Monthly Archives: December 2021

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2019 Private Reserve Zinfandel, Buena Vista Winery

Time to ring in the new year, and no better way to celebrate the passing of 2021 than with a Buena Vista red. Here is the 2019 Private Reserve Zinfandel, a small production run of just 550 cases, and one bottle therefrom made its way into my fall shipment from the vineyard.

2019 Private Reserve Zinfandel, Buena Vista Winery, Sonoma, California, USA.

Let’s take a moment and break down this “get,” shall we? The 2019 Private Reserve Zin is produced by one of the oldest vineyards in the US, located in Sonoma, California. It is less jammy, less sweet than other Zins you might sample. Those notes may be part of the wine; they may also be partially a result of my penchant for rushing a pour instead of letting a new bottle breathe for a spell. 

It shares a bit of strawberry on the nose, and it’s a bit spicy too, but has more of a cherry slant when you’re actually tasting the wine. The 2019 Private Reserve Zinfandel is full-bodied and rich on your palate. While I cannot speak authoritatively on this vintage, the Buena Vista Private Reserve Zins are usually hand-picked and fermented separately in open-top vats prior to pressing and aging in French, Hungarian (yes, Cara and Lauren!), and American oak barrels. I’ve also had the good fortune to sample the 2012 and 2015 Private Reserve Zin, and I’d encourage you to check out those notes—and drink the wine—at your convenience.

Special thanks to Loona for ensuring the fridge was stocked with our delicious New Year’s Eve supper. It was so thoughtful, and wonderful to see the little plates and ramekins labeled with your careful instructions! Here’s our interpretation of your prep: the holiday ham, the collared greens, the black-eyed peas with all the fixin’s, and even homemade apple sauce. The wine is just a capper on a great bit of ambiance curated for our celebration. 

Already 2022 feels lucky by comparison. Hoisting a glass to health, home, and loved ones near and far. Hoping your own celebrations take on special meaning, and best to us all in the year ahead. 

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2017 Cabernet Sauvignon, Cakebread Cellars

Broke out this 2017 Cakebread Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon to help celebrate the special occasion. Cakebread has built quite the cult following (big fan of their Chardonnay in particular in our house) over the past 50 years or so, and we’re so glad to open up a flagship red for Christmas.

It’s a big new world wine. Inky in the glass (we’re doing Cabernet stemware today) and plenty of legs, too. This guy rarely has the patience (or forethought) to let a bottle breathe adequately, but this one did have the better part of an hour to open up before splashing down into our dinner glasses. On the nose you experience dark cherry, maybe just a hint of vanilla or perhaps tobacco underpinning the fruit. The 2017 Cakebread Cabernet Sauvignon is well balanced on the palate, with a slightly tannic finish. This wine is full, to be sure, but avoids the jammy, tooth-stainer profile to which I often gravitate in weekend tastings. 

This particular Cakebread accompanied a really delicious cut of beef, a prime rib that had a great bark and a red, juicy center that was perfectly accented by homemade horseradish sauce. To know me is to know I enjoy salty steak and reds in equal measures, but the seasoning and the sauce were just great even without salt. Our Christmas table also included hasselback potatoes, Tuscan kale, popovers (yes, complete with Christmas tree butter, because those finishing touches matter!) and carmelized onion and mushrooms. The house smelled fragrant, a mash up of the beef, garlic, rosemary, and all those aromatics, and added to these heady scents soon was the smell of our dessert (jelly roll consisting of sponge cake and apricot).

Part of the fun with this wine was splitting it four ways, ensuring each of us had a chance to sample the 2017. It was great; the only negative as you might imagine is that we’d only had one on hand for the holiday. I regret it’s taken so long to take up the reviews here at Notes Of Note but encouraging you to stick with it—few good wines from the world over are sure to follow shortly.

In the meantime, season’s greetings to you and best in the year ahead. Thanks for reading!