It’s only 17 days until I move, and this is day 117 of the Juiciest Wine Tour. So happy synchronicity + 100 to me, which I’ll celebrate with Veramonte Ritual Pinot Noir 2010 Casablanca Valley from Chile.
I’ve had at least one other Chilean Pinot Noir. It was also a Veramonte, and I had it two years and one month ago. You can read about it and the Casablanca Valley here: In Pursuit of the Juiciest Wine: Day Twenty.
The wine bottle is wide with thick glass and the punt is also wide and fairly deep. (Punt is the dimple in the bottom of a wine bottle. It is also referred to as a “kick-up.”) It’s almost like a champagne bottle. But enough of that. To the wine.
I poured a glass two hours ago, so it should be ready by now.
The color is like a red cranberry color. It’s kinda bright for a wine. And it’s 60% opaque.
It’s quite leggy, too. The legs form quick, fall quick, but linger a long, long time. And the wine swirls for a long time. You know, like if you swirl a glass of wine and then stop, the swirl continues for a few seconds, but this one is lasting for like ten seconds and then it oscillates like a wave for a few seconds more . . . and then the legs.
This is wine is so interesting even before I smell it.
I know all wines are alive, well, most, bust this one seems like it has physical presence or a conscious presence. It’s like it has things it wants to do and places to go and things to say. It’s corporeal with meditative thoughts. I hope it’s imaginative, too.
The nose has dark cherries and dark plums. I inhale and see plum pulp. There’s a bit of toast, too. (Maybe that’s why the champagne bottle. Ha. Get it? Too big of a leap?)
The taste matches the nose and with a little chalky finish on the tongue. The finish is also spicy, especially if you inhale through the nose while the wine is still in the mouth.
The taste has raspberries and an underlying juicy plum.
I really like the body. It’s a medium-light body. I just like how it feels in my mouth. All of the sudden I think it feels like the Saturnalian vortex, Saturnarian vortex, hm, the vortex on Saturn.
Maybe that’s why this wine swirls so long in the glass. Hmmmmmmmmmm.
The finish also has a dry juiciness. A dry raspberry and slight plumy juicy finish at that.
I paid $14 at Mahan’s for this. That seems a fair price to me.
It’s a solid wine. I give it 88 or 89 points. I give it 88 as a Pinot Noir, but 89 and maybe 90 as an outright wine.//