Sunday, April 4, 2010

Perrin et Fils Gigondas, 2006

It's not often you find a wine of this quality offered by the glass in a restaurant. So even though the price was more than I usually pay ($13), I was not going to settle for anything else to accompany my "baseball steak" dinner at the Dinner for Two Restaurant in Santa Fe. The "baseball steak" was actually a baseball-size beef tenderloin on a spherical bed of garlic mashed potatoes with spokes of green beans on the periphery--a perfect match for Gigondas. But the wine also paired up well with the crab cake appetizer and the asparagus soup made with Nieman Ranch apple wood smoked bacon.

This is definitely not a backward Gigondas. Aromas of wild blueberries, flowers and spice are front and center from the first sniff. I could enjoy this wine without ever taking it in my mouth, but why not? It's silky smooth on the palate with expanding flavors of dark cherries and blueberries and a bright lift in the middle that's characteristic of good Gigondas. I see Gigondas as a marriage of beauty and power, and this wine is oriented more toward the former than the latter. It's large framed but oh so lovely to drink.

The retail price for this Gigondas is $27, so a per glass price of $13 is more than reasonable.

No comments:

Post a Comment