My friends Donna and Joe invited me over to dinner as "payment" for watching their dogs while they were on a bicycling vacation. Donna made an amzing risotto with chicken, carrots, onion, celary, cheese, and yellow squash! Given the Risotto, I was thinking about Mediterranean wines! Two nice discoveries tonight:
2002 Bonny Doon "Le Cigare Volante" Quite a bit of funkyness on the nose when opened, but this blew off nicely. Nice crystalline red color, with some black color near the center. Rich black cherry, licorise, tobacco, and leather notes dominated the palate. What made this wine sing was the mouth-watering acidity. It's the kind of wine that makes you want to keep drinking more, even if you know you have to get up for work tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. This was my first Bonny doon wine, and I am intrigued! 3.5*+
As good as the Bonny Doon was, my friends enjoyed even more another "trust the retailer and buy his recommendation without sampling": Andre Brunel, Cuvee Sabrine 2004 Cotes du Rhone Villages. This was light in color, simil;ar to the Bonny Doon. Also, a lighter wine with similar flavor profile=red cherry, licorish, tobacco, a hint of leather and some nice herbal "garrigue?" notes. Joe described it as more "delicate." Definitely a lighter wine, with less richness than the Bonny Doon. But: even more amazing bracing acidity. This wine is slurpable with food! makes you want to simply slurp it down because of that bracing acid level. Yum. 4*+
These wines were just fundamentally refreshing in a vbery enjoyable way with the food. The Brunel became smoother and richer over the evening. Given the sub $18 price, this will be a must buy in the future!
Another thing we noticed was how true to the original French character the Bonny Doon was. Napa Cabs often do not taste anything like Bordeaux (in my very limited experience). These two wines were FAMILY.