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Optimus & Tenacious
Big & bountiful California Red Blends
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Greetings!
You gotta love the customer-grabbing red blend name-craze. Today's two featured wines get gold stars for their manly names. Optimus (Latin for best) and Tenacious could be a wrestling tag-team, a pair of rap artists (a rap duet?) or two gladiators in a Monty Python act. But NO! These are two shiver-me-timbers California reds with optimal tenacity :-).
Optimus & Tenacious are featured today because they're really good, super-concentrated and complex, rare (to medium-rare, if you will), and made by highly regarded, talented winemakers. Let's take a jump up from our impressive selection of $15-30 blends and go for more aroma, more layers of flavor, more power and length in today's two featured red blends.
After my stellar wine reviews, our tour of the new www.backroomwines.com continues with a look at the best wine club on the planet. For quality, value, options and flexibility, Back Room Wine Club takes the cake...with ice cream! (Extra shipping cost for that). At Back Room Wines, you may customize your wine club so, like a snowflake, there's not another one like it.
Thank you for reading! Dan
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Big-Time Red Blends
L'AVENTURE "Optimus" Paso Robles 2006 $40
Stephan Asseo left a successful career in Bordeaux around 20 years ago to strike California wine-gold. His choice, after investigating all the best wine regions, was the limestone-heavy, rolling hillside vineyards of west Paso Robles. L'Aventure vineyards are low yielding, high-density and biodynamic. In the winemaking, new French oak is favored, but it's subtle and complementary.
"Optimus" is a blend of half Cabernet Sauvignon, almost half Syrah and a dollop of Petit
Verdot. "Optimus," the "value wine" of L'Aventure, is half from the Estate and half from neighboring vineyards. Almost all new French oak, and I'm serious: it's more about the fruit. Cherries jubilee, currants and mocha on the nose. Blueberry jam, cassis, cocoa and black cherry flavors. Good acidity gives the wine life. Finish is plenty spicy, ripe (almost raisiny, but not quite) and giving. I recommend this for drinking now through 2015.
CELANI FAMILY  "Tenacious" Napa Valley 2006 $60Put together a sexy name, amazingly ripe and concentrated fruit and a winemaker with the gift of making succulent, over-the-top, delicious Napa wines, and you've got the right idea about Celani "Tenacious."
The Celani Family vineyard is just north of Napa-town in a blessed little spot for making really good Merlot. The grape likes it here...I'm guessing there's a lotta clay here. Merlot likes clay.
The blend is 85% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc. Mark Herold makes the wine. Let's call Mark "Mr. Over The Top Winemaker and What's Wrong With That?" First release for this winery...they also make tasty Chardonnay and a super-reserve Cabernet and we carry them as well.
Tenacious has a primary, fresh berry liqueur smell and flavor. It's dark, rich, powerful and strong-flavored. The sweet toasty oak comes in at the end and gets into the pleasingly dark, almost burnt, sugar crust flavors. It's extremely intense and yummy...I think of it as my vinous equivalent to Haagen Dazs Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream. It's a little sinful, I should stop, but I keep wanting more.
Mixed Case
6 bottles of each: $540
includes 10% case discount
Half Case
3 bottles of each: $285
includes 5% discount
Order online hereOr, call to order. Toll Free: 877-322-2576Or, just reply to this email. Thanks for reading!
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Back Room Wine Club
Quality, value, service, customization, flexibility:
Back Room Wine Club does it  all.
Whatever you (or your lucky gift recipient) desires in wine, we can provide.
Education the priority? We'll send you wines from around the world, each classic to its region.
Want them all big and chewy? We'll send you six veritable Ribeye Steaks in a bottle...and will pair with them perfectly. Pinot Noir fan with a liking for Sauvignon Blanc at times? OK, we'll send you four Pinots and 2 SBs each time.
Tell us what you want in your wine club and we'll do our best to fulfill your wishes. We can do this because each wine club member's "file" is reviewed individually, with wines selected based on his/her/YOUR parameters. NO COOKIE CUTTER WINE SELECTION IN THIS WINE CLUB!
We suggest six bottles a quarter, but you can order more wine, and receive it more or less often, if you like. Tasting notes included with the wine, and 10% discount for wine club members.
For more details, check out the Wine Club section at the SHINY NEW www.backroomwines.com. Sign up online, or if you prefer the old-fashioned way, give us a call and we'll set you up in the Back Room Wine Club. Thanks a bunch!
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Anything better than a great roast chicken?
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So the rotisserie attachment to our new gas grill is waiting in the wings. Hard to get in the rotation when we have Rotisario chickens just down the street at the Oxbow Public Market! As a great meal is 50% experience and 50% anticipation, the Food & Wine blog today is about what we're having tonight. My favorite Zin is on the menu: Green & Red Chiles Canyon 2007. Read on...
Drink more Diet Rite.
Dan
Daniel Dawson
Back Room Wines
Corner of First & Main Streets (First Street Entrance)
Downtown Napa, California 94559
Phone: (707) 226-1378 Toll Free # is 877-322-2576
email: daniel@backroomwines.com
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2007 Vintage
Southern Rhone Valley Tasting
This Friday, August 7
5 to 8 P.M."Best vintage in my 30 years of tasting here," states Robert Parker.Mostly Southern Rhone, with a little from the north for good measure.
2 whites, 5 reds,
all delicious!
$15/tastingHere's the wine line-up. |
Under 12 Buck A Bottle Tasting
Next Friday, Aug 14
5 to 8 P.M.
One of our favorite, most popular tasting events:
Check out seven fine wines, all for sale for less than $12/bottle.
$10/tasting
Credit back with purchase.
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