The Wines of CSJ

And we're back to regularly scheduled programming, I thank you for humoring me with Barkley's photos.  The reserve room wines at Chateau St. Jean really were splendid, each one tasted better than the one before.  The woman doing the pouring for us also offered a lot of good tidbits.

 

I love a good tidbit. 

 

She said that if a chardonnay smells of butterscotch and something else (unfortunately I couldn't remember the entire tidbit), but if you get whiff and it smells of butterscotch then you know the chardonnay will have a lot of buttery notes.  Some people don't like those buttery notes.  I just plain old don't like white wine but this butterscotch goodness was delicious. 

The reserve wines that were on the tasting docket for this particular day:

Pinot Gris ~ Cold Creek 2008

Chardonnay ~ Sonoma County Reserve 2006

Pinot Noir ~ Sonoma County Reserve 2007

Malbec ~ Sonoma County Reserve 2006

Cabernet Sauvignon ~ Cinq Cepages 2006

Like I said, all the wines were absolutely divine.  The Cinq Cepages won Wine of the Year in 1996 and came in second in 1999.  We decided to buy a bottle of this award winning wine and make our way to the patio to enjoy.  Chateau St. Jean is in the minority to offer food on site - and good food at that.  We took full advantage at the Charcuterie (Charcuterie by another name is Deli, but I think I'll start using Charcuterie from now on. It sounds so exotic.) A few sandwiches, along with a large baguette and cheese and a table on one of their many patios and we were set.  I mean, really, could life get any better than a day at a winery eating cheese and drinking award winning wine? 

I think not.

[our favorite bottle sitting in all its glory... on a utility grate]

If you speak fluent foreign languages as I do (no, I don't, I just Google like you wouldn't believe) you would know that Cinq Cepages means "Five Varieties".  Those five varieties are Cabernet, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot.  The reason that the five varieties work so well (to me at least) are because the different varieties hit your tongue in different areas and at different times.  The Malbec hits your tongue immediately and then the others fill your mouth and leave a bold, but smooth, after taste. 

I'd tell you which of those varieties provide the tastes in the back of your mouth, but I stopped listening to the tidbits as soon as the Malbec hit my tongue.

Heaven. 

I love the bold taste from start to finish.  Maybe it's the cheapskate in me that makes me feel like I just got my money's worth.  This bottle is afterall $75 worth of deliciousness.

For more information, check out the Chateau St. Jean website.