in a store, but come to a small Island about as far away from Napa as you can get in the U.S. and there it was for 75% off. Oh well, we've got 7 bottles of this terrific bargain to bring home!