
Returning to home base, our arrival wine was a wild card, a 2007 Viognier by North Carolina winery RayLen. I had saved this bottle for a side-by-side Viognier tasting that never actually happened. I thought OTBN might be a good time to try something exotic.
This wine is a beautiful honey-gold color with a luxurious silky mouth feel. However, this vintage was done in by oak. Viognier can have a beautiful, delicate slightly herby flavor, but this was swamped by too much oak. The French oak was not complimentary to the fruit flavors. Green Dragon is not an oak fan on a good day, and this combination just didn’t work for her.
We then moved to a bottle that has been aging for a few years, a nice Trius 2004 Cabernet Franc, from Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. I picked this bottle up when we went to Stratford for the Shakespeare festival last year – one of the benefits of living so close to Canada.
As I poured this into the decanter, I had a blast of aromatic fruit as the cranberry colored wine swirled away. Spiderman and Glorious T enjoyed this wine, GT proclaimed it as stress relief in a bottle – something to be enjoyed while snuggled by the fire. The body is medium with a taste of well blended spices, including pepper on the end. OTBN was now off and running quite well.
To cap the evening, the cork was popped on a Lamoreaux Landing 2007 76 West (Finger Lakes). This is a blend of 55% Cabernet Franc, 35% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a deep, beautiful color, several shades darker than garnet. The approach is silky with the Cab Franc’s pepper being toned down by the Merlot. This is heartier than the Trius, but in a well-balanced way. This has an vanilla bean finish and is a beautiful sipping wine.
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