One good thing about autumn is that wine shipments start again. The long, extremely hot summer put an end to shipments, but now that cooler weather is here they have started again. The first to arrive was from Michel Schlumberger, and it was a bottle of their Maison Rouge and a bottle of their Petit Verdot.
Last night we twisted the cap off the 2007 Maison Rouge with a small rack of lamb from the grill. The wine is a blend of Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel and Viognier. The nose was a great mixture of fruit and earth. I could pick out the Syrah and the Cabernet aromas but really couldn't separate the other varieties though it was obvious there were some other varieties in the mix. There was warm, ripe fruit in the taste, balanced with good acid and a soft tannin and an apparopriate touch of oak. Lots of cherries and red plums. Good mouth feel, full but not overbearing. Nice finish with some tannin cleaning things up for the next bite of lamb. This is a wine I could drink more often since all of these parts were so well combined.
Too often I tend to gravitate toward higher priced wines when judging a winery, but perhaps the true worth of a winery should be more how they handle their lower priced wines. At $20 this one is a real gem. 14.5% alcohol.
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