Sweet Baby Blue

This is the first of what will be many, many posts on excellent wines that I happen to come across.



I happen to be in an excellent position to taste and try dozens of new wines every week, as the sales reps come through the wine bar that I help to manage, Cork and Co. (located on 3rd and Congress Ave, downtown Austin, TX). But every now and them something so fantastic comes along that I can't help but get excited about it.

Blue Rock Vineyards is located in Alexander Valley, CA, right next door to the legendary Silver Oak Vineyards. And it's location befits the quality of what they put in their bottles, believe me. Consisting of about 100 acres planted mostly with Bordeaux varietals (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot, Petite Verdot) and a small hillside of Syrah, this is a small, and special place that produces remarkably complex and thrilling wines.

Blue Rock gets its name from the blue shale pebbles and boulders that dot the vineyard, providing it with an utterly unique landscape that is appropriately difficult for the vines, producing more complex and fine wine. By managing their yield, and even removing a majority of the grapes from the vine before harvest (as opposed to using low quality grapes in a lower-end wine), they really have acheived their stated goal, which is to produce higher quality wine with each successive vintage.

While it is not at all unusual for me to taste a wine in the $80-100 range that is phenomenal, it is a much rarer thing for a less expensive bottle to have the finesse and elegance that is usually associated with higher-end labels. The Baby Blue Cabernet, Blue Rock's "entry level" bottle achieves exactly that.

This wine is gorgeous in the glass, a striking rich crimson, with strong aromatics and complexity on the nose. Fruit, acid and tannin are balanced perfectly here, and the wine is smooth and rich in your mouth, with such a long lasting and elegant finish that I find my eyes rolling back into my head with each sip. I seriously could hold this wine in my mouth for ages, and just let it absorb into my head. That's how good it is.

This cab is not as big and bold as many, but that should not be mistaken as a flaw. The feminine elegance of a perfectly balanced cabernet can be just as effective as a super-rich, hit-you-over-the-head, smoky/oaky glass can. And it can be found here in spades. This wine is drop-dead sexy.

The more expensive bottles from Blue Rock, such as their Blue Rock Cab, are undeniably excellent, and better suited to ageing with more robust tannins and oak, but this Baby Blue has it all, character, complexity, elegance and value.

While I'm not sure that any major retailers are carrying it, you can most certainly taste it at Cork and Co, where it sells for $42 for the bottle, and will soon be served by the glass. Come on by and I'll pour you a nice one.