It’s been over a year since I moved to San Diego, and the pile of wine bottles in the bedroom doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller, even though I’ve done my best to drink, drain, or distribute it. Ah well. This bottle was set aside long ago for a charity event called Have a Cigare that never materialized: a vertical tasting of Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant and related wines for the Microsoft employee charity auction; sadly, no one bid on the opportunity to taste a dozen Cigares, so it wound up gathering dust under my bed for a year. Anyhow!

Still fairly youthful in the glass – visually, it looks like a medium-weight Zinfandel – this has a decidedly aged nose, the tell-tale stink of time overriding much of anything else. To be honest, it smells an awful lot like a greasy hamburger (and I don’t mean that pejoratively): very meaty, a little bit smoky, and kind of fatty. It’s kind of like a cherry cough drop that fell into the bacon fat jar next to your grandmother’s stove, actually.

Once you drink some, there’s an immediate hit of cherry followed by fairly thick, dusty tannins with high, nearly Italianate acidity. The complexity is surprising, tending towards bright red fruits with a supporting hint of porty chocolate; all in all, it strikes me as weirdly Italian (I know, I know).

God only knows what’s in this or how much it cost; I suppose I’d have to go find the packing slip from the wine club shipment to find out, but right now all I want to do is finish this bottle and order a pizza.

Bonny Doon
Price: $?
Closure: Cork
Date tasted: November 2008