Saturday Night – Grill, baby grill! – Part 3

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The 2003 Sterling Napa Valley Merlot was the other bottle that we had with dinner.

"A BBQ'd bounty!"

The nose was a complex mix of cedar, plum, cinnamon and pipe tobacco. Tasting the wine you’ll notice a cherry/raspberry flavour to it. The balance on the this wine is superb with velvety tannin, nice acidity and a subtle finish. This is a very easy drinking wine. It was very good pairing with all of the food. My only disappointment with this wine is this was the only bottle I had left.

"Wow!"

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 89, Mark – 90, Kathy – 91, Amy – 90, Overall – 90.

Here is the LCBO information on the wine -

STERLING MERLOT (V)

VINTAGES 330241
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 24.95
Wine, Red Wine
13.5% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : D
Made in: California/Californie, United States
By: Ravenswood Lynn Rogers
Release Date: May 15, 2010

Description - This classic Napa Merlot is rich and succulent with ripe blackberry and sweet cherry aromas. Dry and silky smooth, this medium-bodied Merlot has a ripe, juicy, fruity core that is accented by spice and toasty oak characters leading to a long, full-flavoured finish. Try it with roast chicken and herbed stuffing, or grilled tuna steaks.

*Note this is probably 2005-2007 Merlot and not the 2003 reviewed as this bottle had been on my rack for a couple of years now.

The 90 rating puts this wine just out of the Zippy Sauce Top Ten Red wines but if you come across a bottle of it, pick it up, as you won’t be disappointed.

I’d like to thank Mick with his help in breaking in the new BBQ (he has a similar model so I let him grill and took this as a learning experience). I was a little worried as Mick’s BBQ is propane and my old one was too and people had commented to me that Natural Gas doesn't burn as hot, but that wasn’t not an issue, as the BBQ was plenty hot in a very short amount of time. All of the food was cooked to perfection and everyone enjoyed themselves.

I’m hopeful that this will be the first of many a great BBQ evening.

Cheers!

Mark