Unti - Petit Frere

Price: $28
Region: Healdsburg, California
Year: 2006

First, a bit of background on this one. This is a wine I usually buy a couple of bottles of around Christmas each year because it is my wife's absolutely favorite red wine. I would buy it more often, but there is only one store in our local market that carries it, and I just don't get out that way very often. It is a great little specialty wine store, that carries much more wine from Europe than the US, but this one that they do carry is usually a winner. The one thing I noticed this year that I hadn't noticed before, is that while the grapes used in this wine are the same, the percentages of them from vintage to vintage vary significantly. This wine is a Cotes-du-Rhone style wine made from Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre. The blend in the 2006 vintage that I tasted was 86% Grenache, 10% Syrah, and 4% Mourvedre. A significant difference, for instance, from the 2007 vintage which is almost 50% Syrah and 40% Grenache. This wine sat in our cellar for a couple of months, until recently when we had a quiet Saturday evening home preparing for our trip to Florida, and it seemed like a good time to break out a bottle.

This is obviously a bit more than we would spend for a weekly bottle of wine, but it is always nice to have an upgrade every now and then. When I poured my first glass, I noticed the wine had excellent clarity, and a very rich looking color. It was definitely pleasant to look at. I then gave my glass a quick swirl, and took a sniff. This wine had an excellent floral bouquet. So much so, that I went back for more before giving the wine a taste. At this point, the wine was everything I was expecting it to be. I then took a sip, and instantly noticed that this wine was very smooth. It had a wonderful flavor, with great length, and a definite European flare. Maybe it was the heavy percentage of Grenache, which is a grape I don't purposely seek out, and don't usually come across in California wines I buy. This one is definitely unique, and well worth the almost $30 as something to save as a treat.

Rating: 4.25 (A yearly treat)