Drinking the R. Stuart and Co. Rosé d’Or at Poco Wine Room
Tonight I took my wife to the Poco Wine Room, which I have reviewed in this blog before. I really like the place and they seemed to have improved one or two things since my last visit. For example, I don’t remember getting nice cloth napkins before, but they had them this time…a nice, subtle touch.
Unfortunately for the Poco Wine Room, they had two servers who were supposed to work tonight, but one of them apparently hurt her leg. So there was only one waiter and he did an admirable job keeping up with everything. The place is spread out over two floors so it’s a lot of work for any server, especially if there is only one guy running up and down the stairs, over and over again.
I wanted to try the Justin Mourvedre Rosé but I ended up getting something entirely different. I didn’t know quite what I had received until I checked with the waiter after I paid for our meal. It turned out to be a serendipitous situation as the wine I received was a sparkling Rosé that was extremely good!
The wine came from R. Stuart and Co., an Oregon winery that owns no vineyards but instead contracts with many local farmers to obtain grapes each year. Some of their contracted vineyards are quite famous, such as Goldschmidt, Weber, and Daffodil Hill. Their Web site is cheerful, fairly informative, and fairly up to date, all of which makes me happy since so many wineries have out of date or incomplete Web sites. Nothing is more frustrating than trying a wine at a restaurant and then looking online for more information, only to find next to nothing at the official site. It’s a lost opportunity in my opinion.
Anyway, R. Stuart and Co. do a good job of laying out the different wines they have for sale. The one I tried tonight is quite an interesting wine. They call it the Rosé d’Or because of its golden color and flavors. Yes, that’s right: This wine had golden flavors. That’s the best way I can put it. Here are the details:
- Aroma: Two big scents in the bouquet, really - hay and green apple, with secondary notes of almond and possibly apricot and peach.
- Flavor: Smooth and creamy mouthfeel, almost like a Krug in style and texture; buttered toast and biscuit flavors with apple and apricot as promised in the bouquet. Very nice, off-sweet midpalate. Dry and crisp finish.
- General impression: A great non-vintage, Champagne-style sparkling Rosé. Well worth seeking out, even at $30/bottle!
I’m glad they switched up my order tonight! I got to try a really interesting, sparkling Oregon Rosé. How’s that for different? It’s a very good wine that competes with some French Champagnes that cost $60-$90/bottle. It’s that good, in my opinion, and it went well with the antipasta platter and tapenade that we had as appetizers tonight. We went out for some tara nabe and sushi later on that night, but no more wine…we’ve got a long drive to Oregon tomorrow!
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:10 am
[…] My wife and I met a couple of old friends at Poco Wine Room last night. I wanted to go for a glass of the highly anticipated Justin Mourvedre Rosé, a wine that I tried to get last time but instead I received the excellent R. Stuart and Co. Rosé d’Or sparkler. I also wanted to introduce my wife to the molten chocolate lava cake at Poco, a dessert that I had not yet tried but that I had assumed would be good based on the high quality of the other food I have had there. The dessert turned out to be absolutely wonderful, with more of a molten center than many other so-called “chocolate lava” cakes that I have tried. I’m not entirely sure why the word “lava” became connected with a dessert since liquid hot magma isn’t something I associate with a good gastronomic experience, but I guess it makes for a catchy marketing concept. […]