welcome to the circus!

Welcome to the new wino rhino! After months of painful work and preparation, I am finally ready to reveal my creation to all of you - a complete web blog and site that showcases who I am, what I do and where I plan on going in my life with the fabulous obsession called wine writing.
So to celebrate I did what any normal wine blogger would do ... I went wine tasting! One of the girls I work with wanted to go out wine tasting, so we headed to Carmel Valley and checked out a few places. One of my favorite Carmel Valley stops is Parsonage Family Winery, a Monterey County winery that produces some fantastic red wines. Their everyday red blends are fantastic for the price, and their Syrah is to die for.
Magically, the wine tasting room host turned out to be non other than Bill Parsons, the owner of Parsonage winery! This was the first time meeting him, although I'd tried his wines on numerous occasions ... so naturally it was quite a treat for me.

Pictured: me coaxing forcing him to pose for a pic :).

We were pretty fortunate to have him pouring the wine for us, because he gave us a real inside scoop into the winery and its fabulous wines. For example, he gave us a some nice juicy details on their delicious new wine, the 2007 Snosrap Cyrano Bordelais (gossip soon to follow). This unique and impressive wine, which boasts a rather high 15% alcohol content, consists of about 53% Cabernet with 22% Petit Verdot, 21% Merlot and 4% Malbec.
The result is a young but firm wine that smells strongly of sweet tobacco, cherries, a bit of curry and some unripened raspberry. The texture on the wine is a bit tight, probably because of the age, but it's actually quite easy to drink. The color is a deep fuschia with a mouth of black cherries, sweet oak, lavender, blackberries and a finish of cedar and tobacco. And it still carried that tiny bit of red curry on it with a tiny bit of herb and grass, which added well to the overall mix. I bought a bottle of this baby and took it home with me, where I am enjoying at this moment as I submit my final homework assignment for my digital media class.
But on to the juicy stuff! Turns out that this wine is .... ILLEGAL.

What a criminal.

Ooh, let the gossip ensue! According to Bill Parsons, it's illegal for him to call the wine a Bordelais, because Bordelais is related to the region of Bordeaux in France, which is a distinct wine region whose name cannot be used. So he's allowed to sell the wine in his tasting room, but it's not being sold in stores.
Kinda feels a bit like tasting some of that bathtub gin in Prohibition America during the 1920's ... so wrong, yet so right.
So if you happen to be in the area, I would definitely recommend picking up a few bottles of this bad boy. It's delicious and should age quite nicely, though if you're like me you're going to want to open it right away!
Also, please feel free to look around the new wino rhino Web site and check out all its wonders. Salut!