A Tasting and Comment on Rios Solovino Cabernet Sauvignon 2005

Last night I had an opportunity to try a 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon from Rios Wine Cellars.  The name on their label is 'Solovino'.  'Solovino' means, 'he came alone'.  I purchased the bottle the previous weekend up in Calistoga at the Rios Wine Tasting Room.

It was there that I spoke with Albert Rios, the youngest of the Rios brothers.  Albert's two older brothers are Manuel and Rafael; Manuel being the oldest.  The Rios family seem to all have their hands in the wine industry in one form or another.  The pride they take as a family in grape growing, wine making and all round wine production is evident in the bottle I had last night.  It was excellent!

Albert shared with me that there 2005 Cabernet is from a single vineyard and is strictly from the 2005 harvest.  No blending from the previous year and no blending with fruit outside the particular vineyard.  You'll see this approach most likely in the smaller wine producers, who are not out to make every year of any given wine the same as the year before.  They focus on that year's fruit and focus on producing the best wine that specific fruit has to offer.  The result is that each year you necessarily have a different wine and often that difference is noticeable if you were to conduct a vertical tasting.

Getting back to my personal tasting experience, I found this particular wine excellent!

The clarity and deep ruby color is the first thing that you will notice.  When you put your nose to the glass you immediately pick up perhaps a tint of chocolate which is immediately replaced by ripe dark blackberry.  When you take it into your mouth and coat your tongue, you will pick up not a sweet chocolate but more of a dark chocolate.  As it lingers the fruity blackberry tones come forth. I didn't pick up oak but I was pleased with that.  Why?  I think the oak takes away from the pureness of the natural character the fruit has to offer which is different year after year when the winemaker believes in the single vineyard, single season approach. 

I wonder if that's how the Rios family came up with the name 'Solovino'?  I'll have to ask them.

If you have time I would encourage you to visit the Rios Wine Company web site at www.rioswinecompany.com .

Let your congressional representative know: Oppose HR 5034

This is a short but very important post about HR 5034, a bill that would allow states to discriminate against small wineries who import into their state in favor of that state's distributors and their local wine industry.  For a good legal analysis of the bill click here.  At the end of that article/analysis, their is a link to notify your congressional representative about your opposition to the bill or you can just click here and go directly there.

Remember it is for the generations who follow that we need to keep a vigil on our future's course. 

Pulling on a Thread

This is Omar on the Tractor and his father Ric off to the side.  Grandchildren come to mind when I think of family.

I've been thinking of family lately  (Mother's Day and all).  In part I imagine it's because I've been working on a web site for our family wines.  Part of last week and now this week, I've been working on getting our family wine site up and running.  I sent out the initial set up to my list of family and friends last week and have received great comments.  Most were how do we order.  Well, that's the part (the sales room) that I'm working on this week.

What does this have to do with my title "Pulling on a Thread"?  Nothing really, only that as part of my self educational process I receive a blog/newsletter "The Daily Sip by bottlenotes".  I took time out of my core project and read it.  The article was about blind tasting and Yellow Tail wines (the tasting took place in New York).  I didn't find the short article that great.  What interested me initially was the advertisement about the Auction Napa Valley E-Auction.

Being interested,  I clicked on the link (pulling on a thread so to speak) and began looking at the auction items.  I encourage you to do the same.  I don't know if I will be bidding on anything, but it gave me an opportunity to see wines produced by people I personally know.  I like to see my friends doing something good or producing something like . . . wine.  The other thing I immediately picked up are a few ideas on how our family sales room might be laid out on the new web site. 

Well, having given my friends a heads up on the E-Auction, I'll be getting back to my core project.

Have fun tasting wines.