Wannabe Wino

I have to admit, Wine Blogging Wednesday almost slipped my mind this month. With the holiday weekend here in the US and being on vacation last week for it, my thoughts were elsewhere. As we were driving home from work last night I was talking about how I needed to drink a sample wine I had received a few weeks ago and I was making plans for that when it suddenly occurred to me that WBW was here!

This month, our hosts of the nearly 4 year old (wow, congrats Lenn on starting such a wine blog phenomenon) WBW are Erin and Michelle of Grape Juice. They have picked a very different theme, which has pretty much given us free reign on what to drink, so long as it relates to the letter "S." The theme is "Brought to you by the letter "S."" That sorta makes me want to start singing "C is for cookie and that's good enough for me!"

For this one again, yay!, I was able to dive back into my own wine collection (phew, helps with the wine budget) to get a wine that was easily suitable for this theme.

I chose the 2005 Sonoma County Sky Saddle Syrah. Is that enough esses for you? :) I purchased this wine from WineQ for $25.99 (free shipping cause I spent more than $35), it had a real cork closure, and clocked in at 15.2% alcohol by volume. Sky Saddle is a completely organic and/or biodynamic winery and also uses oak barrels from a sustainable forest. I've had their Zinfandel before and had nothing but raves for it, so I was very excited to try more of what they had to offer.

My first note on this wine is that it needs to be decanted. On first pour/taste, the wine was tight and it definitely needed some time to aerate. Now, an hour or so later, the wine had opened beautifully.

The nose showed berries, plums, spice, red fruit, earth, oak, cream, violets, and white pepper. It was quite a nose once it was allowed to open up. Full of aroma and layer after layer of different scents. I'm sure if I kept sniffing it I would have gotten more, but as usual when I have my nose buried in a glass, Matt was almost through his 2nd glass and I haven't even tasted mine yet.

In the mouth I found tart red raspberries, zingy blackberries, plums, other red fruits, earth, vanilla, berries and cream, pepper. The wine was still a bit tight and tannic. This one could definitely hang out for several more years in my cellar, or else, decant for at least 2 hours before you serve it.

Overall, another great offering from Sky Saddle. I look forward to trying the Cabernet Sauvignon I have hanging around!

Many thanks to Michelle and Erin for the theme and for hosting this month!

*Disclaimer-I received this bottle of wine as a sample from WineQ because I am a member of their Beta Club.

The wine for the evening was a 2003 Sky Saddle Zinfandel from Twin Oaks Vineyard in Sonoma County. It clocked in at 14.5% alcohol by volume, had a real cork closure, and can be purchased from WineQ for $25.99.

I would suggest opening this bottle a half hour or so before you want to drink it, it needed to open up just a touch before I really got the full aroma and flavor from it.

On the nose the wine showed perfumed spices, lavender, rosemary, other spice, earth, dark cherries, and blackberries. The nose had a floral characteristic and lots of fruit came shining through. I thought the aroma was really complex and layered for a Zinfandel, in addition to being quite enticing; it made me want to jump right in. The mouth followed through on the nose, complex and layered, the flavors kept coming. I found black cherry, blackberries, chocolate, spice, earth, leather, rosemary, and yummy chocolate covered fruit. The mouth also had a similar floral characteristic to the nose.

I served the wine with pizza, and while it was fine with my homemade pizza, I must say, I truly enjoyed the glass I savored after dinner. This wine had so many flavors and layers that I really didn't want any food aromas interfering with my enjoyment of the wine! As I finished my 2nd glass, the wine continued to smooth out of the next hour or so, leading me to believe this wine could hang out in the cellar for a couple more years, though is drinking great if you give it a half hour now!

I know Farley of Behind the Vines reviewed the same bottle about a month or so back, you can read her take on the wine here! And in fact, I liked the wine so much that I added a bottle to my Q over at WineQ and a bottle of the Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. If they are half as good as this I think I'm in for a treat.