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Wine Recommendation
Vincent Arroyo Winery
2004 Port(Napa Valley)
I’ve never been a big fan of California dessert wines. In fact, as a frequent wine judge, they stand neck and neck with Chardonnay in the “what I prefer not to taste” category. While often gorgeous in flavor and texture, they are quite often acid-deficient, giving a cloying sensation to the wine, especially when compared to the great dessert wines of the Old World. Comparing a California port to the real thing is like comparing a super-sized Hershey Bar to one of those thin, bite-sized squares of exquisitely flavored, silky dark European chocolates offered at the end of a meal with the check. Less is more.
Leave it to Petite Sirah-master Vincent Arroyo, a quintessential American with simple tastes, to come up with one of the USA’s finest dessert wines. How does he do it? Like the European model, he goes to the best raw material available – his top twenty barrels of Petite Sirah. With chocolate, mocha, and lip-smacking, juicy berry notes, this full-bodied sweet wine is grapey and complex at the same time. With the uncomplicated elegance of fashion icons Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly, the wine is delicious with dark, bittersweet chocolate, a cigar, or on its own.
Reviewed October 4, 2006 by Catherine Fallis.
Other reviewed wines from Vincent Arroyo Winery
The Wine
Winery: Vincent Arroyo Winery |
The Reviewer
Catherine Fallis
Founder and President of Planet Grape LLC, a company committed to bringing the joy of wine, food, and good living into the lives of everyday people, Catherine is creator of the “grape goddess guides to good living,” a series of books, television presentations, seminars, and e-learning programs. The fifth woman in the world to become a Master Sommelier, grape goddess Catherine Fallis is still very much down-to-earth. |