My New Favourite Wine

Back in December, my friend Christina hosted a wine tasting party for a group of Moms from our neighborhood.  The idea was simple, everyone had to bring a bottle of their favourite wine to share, Christina covered all the bottles in brown paper bags and we did blind taste tests making notes on which ones we liked and why.  After we had tasted all of them, we voted for our favourite white and red and revealed all of the bottles.  Then, everyone shared where they bought their bottle from and how much it cost.  It was very fun!

My friend Erin's husband drove her to the party, and when she was just a few blocks away, she suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to bring a bottle of wine.  "Don't worry," her husband exclaimed as he fished around in the back seat producing a bottle of Merlot "one of my colleagues gave me this one today for Christmas, just take it."  Erin had no idea what the wine was like, but didn't want to show up empty-handed, so she brought it to the party.

And wouldn't you know it, this bottle of wine ended up being everyone's favourite!  It was amazing; the Orofino Red Bridge Merlot.  I have to say that Merlots are typically not one of my favourite varietals, and if I had seen the label before drinking it, I might have had a preconceived notion of what it was going to taste like.  This is the advantage of the blind taste test.  This wine had more body and depth than many of the more full-bodied varietals.  It has lovely smoky, tobacco flavours with such a smooth finish.  I, in fact, loved it so much, that I ordered a case from the winery the next day.

It arrived the first week in January and I quickly stashed it away in my pantry along with the rest of my beloved bottles.  I pulled a bottle up a couple of weeks ago and it was just as good as I remember, it is fast becoming my new favourite wine and I couldn't have happened upon it more coincidentally. 

Gotta love when that happens!