Hirsch Vineyards Bohan-Dillon Pinot Noir 2003, Sonoma County, CA, USA
Cherry and spice.
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CorkSavvy talks to Winemaker Rick Sayre of Rodney Strong Vineyards.
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A holiday dinner party menu from Andrea Robinson of the Macy's Culinary Council
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Looking for something fun and different to do on a beautiful fall day?
Consider taking a scenic drive through bucolic landscapes infused with
the smells and colors of autumn with your destination being the North
Fork of Long Island Wineries about 75 miles from Manhattan.
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Robert M. Parker, Jr., the world-renowned wine writer and critic, rated the 2007 vintage of Chateauneuf du Pape between the mid and high 90’s. With a rating of 100 being perfect, a rating in the high 90’s is about as close to perfect as you get.
In the Wine Advocate October 2008, Robert Parker said: "Throughout the southern Rhône, 2007 is the greatest vintage I have tasted in my thirty years working in that region... Nearly every producer has attained largely unprecedented levels of quality. Moreover, the vintage is remarkably consistent from top to bottom.
…the appellation has had an unprecedented succession of superlative vintages. Forgetting the historic washout in 2002, every vintage between 1998 and 2007 has had both high quality and something different to offer stylistically. Where does 2007 fit? Think of 2007 as a hypothetical blend of an opulent, powerful, sumptuous year such as 1990, and a cooler drought vintage such as 2001. The cool weather and the remarkable three weeks of Mistral in September that concentrated the grapes without any spikes of high heat appears to have given the 2007s an aromatic dimension and freshness that I have rarely witnessed. Combine that with wines that are substantial, powerful, and relatively high in alcohol, with super depth of fruit! These are very aromatic wines of great concentration, freshness, laser-like focus, and amazing purity as well as depth. It is the vintage of my lifetime for this region, and I don’t say that lightly. These 2007s will also be very long-lived given their extraordinary balance.”
This overwhelmingly strong assessment by Robert Parker is about as close as you get to perfection. The question is have you tasted a wine that is almost perfect? If not, perfection is just around the corner at the Robert M. Parker, Jr. Annual Seminar & Tasting at The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, St. Helena, CA on Thursday, October 22, 2009 featuring 18 of the wines from the 2007 Chateauneuf du Pape vintage. The tasting will be followed by a dinner at PRESS restaurant in St. Helena, CA with proceeds benefiting the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Since the wine tasting event in California is not an option for most of us, it is fortunate that the Chateauneuf du Pape 2007 wines are beginning to arrive in stores for your own personal wine tasting. Now we can all get a taste of “perfection”.
