I am now getting to the last of the wines in the shipment from “A Taste of Monterey.”  One of the finest decisions I think we have ever made, because we are not limited to only one winery, so the selection is unlimited even in the Reserve Wine Selections.  The brochure that came with the shipment also contained a recipe for Fettucine with Shiitakes and Asparagus, as well as two smaller articles about the varietal Tannat and the cheese Mahon from the Balearic Islands off Spain.

The last wine is from an area that we visited before this winery was really begun, as we had behaved as tourists once and visited Ventana and Big Sur.  Big Sur Vineyards originally began as an olive grove and they made artisan soaps, on the edge of the Ventana Wilderness.  Then they began planting Rhone varietals as a hobby to see what would happen.  They finally began production on their Big Sur Red.

All the winemaking came into fruition with their Big Sur Reserve Pinot Noir 2013.  It was amusing to me, that right after I opened the carton, I was reading one of the wine sites that I follow, and someone was touting the Big Sur Pinot Noir as being exceptional and that everyone should try to find it, if possible, which made me happy to read, and here I had their Reserve of the same wine, though I am not sure what the actual difference is, as there was not much information on their website.  This particular wine is from the Antle Vineyard in the Chalone AVA.  The wine created one-hundred-seventy cases and the aging potential is for five to six years.  I am sure that curiosity will make me try this wine sooner.  In a rather sad side note, they lost all of their buildings in probably the first two or three days of the Soberanes Fire of 2016 and are rebuilding, and I wish them well.