The Long and Winding Road

As strange as it may sound,  planning Thanksgiving dinner makes me think of Chaddsford Winery.  Every November, Chaddsford holds what they call "Turkey Tastings" on Saturdays leading up to Thanksgiving. 

The idea is cool - sample Thanksgiving food items with different wines and see what works for you.  Now, according to my PIC, anyone in their right mind knows that Zinfandel goes with turkey - and Pinot, if you run out of Zin - but one year, we found ourselves with a free weekend and we signed up for one of these sit-down tastings.

Six wines were poured along side of a sampling platter of traditional holiday fare - among them the Proprieter's Reserve White, Dry Riesling, Dry Rose, Pinot Noir, and two other reds that escape me at the moment but I think one of them was the Due Rossi. We began the exercise with anything but an open mind; we knew exactly which wine we would prefer and that would be, perhaps our favorite Chaddsford wine, the 2007 Pinot Noir. 

That was a long story to get here but all of this came back to me, not so much because of Thanksgiving dinner, but because we opened a bottle of the 2007 Due Rossi.  I have to admit that I was a little hesitant as we had a bottle of the 2007 Pinot a few weeks ago and it's currently sitting in the cooking wine section of the refrigerator.  That's not necessarily a knock to Chaddsford but more that we may have held it too long.

Anyway, back to the Due - 80% Barbera, 20% Sangiovese and ten months in French and Hungarian oak.  Somewhat light in color and medium bodied, it was soft and round with cherry, licorice and violets with beautifully refined tannins.  It was wonderful, just as I remembered!

By the way, we chose the Riesling and the Rose to go with our turkey dinner.  Go figure......

Plant a Seed and it Will Grow

Our Saturday trip to Va La was postponed due to, as Thefarmer Va La would say, "stupid poopy weather".  Fortunately for us, Sunday was a beautiful blue sky day, the perfect kind for a drive, and...my PIC can't think of a better place to drive than Va La!

Not that we need one, but the reason for this particular trip was to check out the just released Seed.  We were intrigued after hearing about it on our last visit and there was no way we were going to miss out! 

Sunday's line-up was 2009 LPD; 2008 Silk, paired with Honey'd Goat Cheese; 2008 Siranetta, paired with Focaccia and Goat Cheese; 2008 Seed, paired with Bouchde; and 2007 Mahogany, paired with Pennsylvania Noble.

We did our requisite tasting before settling into the comfy purple leather chairs with a glass of Seed to enjoy the fine Autumn sunshine streaming in through the French doors.  In French oak for 24 months, only two barrels of this experimental cross of Carmine and Cab Franc were produced.  I kept trying to come up with a succinct description of a very complex wine.  My PIC called it a toned-down Carmine - in a good way.  For him, it tamed something in Carmine that he sometimes finds objectionable.

During our lazing in the sun, I jotted down four words - mint, blueberry, nuts, and mocha.  There's a hint of mintiness on the nose with a huge burst of blueberry at the back of the palate that evolved into this lovely nuttiness that moved on to a mocha finish.

Plant a seed and it will grow - into something awesome!  I remain intrigued and I think we may need to try it again this weekend, maybe with some pizza!