Mirassou Pinot Noir 2004

Have you ever bought a wine just because you liked the look of the label? Come on - of course you have. Such was the case for me and this pinot noir. Something about the bottle - the cheerful sun and yellow label - just spoke to me. Pinot noir is an interesting wine in general - thinner than its red cousins, Merlot and Cabernet - but with rich and interesting flavors. I read in "The Wine Bible" that pinot noir grapes are the most difficult to make into wine because they mutate easily, are highly sensitive to climate and soil variations, and are unstable during winemaking. This has to make you respect a bottle of Pinot Noir all the more.

This particular Pinot Noir is from the Mirassou Family Winery in California. It was attractive to look at - a deep but translucent red. The initial taste was of big dried dark cherries, plum and spice, with a hint of something like vines or leaves in the back. Interestingly, I liked this much better the first day that I drank it than the second day, when the flavor seemed far more flat. [Note - I also used a dash of it when cooking home-made pasta sauce, and it was phenomonal!]

I now have to tout the website of a fellow blogger. Red Wine Haiku is one of the most entertaining, clever, and inventive things I've seen as a blog. I absolutely LOVED it. But then again, I was an English major and I've always like Haiku as a poetry form. The owner of the blog, Lane, reviews red wines in Haiku form. To manage to sum up a wine in 17 syllables is just brilliant in my opinion. He tried the Mirassou Pinot Noir and wrote the following:

Oh, I don't like this
Unsweetened knockoff toothpaste
Was this made from grapes?

He did want me to note, however, that he believes he had a bad bottle and is going to give it another try. I look forward to the revised Haiku. In the meantime, I wrote my own for this wine:

Bought for the bottle
which drew me in with its cheer.
Cherries through a straw