Tuesday, December 23, 2014

A Surprising Red Rooster

We encountered a couple of surprises with this bottle when we opened it. First off, I was taken aback that this vintage hadn't already been added to The List. In part due to Boo's and my long-standing sponsorship of a row in Red Rooster's Adopt-A-Row program, we usually have a good selection of the winery's bottles on hand - and, therefore, I've likely added as many, if not more, Red Rooster bottles to The List as I have from any other winery. And, the Reserve Merlot is usually one of my favourite wines produced by Red Rooster.

Secondly, since I figured this Merlot would already be on The List, I didn't take a picture of it the night we drank it. Luckily, I've been a little slow returning the empties back to the store and I was still able to grab a quick shot for the blog. No shot of a full wine glass, but I suppose that sometimes an empty bottle will just have to do.

1831.  2006 Red Rooster Reserve Merlot (VQA Okanagan Valley)

Since I've already written a lot about Red Rooster and the folks behind it ("Hi Karen, Blair and gang), I won't carry on here. I'll just add a link to the post I wrote about the winery prior to the 2013 Wine Bloggers Conference - held just down the road from Red Rooster as chance would have it.

The good news about this bottle is that, despite being from the 2006 vintage, it had plenty of life left and was still very tasty. The nose remained big and fruit-filled and there was still plenty of balance between body, tannin and acidity. I wasn't so sure about the longevity of the '06 but it was definitely a pleasant surprise.

Unfortunately, there was some bad news as well. This was our last bottle of the 2006 and I don't think that's something that even Santa will be able to overcome.

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