Thirsty Thursday - The Most Memorable Wine

Most people have their most memorable wine. It could be the day you got engaged, or celebrated a special anniversary, or it could have been the "perfect wine moment" that I discussed a few weeks back. I've been lucky to have many special bottles, but none will be as memorable as the 2007 Cinnabar Merlot.

A little over a week ago, one of my best friends, stopped over my house to drop off this bottle of wine with the instructions that I was to review this wine for my next tasting note. (See, I was able to land this killer job because my friend knows WinoBee!!!). So this was a "gift" from my boss, hand-delivered. I opened the wine on Thursday night, but didn't have a chance to write a proper tasting note. So I vacu-vinned the rest of the bottle and threw it in the fridge for Friday night.

Sometimes, however, Mother Nature has other plans. See, Mrs. RatherBeeBuzzed was 9 months pregnant... and I was called home from work on Friday morning with "the call"... so i spent my Friday night with the Mrs. in the hospital and early Saturday morning, BayBEE was born. It was a rough labor so we didn't get released from the hospital until Wednesday. I was certain the wine would have turned to vinegar, but it didn't. So the last wine I drank pre-fatherhood was the same as the first wine I had post-delivery. And that is why this is my most memorable wine!

2007 Cinnabar Merlot, Paso Robles, California

Now I am not a merlot fan by any stretch of the imagination. While I won't go as far as Miles in Sideways ("I'm not drinking any f---ing merlot"), I'm not too far behind. But this wine was a pleasant surprise. It starts off very sweet. My first thought was "this would be an awesome wine for new red wine drinkers to try". There are flavorful notes of blueberry, blackberry and vanilla. With some air, the blackberry really shines and blends nicely with the vanilla. The dark fruits are sweet, but in an enjoyable way. The tannins are round and the acidity on the low end. This is perfect and ready to drink now. And much to this wine's credit, it didn't fall apart after being opened for almost a week. Kudos to Cinnabar for such a nice effort.


My Take: Since this is a very special wine for me, I have a hard time being 'unbiased' in my review. However, I am very comfortable saying this wine is Very Good if not better.