This week’s third wine, the 2006 Roco Pinot Noir Willamette Valley, would ordinarily not have made it into the CorkPopper Project solely by virtue of the fact that its regular retail price is $40/bottle, well above the CorkPopper budget of $25/bottle. Lucky for us, however, I get inundated with “special deal” emails from pretty much every wine retailer in existence, and I just happened to have paid attention to one such email a few weeks ago from LA’s Wine House, wherein they were offering this wine at the pretty awesome price of just $19.99/bottle. I, of course, couldn’t resist, as I was looking for a third wine to add to this week’s list.
This wine presents with a clear, bright garnet color and shows lots of really lovely black cherry, slate and spice on the nose. Indeed, the more I sniffed this wine, the more black pepper I got, which is not at all unpleasant as an undertone to the otherwise earthy and fruity aroma. On the palate, it is juicy, with more of those cherries and black pepper, along with a smooth finish of nicely balanced acid and tannin.
I thought this was, hands down, the best wine of the week, while J vascillated between this and the 2008 Erath. When we had another glass the next day, however, I’m pretty sure we both agreed that the Roco was it, especially if you are able to find it at a discounted price. That said, because it is ordinarily a $40 bottle of wine, I’m actually giving it the same score as the Erath….
3.5 corks popped!
Cheers!
