Wannabe Wino Wine Blog

*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from Bottlenotes.

Our host for this month’s edition of WBW is Joe of 1WineDude. He’s set us to the task of picking out a baked wine to drink and report on today. By baked wine, he meant a wine that was purposefully oxidized, like a Maidera or a Tokay. Lucky for me, he expanded his definition and allowed us to pick any fortified wine as well.  Meaning, I had an excuse to use one of the Ports that has been collecting dust in my basement!  You can read all the details of this 51st edition of WBW here.

I drank this with Loweeel on election night, and by that point in the evening, definitely did not remember to whip out the camera, so all I have for you are pictures of the bottle.  I chose the 2002 St. Barthélemy Cellars Petite Sirah Port from Clarksburg. I received this wine as a sample from Bottlenotes about a year ago, it came in a 375mL size bottle, had a real cork closure, clocked in at 18.5% alcohol by volume, and can be purchased from Bottlenotes for $20. St. Barthélemy Cellars is a small family operated winery in Napa, and from what I can gather, they only appear to produce small lot Port-style wines, each from a single grape variety. The Petite Sirah Port was a batch of 250 cases.

On the nose of the Port, I found burnt blueberries.  I do not mean this in a bad way at all, but it smelled quite a bit like a blueberry pie that you left in the oven for just a few too many minutes. Other aromas came through as chocolate, wild berries, brown sugar, caramel, toast, and vanilla. Trust me, the wine smelled fabulous….like many of my favorite desserts all wrapped into one.  In the mouth I found flavors of blueberry, raspberry, dark black fruit, spice, mocha, vanilla, caramelized pie topping, baking spice, and blackberries.
Overall, I would love to pour this Port over a bowl of homemade french vanilla ice cream. And actually, in and of itself, you wouldn’t need much more for dessert than a glass of this, as it was a dessert all by itself….it even tasted and smelled like lots of good desserts rolled into one thick, yummy drink.

Many thanks to Joe for hosting this month’s edition of WBW.  And thanks for finally kicking me hard enough to actually open up one of the Ports that’s hanging around in my basement….though maybe that’s another WBW right there…Any Port in the Storm!  As always, kudos to Lenn of Lenndevours, our founding father!

Filed under: California, Lenndevours, Napa, Petite Sirah, Red, WBW |