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Mile High's Wine of the Week: April 16th
Wedell Cellars Wavertree Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir
Regular Price: $33.99
Sale Price: $16.99
Sale End: 4/19/2015
Wedell Cellars Wavertree Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir

We all have our favorites when it comes to great red wines. But, regardless of what your favorites are, you’ll have to agree that there’s nothing else like a great glass of California Pinot Noir. This week we have a real blockbuster for you. Wavertree is a second label from the Pinot specialists at Wedell Cellars. It’s a way for them to use some of their awesome juice that didn’t get included in the final blends for their much more expensive single vineyard wines. This Santa Rita Hills Pinot explodes from the glass with no coaxing required. The nose is awash with scents of cherry cola, warm raspberry jam, Mexican vanilla, and baking spices. The palate is full throttle and no holds barred. It’s certainly not one of those light, wimpy Pinots. Instead it is lush and creamy on the entry with blueberry jam, cassis liqueur, roasted plums, and vine ripened blackberries in abundance. The finish is, in characteristic California fashion, a touch boozy and packed with spice. Cinnamon, allspice, and white pepper linger indefinitely between sips. The weather this weekend is supposed to be nasty so skip eating out in favor of having a lean steak and a gorgeous glass of Pinot Noir in your jammies, possibly with the last fire of the season glowing in front of you.
On to the Tasting Notes:
I love a good glass of red Burgundy just as much as the next fancy sommelier. In fact I had some excellent Gevrey Chambertin just this morning that reaffirmed my faith in the grape and the place. But there is just so much to be said for the ripeness, richness, and layered complexity that the wonderful sites in California’s Santa Rita Hills are capable of coaxing out of Pinot Noir. A great example, like the Wavertree, offers fantastic fruit and spice without losing the levity and floral aromatics that make Pinot so alluring.

When I pulled the cork on my bottle, which incidentally is a blend of the declassified high-end Wedell Cellars fruit from 2010 and 2011, I was blown away by how quickly the nose began to really pop. Often times I feel like I have to decant a Pinot like this for an hour or more to coax the nose from the glass. The Wavertree, though, was ready to put its charms on display right from the word go. Scents of blackberry jam cooking in a pot on the stove, exotic incense, damp cedar, fennel pollen, cherry cola, and toasty oak all came to the foreground a demanded attention. Then I went in for a sip and the first thing I noticed was just how big and ripe the wine was. It really had that Spinal Tap turning the amplifier to 11 thing going on. Unrestrained flavors of cherries jubilee, raspberry preserves, and roasted plums were so juicy and pleasurable. Then, on the finish, the wine offered up heaps of baking spice and pepper as well as a warm hint of booze that served as a further reminded, as if I needed one, that this Pinot Noir was like Burgundy’s wild, uninhibited cousin who comes to town to visit and then takes her top off midway through the party leaving all your friends to talk about her for years after she’s gone back to where she came from.
Food Pairing:
With a few years of bottle age already on it, the Wavertree Pinot is definitely ready for food pairing. Since the weather is looking more like Winter than Summer at this point then why not warm up the kitchen with a slowly simmered pot of classic beef and barley stew? Have a bottle of Wavertree on hand during the cooking process to keep you in the right frame of mind and then crack open a second one as the time for service approaches. I mean, you’re staying home anyway, right? So why not indulge yourself a bit?
You MUST mention this special or print it out to receive the price on the above wine.
This price expires 4/19/2015 at 6pm and is limited to in-store quantities.
No rain checks given. Call (303) 936-0272 to reserve bottles with a credit card.

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