2006 Leviathan

Tonight I decided to pull one of these out of the cellar in celebration of Zelda's Mom's birthday at her favorite pizza place, DeLorenzo's Tomato Pies on Hamilton Avenue in Trenton. I know, you want to know why we always specify Hudson, Robbinsville, or Hamilton. Well, long and short of it is because Hudson Street was always the best, then the Amico family opened up the Robbinsville store, and Gary's son Sammy runs it. But there has always been the Hamilton Avenue store as well that was opened originally by a second brother way back in the day. Regardless, Hudson and Robbinsville are still out favorite stores, but I think that the pie at Hamilton Ave is a lot better than the first time we went there...but our hearts will always be on Hudson Street!

So in celebration tonight I brought a 2006 Leviathan, and what a pure pleasure it was to drink this wine tonight! For those of you who do not know, Leviathan is a project by Annie Favia (past work with Harlan Estate, Spottswoode, Araujo, Colgin, Staglin, Bressler, Favia and Pahlmeyer. She is currently the principal of Libelula Viticultural Services, her own company, which provides project management for Abreu and Screaming Eagle) and Andy Erickson (consulting winemaker, making wine for Screaming Eagle, Dalla Valle, Arietta, Dancing Hares Vineyard, Ovid Vineyards, and consulting for Jonata in the Santa Ynez Valley). Their reputations say it all!

Upon opening the bottle, the first thing you will notice is the gorgeous color in the glass! But when you put your nose anywhere near the glass, the aroma's are intoxicating! What a gorgeous nose this wine has! Huge oodles of dark black cherry, jammy raspberry, and blueberry, a subtle hint of caramel, and spice. From the nose alone, I could not tell what grape was a majority here, but I was assuming it was cabernet. We could tell that there was some syrah, merlot and probably some cabnernet franc, but I was also guessing maybe a bit of petite verdot. Regardless, upon looking at their website, the final blend was 41% cabernet sauvignon, 32% merlot, 21% syrah, and 7% cabernet franc = "100% California." We were close...and never said to be professionals. .

So on to the palate, this wine was as smooth and creamy as could be. Big black fruits filled the mouth with some blueberry, boysenberry, black cherry, and raspberry. Subtle hints of spice and vanilla rounded out the finish, which was very nice, although not all that long. I was expecting to have more wood on the palate but this is definitely not the case. For such a young wine, everything was very well integrated, and it was amazing how well this wine came together. This was popped and poured, and between the 4 of us, we polished this bottle off in an hour, so it really did not have a lot of time to open, but the beauty of it is that it didn't need it. Annie and Andy did their homework in developing this wine, and it seems to be ready to drink right out of the gate.

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All in all, this is a very solid wine, and I look forward to seeing how this wine develops in the future. Unfortunately with my cutbacks in wine purchasing this year, I did not bite off of the mailing list for this wine, although I was allocated 12 bottles. I did purchase 2 locally at CoolVines, and I am glad that I did. I will definitely pick up at least another in the future, and for the money, I think that this is a great California blend, made from some of the best California fruits! A pleasure, and worthy of 93 points! Cheers!