Kinkead Ridge Petit Verdot 2005

I've been sitting on half a dozen bottles of the Kinkead Ridge 2005 Petit Verdot for almost two years since its release, tasting it only at the winery on two occasions. Yesterday evening I was moving some wine from one location to another and decided it was time to see if the wait paid off. Dinner was two small lamb chops and some rosemary roasted potatoes and the weather was cool for this time of year. Out came the cork from the bottle.

The wine was intensely dark purple, almost black in the glass. After five or ten minutes it began to open up and offer dark, ripe plums and cassis and a few super dark cherries thrown in the mix. The nose was earthy and there were a few herbs and flowers coming out of the glass as well. The taste was equally about dark fruit, plums and blackberries mostly. The wine was very tannic, but the tannin never interfered with the fruit. During the course of the evening the tannin finally began to settle a little though it still had a wonderful grip. There was good acid and with the tannins softening the finish was smooth, clean and long.

I've had numerous bottles of Kinkead Ridge's wine, both red and white over the last few years and have appreciated all of them. Some are obviously better than others and bottle for bottle my favorite is still their Riesling. This wine, however, is the best I've had from them. It's hard to imagine that it could get any better. Total production was only 76 cases and the wine checked in at an almost perfect 13.4% alcohol. I'm very happy there are five more bottles in the cellar.