Most of my 2005 Radio-Coteau wines have arrived!
Ahh, the first of the 2005 allocated wines to show up. Radio-Coteau is one of my favorite wineries, although there is no actual winery building, nor have I ever attempted to visit the winemaker, Eric Sussman. But I have read the Web site and tasted a few of his wines, and I’m definitely a fan!
I decided to split my 2005 allocation with my friend, the one with the nice wine cellar. We have a plan to get more wine together, build up our allocation points, and not spend thousands of dollars each. The plan is simple:
- Whenever possible, we split wine evenly (1 bottle for me, 1 bottle for him, and so on)
- When our allocation only allows 1 bottle, we place that bottle in the “community” section of the cellar for consumption together sometime in the future
- When our allocation only allows an odd number of bottles, we split them 50/50 and put the remaining bottle into the community section of the cellar
So, how did we fare with our total allocation this year? We chose not to buy any Syrah because, although we like Syrah, we honestly couldn’t afford to get everything that was offered to us. Here’s what we did buy:
- 3 bottles of 2005 La Neblina Pinot Noir (all for my friend)
- 2 bottles of 2005 Alberigi Pinot Noir (1 each)
- 1 bottle of 2005 Savoy Pinot Noir (community wine)
- 2 bottles of 2005 Von Weidlich Zinfandel (1 each)
- 1 bottle of 2005 Savoy Chardonnay (all for me!)
Yesterday I finally received all of the above, except for the Zinfandel and one of the Alberigi bottles since I purchased those a bit later. It’s a shame they had to be shipped separately, but that’s okay. I am really looking forward to that Zinfandel as I am a big fan of a nice Zin. Same with the Chardonnay…at only 290 cases, and as Sussman’s first Chardonnay offering, how could I say no? I love white wine but it can be hard to find time to drink in, especially in blustery, damp Seattle where you more often want a hearty red wine.
My only disappointment was the lack of Terra Neuma Pinot Noir in either offering that I received. However, they only made 59 cases. That’s almost not worth the effort on their part, but it’s really cool to see they went ahead with that release. In addition, that wine received the best Parker scores, if you believe in that sort of thing….