The wine itself is billed as a "Rhone-style red wine", which piqued my curiosity. Rhone refers to a large winemaking region in southern France; it produces both red and white varietals derived from Syrah, Carignan, Viognier, Marsanne, and a host of other grapes. Since the Rhone-style encompasses such a large region, with a variety of styles and taste profiles, I'm curious to see what elements of the Rhone style they choose for this wine.
A bit about the winery - originally founded in 1981 in Healdsburg, CA (home to Francis Ford Coppola's winery, a tour of which I took several years back), Rabbit Ridge moved to Paso Robles, CA, much farther to the south in 2000. Paso Robles is a big winemaking town, with a dry Mediterranean climate, perfect for grape-growing. It's also home to Firestone Walker Brewing Co., makers of a fine anniversary ale as well as the "Luponic Distortion", a nice IPA.
Now that the wine has breathed for about 10 minutes, let's give it a shot. It's red in the glass, sort of a blood-red when candled.
Initially, there's a slightly tart flavor followed by mellow berry, soil, and grape skin flavors. It's a bit sweet, but generally full and nicely balanced. It's interesting also to note the wine is a bit "hot" - a wine term used to describe a higher alcohol content. This wine is almost 15.0% ABV, which is generally at the high end of the range for wine. Despite this fact, I find the wine to be very approachable, tasty, and decent.
In the end, it's a nice dinner wine with few strong advantages or disadvantages. I served it with rice and homemade goat curry, and it turned out great. It's available at Trader Joe's, and elsewhere, and at $6.99, it's a very affordable wine to drink every day and would make a good gift to bring to a house party. This would also pair well with tomato sauce dishes.
No comments:
Post a Comment