I’ve been a huge fan of Colvin Vineyards for the past 5 years or so and have always appreciated the efforts of its winemaker/owner, Mark Colvin.

Based in Walla Walla, it has always done an admirable job of bringing out the excellence of Walla Walla fruit in a wide variety of styles, flavor profiles and varietals – in fact, it was the first winery in Washington State to produce a bottle of straight Carmenere.

This grape is one of the six official Bordeaux grapes but was sort of lost by the wayside in France after the mid-1800′s due to a bad spread of Phylloxera. Since that time, it has been primarily used as a blending grape – sort of like Petit Verdot.

Unfortunately, Colvin Vineyards is going out of business so the 2005 vintage was its last release of wines; however, you can still find them out there in many Western Washington wine shops and some of the Costco stores.

I recently picked up my bottle at the Tacoma Costco and I know they’re getting more shipments of it later this week – it sells for $19.99 there.

Alcohol: 13.9%
Vineyard Source: Morrison Lane Vineyard

Color:
Outrageous color – velvety ruby red – like a blushed red river of grape juice.

Nose:
Huge black pepper, black currants, black chocolate, blackberries, baesball mitt, locker-room, fire-roasted bell pepper, rose-peddle and a silent hint of charred asparagus tips.

Take a locker-room towel, dump black pepper on it and stick it inside a cedar box with a few cuts of leather from your childhood baseball mitt for two weeks – that’s exactly what this wine smells like.

Taste:
It’s like a non-jammy zinfandel – tons of BLACK peppercorns…. blackberries… tar… tobacco… good tannin structure.

Mouth Feel:
Heavy dose of pepper on the front palate, huge black cherry and blackberry on the mid palate with a long, raspberry finish that lasts for days.

Food:
Spicy Meatballs
Spicy marinated flank steak or tri-tip
Pepper-crusted New York steak
Wild Game

Overall:
What we have here is an incredible wine value at only 20 bux and while I know many of you get a bit scared when you think of spending over 15 dollars – you need to build a bridge and get over it. There are times when you need to start stretching a little bit in order to build your palate, increase your wine experience and to taste wines which break out of your daily mold – this is one of those wines.

You owe it to yourself to shell out the 20 bux – if for no other reason – than to just sit and sniff this wine. In fact, I wish there were a women’s perfume made after this stuff – put a couple squirts of that behind the wife’s ears, on her neck and …………….don’t even get me started.

Don’t take my word for it, however, as you really need to seek this wine out and ultimately embrace your own palate.

But for me, in the words of Yoda: