Wine tasting

98 Randall Chardonnay

Our hand crafted Chardonnay was produced from select Yakima Valley grapes and was aged sur lee for 8 months with an additional 11 months in French Oak. This Chardonnay shows a honeysuckle nose with lush tropical fruit, vanilla oak and a long silky finish. Yum! (a very technical wine term)

New Zealand Notes: 

The Randall Chardonnay had a superb golden colour. We found it to be a very powerful wine, with a lovely, well-rounded mouth feel. The oak presence was quite obvious with rich, full flavours, good ballance and persistent aftertaste. We decided to cellar the other bottle for a couple of years, as we are interested to see how it develops. One of the group thought this was the top wine of the tasting.

98 Argyle Pinot Noir

This is one of our favorite pinots. A beautiful deep ruby color with aromas of dark fruits and flavors of black cherries and earthy notes. Firm tannins give this pinot a nice full body. A lingering finish makes this wine most enjoyable. We think this wine is perfect to pair with salmon.

New Zealand Notes: 

The Argyle pinot noir exhibited a beautiful deep ruby red colour, clear, bright and translucent, more intense than most New Zealand pinots, which seem to lack the density of this one. For us, cherries leapt out at us on the nose. It has a lovely silky feel in the mouth, with a pleasant sweetness underlying its complex spicy and savoury flavours, The tannins were evident but not overpowering, A very classy wine with excellent weight, body and balance. Probably the wine that found most overall favour with our group.

93 Eaton Hill Cabernet Sauvignon

Good friend Gary Rogers, winemaker at Eaton Hill, made thisfull flavored Cabernet. Eaton Hill produces consistently good cabernet. This one is exceptional, aged to perfection. The concentration of fruit is outstanding! We were privileged to purchase one of the last few bottles for this tasting.

New Zealand Notes: 

The Eaton Hill cabernet sauvignon is a BIG cab sav! Incredibly dark purply-red colour. Very full bodied, rich and fruity with well integrated smooth tannins, black currants and plums with a touch of spice and mint. We debated what the slightly "burnt" (but not in an unpleasant way) flavour was and wondered whether the oak barrels might have been burnt on the inside and this was what was coming through. Someone else thought they could detect tobacco and leather flavours. There were certainly some smoky flavours in evidence. Powerful, big and juicy. For two of our group, this was the highlight of the tasting.

Discussing

Chardonnay

Cheers

Yes we eat meat

With Buddy

Rick and Sharon