Overthinking

The cellar clean out continues, with some hits and several misses. Some disappointments we should have seen coming. Others have been surprises. "Good" wines that simply weren't good, or didn't age well, or were overly brett infected or otherwise bitter. Sure, there have been good bottles but too many haven't turned out well. I find myself overthinking about why this is.

Then after a busy day for everyone today, we had a ziti and salad from the grocery store. Easy, pretty good, but better with a glass of red wine. Something simply fresh and delicious, perhaps more if one were lucky. So down to the cellar and I find the last bottle of 2005 Neudorf Pinot Noir "Tom's Block" Nelson, from the northern part of the southern island of New Zealand. No thinking was necessary. This was the wine.

The match was almost perfect. Baked pasta and red wine is about as good as it gets on a February night, no? And this wine delivered. Spicy black cherry flavors, a gravelly earth undertone coming out over time in the glass, good freshness at seven years old, this wine made me stop in the middle of dinner to remark to myself how good it was, how good it made the meal. Really, what more could you ask for in a wine?