2010 Rodney Strong Chalk HIll Chardonnay

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Sonadora

The fifth wine I’m speed dating with is the 2010 Rodney Strong Chalk Hill Chardonnay, a very familiar wine for me. We drink a lot of wine from Rodney Strong at our house!  The nose is toasted with some caramel undertones and yellow apple and pear. In the mouth it’s very smooth on the palate, with well rounded fruit, yellow apple, pear, and almost a hint of peach.

At $20, the Rodney Strong Chalk Hill Chardonnay always offers a consistent value. Would be great to drink with grilled scallops.

Filed under: California, Chardonnay, Rodney Strong | Comments Off

Rock This Way

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Sonadora

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

Although our weather is still oddly behaving as if it’s spring rather than winter, I’m getting in the big red wines while I still am in the winter mindset!  We have had a few random colds days here and there, and that’s when we busted open the 2007 Rodney Strong Rockaway, a Cabernet Sauvignon. The Rockaway clocks in at 15.2% alcohol by volume, has a real cork closure, and retails fro $75.

Four takeaways from this wine:

1.) I served the wine with herb roasted chicken. I’d suggest something with a little more fat to stand up to the wine.

2.) The wine is a nose and mouthful of blackberry juicy goodness with a side of chocolate and espresso.

3.) With Valentine’s Day coming up, pair this wine with a steak and a chocolate torte for a great evening.

4.) The Rockaway comes in one hefty bottle.

On the nose I found juicy blackberry, black currant, pepper, chocolate, espresso, and a little note of campfire.  In the mouth I got black cherry, blackberry, chocolate, black currant, earth, and more black fruit.  A dark fruit wine with lots of juicy notes complemented by earth, spice, and chocolate, serve it with your next steak dinner.

 

Filed under: Cabernet Sauvignon, California, Red, Rodney Strong, Wine | Comments Off

Another Pinot. But Not Chilean.

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Sonadora

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

Back to one of my favorite areas to get Pinot Noir from, the Russian River Valley. The Russian River Valley is where I fell for Pinot Noir, hard. Now, I love it in many of its incarnations, however, time and again I come back to the Russian River to seek out the Pinot Noirs. Tonight we tried the 2009 Rodney Strong Russian River Valley Pinot Noir which clocked in at 14.5% alcohol by volume, had a real cork closure, and retails for about $20. Sorry for the lack of pictures lately, I lost a lot of photos when I killed my computer by dumping wine on it…

1.) Think Thanksgiving. This is a crowd-pleaser of a wine.

2.) Rodney Strong consistently impresses with the value for the price point.

3.) I loved the nose on the Pinot Noir.

4.) I would think this wine would retail for quite a bit more than it does.

On the nose I got smoke, campfire, caramel, earth, herbs, strawberry, and raspberry.  In the mouth I found tart fruit, raspberry, cherry, strawberry, flowers, earth, and a bit of the smoke from the nose. The wine had great structure and acidity and displayed the red fruit and earthiness I’ve come to love from the Russian River Valley.

 

 

Filed under: California, Pinot Noir, Red, Rodney Strong, Wine | Comments Off

Playing in My Spice Rack

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Sonadora

*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from Rodney Strong Vineyards

Baking spices peppered the nose of this wine, causing thoughts of Christmas cookies to dance in my head. We just started in on the HOT weather here and I’m already dreaming of Christmas. Though can you blame me? Christmas will be extra special at our house this year with our daughter’s first birthday to celebrate at the same time! What wine am I talking about? The 2007 Rodney Strong Alexander Valley Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. It clocked in at 14.4% alcohol by volume, had a real cork closure, and retails for about $20.

On the nose I got woody note, cinnamon, baking spice, vanilla, dark fruit, blackberry, black plum, and black cherry. This smelled so much to me like baking cookies that it almost made me want to fire up my oven in the heat. Almost. In the mouth I found blackberry, black plum, black cherry, pepper, baking spice, anise, and cinnamon. The wine had nice tannins and good acidity and was quite spicy, which was very yummy.

Filed under: Cabernet Sauvignon, California, Red, Rodney Strong, Wine | Comments Off

Tasting Live

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Sonadora

*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from Rodney Strong in order to participate in a Taste Live Event.

I hadn’t done a Twitter live tasting event in quite some time. I really enjoy tasting the same wines with my blogger friends all over the country so I was happy to have a chance to participate in this event. We tasted through 4 wines from Rodney Strong, two of which I had already very recently written about here on ye ol’ wine blog, so I won’t talk about them again now, you can read my previous reviews here and here. We did get to try the 2007 Rodney Strong Symmetry, which I hadn’t yet reviewed. It had a real cork closure, clocked in at 15.1% alcohol by volume, and retails for $55. The Symmetry is a red blend, heavy on the Cabernet Sauvignon with Malbec, Merlot, Canbernet Franc, and Petite Verdot making up the remaining 15%.

This baby needs some time to breathe. Or some vigorous swirling in a decanter or a run through the Soiree, which was our solution. On the nose I found black cherry, blackberry, dusty chocolate, baking spice, cinnamon, blueberry pie, and vanilla. I thought it smelled a lot like my kitchen after baking cookies. In the mouth I got blackberry, black fruit, pepper, spice, more pie, and currants. The Symmetry has tannins and the acidity to carry it through many years in your cellar, though with a good bit of time in the glass, we very much enjoyed it right now as well.

Filed under: California, Red, Rodney Strong, Wine | 2 Comments »

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