Cuvaison, Diablo Syrah 2009

Feel free to judge my pj selection...

For those of you who don't know, Nate and I enjoy wine. Mostly reds, but occasional whites in the summertime (and with chicken). We are by no means wine snobs. Put me at a fancy wine tasting and I usually offend "winos" by holding the glass wrong or drinking out of order or something. Um... aren't you supposed to drink and enjoy the wine? Enough with the stuffiness! And some of our favorites are the two-buck chucks. Price doesn't always define quality people. We enjoy what we enjoy.

Anyway, in the Fall of 2009 Nate and I went to Napa Valley. What a beautiful place, simply breathtaking! We enjoyed lots of wine. So much so that we joined a wine AND a champagne club not even realizing it. Oops.

Thankfully we picked some winners in the Carneros region. Top on that list is a winery called Cuvaison. Here are a few pictures from their location:

 Don't mind our goofy, grape colored grins :)

We also joined Domaine Carneros which features champagne. It was equally as gorgeous!

So after we realized we HAD to enjoy a year's supply of both (due to the contract we signed... Nate swears he was only giving his autograph), we fell even more in love with them.

Needless to say, we ended up not renewing our Domaine Carneros membership because we don't drink champagne often and after a year we have plenty stocked up for special occasions.

But I don't think we'll ever get rid of Cuvaison since we do drink wine often with delicious dinners and great friends... and after stressful days. They send 1-2 bottles every few months (depending on price) with varying types. It's so fun when the shipment comes in... what did we get, what did we get?!

(for more pics from this trip, visit our album)

Nate made a great point that we should start documenting them with small reviews to look back on and for recommendations. Since my sniffer and taste buds are half broken, I can't smell the corks often, most wines smell a little ammonia-ish to me, and I can't always tell the details in the blends of wines. So for these reviews, I'm going to turn it over to Nate...

In December they sent us their 2009 vintage "Diablo" Syrah. It's a wine that probably would be better a few years from now, but it offered the perfect blend with the pasta we were having, so out came the cork.

The Diablo's earns its devilish moniker with a spicy pepper close that's a real contrast to the more fruity berry attack. It's probably one of the more complex Cuvaison wines I've had, save their super-big cabs (which are what got me hooked on the place. That and winemaker Steve's very approachable vibe). Nice to see that variation in a Syrah, which seemed to end up very flat as they grew in popularity in the mid-00's.

I think this wine would do very nicely with some sausages, and it really did the job with the hearty pasta we enjoyed with it.

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...it's amazing how he can say SO much more than me in half the amount of time!