Featured Wines - Sept 2012

Artesa’s Estate Reserve Pinot Noir has always been a cut above the competition, but the layered, textured and superbly balanced 2009 vintage is surely the winery’s finest Pinot Noir to date, and richly deserving of all the 90+ ratings it’s received. It offers concentrated aromas of strawberry, lavender, rose petal, and exotic spices – all wrapped in an elegant, yet powerful structure. Even better are the deep, elegant, and concentrated berry fruit and spice flavors, and just enough toasted oak to round out this youthful beauty’s ripe tannins.

The 2010 Cave Chevalier Crozes-Hermitage Les Pends Blanc cuts a fine form in the glass, offering a golden hued robe and a rich, intoxicating bouquet of summer flowers, exotic fruits, and soft vanilla tones. In the mouth the 2010 Les Pends Blanc explodes with complex flavors, adeptly framed with buttery notes from an upbringing in small Allier oak barrels that adds gratifying complexity and depth – attributes that will ultimately allow Les Pends to age gracefully.

In every vintage, Gott’s Dillian Ranch Zinfandel stands out for quality, and the 2009 is no exception, offering a rich purple color and stunning scents of allspice, clove, blackberry, wild cherry, bramble, sassafras and fig. On the palate, Gott’s full-bodied, sophisticated Zin offers plush fruit and deep down spice tones to match its impressive olfactory. Add superb texture and fine, ripe tannins to frame the wine’s luscious fruit and spice, and the 2009 Dillian Ranch claims its rightful place as classic American Zinfandel.

Light, fresh, crisp and refreshing, Biltmore Estate’s 2011 Reserve Riesling offers tempting scents of citrus oil, white peach, and mountain balsam to tantalize the nose. Pure and refreshing on the palate, too, it’s difficult to imagine a more quaffable wine, as Biltmore’s racy, medium-bodied Riesling slips ever so easily down the thirsty throat. Pure fruit flavors that are superbly balanced by crisp acidity play counterpoint to one another, allowing the wine’s pleasant minerality to shine.

The 2006 Surazo Carmenère Reserva Especial is the progeny of one the decade’s finest vintages in Chile for Carmenère. Deep ruby in color, it’s imbued with an amplifying bouquet of fresh berries, bell pepper, and cedar. On the palate one encounters an expansive center of smooth berry flavors with deft hints of dark chocolate and roasted coffee. In short, the 2006 Surazo Carmenère Reserva Especial is a medium-bodied, classically wrought Bordeaux style Carmenère – beguiling and hauntingly beautiful.

Although best known for its iconic Carmenère, there’s no doubt that Casa Silva now shows equal acumen with white wines, as their 2010 Reserva Chardonnay will attest. This Mâcon style Chardonnay offers fresh and enchanting scents of apple, white peach, coconut, and a hint of spice. On the palate, it charms with its pure fruit flavors, subtle spice, and supreme balance – not unlike first-rate Pouilly-Fuissé. It’s a perfect showcase of the pure varietal character of Chardonnay and the unique terroir of Colchagua.

Faithful to Tremonte's terroir and style of winemaking, the 2010 Tremonte Single Vineyard Reserva Malbec presents itself as a deep opaque offering with amplifying aromatics, plenty of flavor and substantial structure. Pungent scents of black fruits, earth, spice, and wood greet the nose, while on the palate this energetic Malbec reveals a boatload of flavor and panache, with pure ripe fruit and plenty of fine, ripe tannins. It's a traditional full-flavored Malbec with real flair but in a style that appeals to contemporary tastes.