Forty Bottles of Ringboree

This was a gift from a friend and co-worker, perhaps 6 or 7 years ago. We had been saving it specifically for our 2010 New Years dinner, and that happy event was postponed a few weeks due to scheduling conflicts, but finally came around.

This wine was truly wonderful. A nose almost like bourbon in its intensity. Peat and fresh cut pine, mint and vanilla. A real treat just to sniff. Big jammy flavors, but very soft, with the enormous tannins from several years back all melted away. Lovely long silky finish. Deep red and gold color.

I'm awfully glad we saved it, and glad we picked this moment to open it. It was just about perfect, and, sharing it with dear friends made it even better. A truly remarkable wine, and a huge encouragement to hold on to some of my more precious bottles a few years longer. This earns the very rare 40 bottles of ring-bo-ree, and wish that you, too, may go to sea in a sieve, to the hills of the Chankly Bore.

Last night we had the 2007 Castillo de Molina Pinot Noir Reserva with spaghetti. I tasted it first with a Double Gloucester, which it stood up very well to. It was fairly tannic, but they softened very quickly, so perhaps this is made to drink pretty young. Strawberries and mineral aromas. Soft red berries in the mouth.

I'll give this one 28 bottles of Ringboree. At $9, a great buy. I expect we'll be getting this one again.

Very simple at first but developed into licorice and fresh baked bread in the nose. Jammy, strawberry taste and long fruity finish. Few of the expected zin flavors but still very yummy. Had with pasta with red sauce. Better after dinner by itself. 35 bottles of Ringboree.

I have certain notions of what chardonnay tastes like, but I always wonder how much of the flavor comes from the grape, and how much from the oak, and after years of drinking over-oaked chardonnays, I'm never quite sure which is which.

The Stonemason Chardonnay is unoaked, which presumably means that it's made entirely without oak, right? So the flavors should be those of the fruit, and not of the process. And, it was very inexpensive, so I was pleased when my Beloved brought it home from the wine store to taste.

Butter and pineapple are the most prominent flavors in this wine, reassuring me of what I believed - that the butter comes from the grape, and not from the oak. That makes me happy, because the butter is what I love the most about chards, and I was uncertain whether that was just a side-effect of the process.

A simple wine, but with a delightfully long finish, and a smooth silky mouthfeel. Recommended. 30 bottles of ring-bo-ree.