2007 Rubicon Estate Cuvee Rutherford

The other day four of us went over to Napa for a wine tasting road trip. I’ll let Dave tell you about the trip in his next “Two Cents” but I wanted to leave some notes on one of the wines I bought since we had it with dinner last night.

Our first stop was Rubicon Estate, formerly Niebaum-Coppola Estate Winery. One of Dave’s friends is in their wine club so we had an appointment for a tasting in the Pennino Salon. This is five star wine tasting, white tablecloths, cheese and bread and all wines served at your table. It was a very nice experience. All of the wines were excellent and I ended up buying some of the 2007 Rubicon Estate Cuvee Rutherford.

Since Nancy had not been able to go with us, I wanted her to have a chance to taste the wine I had brought home. I also wanted to taste it to see if it tasted as good as I remembered. Sometimes the ambiance of a tasting experience can influence how you perceive the wine.

We already had the dinner planned so there was no attempt to try and pair the wine with it. Anyway, if the wine is really good you’ll get a lot of enjoyment out of finishing the bottle after dinner. It turned out, however that that the Estate Cuvee paired well with the hickory grilled chicken thighs. I think because it was all dark meat is why, I don’t think it would have paired as well with white meat. While there is a lot of flavor in this wine it isn’t a really big wine.

2007 Rubicon Estate Cuvee Rutherford – The color was a dark ruby. A beautiful nose with complex dark fruit. Great complexity in the flavor with dark fruit, leather and spicy vanilla. Plenty of tannin but so well integrated you barely noticed them, very easy drinking with a long flavorful finish. The Estate Cuvee is a great example of a balanced wine with well integrated tannin, acid and flavor.

The Estate Cuvee is 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Petite Syrah and 17% Merlot (14.8% alc.).