2005 Core Red Blend

Sometimes there is nothing more fun that seeing a friends wine in a wine shop on the opposite coast, and picking up a bottle of it to drink.  This happened to be the case with this wine tonight, made by our good friend Dave Corey.  This is one of Dave's Rhone styled blends, and a nice sipper to say the least.

Unfortunately, the nose gave up very little when this was first popped and poured.  I was actually a bit worried that I wasn't going to like this based on the muted nose, but as the glass warmed up, the aromatics started to rear their head.  Nice cherry and raspberry were the starts here, with some blue fruit and white pepper.  This had a nice Rhone styled nice for sure.

On the palate, this was incredible at hour 2, and I am very glad that we took our time drinking this, giving it time to warm up, and open up in the glass.  You can really taste the Grenache influence in this wine, and that is something that I won't complain about.  More cherry, strawberry, and blueberry on the palate, with just enough acidity to give this a nice backbone.  There is still a bit of alcohol here, but I think that will integrate nicely with another year or two in the bottle.  Just a touch of tannin on the finish, which is medium in length.

All in all, at around $20 this is a tasty wine, and a heck of a nice QPR.  I'll look for more of these in the future for certain!  90 points.  Cheers!