Open That Bottle Night 2/23

I hosted my first wine tasting since leaving Seattle with my new winebrat friends here. A good time was had by all and wonderful wines were shared. The top wines of the evening were 2006 Foley Pinot Noir (Rancho Santa Rosa), 2005 Incognito (David Michael Phillips-Lodi), and 2003 Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe (Chateauneuf du Pape). All were pretty concentrated with dark fruit and spice (even the Pinot) on the nose and the palette, and had a nice, long finish. They all paired extremely well with food, esp. the Pinot and the roasted eggplant. I would buy more of all of them. The other wines were also very good, but there were too many of them, so unfortunately, my tasting notes are loosely scribbled and full of obvious redundacies. I was hoping to share more about all of the wines, but my notes are useless. I also recently attended tastings featuring all Syrah, and before that, a tasting with the winemaker from Korbel. We all fell in love with their 2004 Lake Sonoma Zinfandel (Russian River). It had a powerful bouquet, a silky mouth-feel, full of ripe, dark berry fruit, with vanilla notes, and a long finish. It was perfection. Time to sign out. Cheers.