Recently I made it out on the town with the gals. Each of these ladies has a child or children who ran middle school track. This is relevant because I too have children who run plus I coach Track and Cross Country for our local middle school. See, you just learned something new about me.
Anyhow, we’re doing our thing in the local downtown. We’ve got the good food on the table, awesome company all around, and lo, & behold- out comes the good wine. Yes! We ran through two bottles of this week’s wine, a lovely Pinot Noir which hails from my old stomping grounds, Sonoma County, California. Way to represent, Sebastopol!
We enjoyed the 2013 Pinot Noir Cuvee. The word “cuvee” is French and means batch or vat. Typically in California wine-making this means that the wine is a blend, usually of grapes from different vineyards. In Europe it is often used to denote a higher quality wine. However, word to the wise, the use of this term is unregulated, so just because some twit put cuvee on his bottle doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be getting topnotch wine.
The restaurant we chose that evening, Oasis on Main Street, Pleasanton, featured middle-eastern cuisine. The rich spice palate needed just the right wine pairing. Baker Lane Pinot features high acidity with a complex layers of peppery goodness and luscious fruit. I caught some berry notes, but the fruit was even brighter than typical berry- pomegranate? Cranberries? That sort fruitiness. The wine has a lovely finish, very smooth. This is a bottle to linger over.
The Oasis wine list sold Baker Lane as a $45 bottle, not bad considering restaurant mark-ups. However, you can buy it for $28 on the winery’s website. Not a price to make sangria out of, but certainly affordable for when friends come to call. It is available on a couple of wine retailers’ sites but you’ll pay a couple of bucks more for it. Might as well go straight the source on this one.
In short- I am giving this nine yummies out of ten on the yummy scale that I just this instant made up. Enjoy and have a lovely summer!
This post was written by Erika Gardner. If you enjoyed it, please sign up to receive updates on this blog. Or you can follow Erika on Twitter @Erika_Gardner or “Like” her Facebook page Erika Gardner- Writer and Storyteller. Check out her contributions to the BBB Blog.
