*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from the winery to participate in a live tasting event.
I’ve never seen a NASCAR race. I really don’t know much about it at all. It’s certainly never something I expected to come across in the context of writing a wine blog. Then a direct message arrived on Twitter asking me if I’d like to participate in a live tasting with Jeff Gordon and his new wine, the 2008 Jeff Gordon Joie De Vivre. Color me intrigued and a bit skeptical. The wine has a real cork closure and retails for $61.
Four takeaways from this wine:
1.) Wine and NASCAR: not nearly the strange combo I imagined.
2.) The Joie De Vivre has one of those noses you can get lost in.
3.) In the glass the wine had so much going on that I had to keep coming back to my notes to add new descriptors.
4.) I am no longer a skeptic and this is definitely not just another celebrity wine.
On the nose I got flowers, chocolate, caramel, herbs, spice, blackberry, plum, and black cherry. The nose on this wine is amazing. Intriguing, multi-layered, and keeps getting better with air. In the mouth I found black cherry, smoke, spice, herbs, mint, tobacco, more black cherries, toffee, toast, currants, and coffee notes. The wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah, a different choice for a blend. Seeing the wine evolve over the time in the glass leads me to believe it could easily age in the bottle for many years to come.
Filed under: California, Red, Wine |
Wannabe Wino Wine Blog 
I like you tasting notes on the wine but I still question the celebrity association with the wine – other than his name on the bottle, what is Jeff Gordon’s relationship with the wine making itself?
Hi Richard- Thanks for the comment. I asked that myself a few times during the twitter tasting and didn’t really get an answer. He did attend the twitter tasting though.