KD cooked some fat, succulent lamb chops that we are pairing with our wine of the night. She cooked these with rosemary, Ono seasoning from Hawaii, garlic pepper and just a little brushing of olive oil. Wow, these Big fat juicy lamb chops came out scrumptious. OK, so you get that these were awesome chops. You also know that lamb can be very rich in flavor even when cooked perfect. We paired this with our wine of the night, Santa Rita Reserva ’06.

I was running late and just walked in the door when KD said “grab a bottle of wine and open it, as we are eating in two minutes and I don’t want it to get cold”. I ran to the wine rack and started looking for something different to pair with our meal ……Lets see a Zin, not tonight, a Chianti, no save that for something more Italian, a blend from Portugal, no we just drank a wine from Portugal last night. I pulled a few more bottles out and then came up with the “wine of the night”.

Santa Rita Carmenere Reseva ’06. I removed and smelled the cork like I always do to check for bad or corked wine. The first thing that went through my head was ….earthy, but that did not last long. I tried to pour just a sample to taste before filling our glasses, in doing so I spilled this dark, dark red wine that almost looked like dark ink dripping from the bottle. I then swirled and viewed the nice thick legs cascading down the inside of the glass. As I continued to swirl the wine, the aroma of ripe berry fruit rose from the glass before I even had a chance to raise the glass to my nose. I thought “that really smells good, in fact really good”. I then took a sip…..if that sip had been as good as the aroma I would have been a happy man. I thought “what do you want from a 2006 Carmenere that has been out of the bottle less than 5 minutes and out of the barrel less than a year”.

The taste was very fruit forward with berry and spice, a light pepper layer and still young but defiantly did not have to many tannins. I did not think it was jammy though. It had a little more refinement than that. This is another all around good wine that you should keep on hand for about any occasion. This wine will go with pretty much anything and our lamb did not over power it, and its from Chili. Actually this was a great pairing. After the wine opened up it was even better as all wines are. KD really liked this wine also thought with another year or so in the bottle this could be a great wine. You can drink it now or hold it for a few years and still have a good to great bottle of wine for………. Twelve bucks.

We rate this wine (Good)

The Wine Space Rating: / Pass / Fair / Ok / Good / Great / Fantastic

Disclaimer: Just because we like or dislike a wine does not mean that you will have the same experience. It’s always, always worth a try….Oh and by the way………tell us what you think? Comments are always welcome and recommended!

Aloha,

Ron & KD
The Wine Space

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