About two years or so ago my husband and I purchased our first house. We worked with an absolutely wonderful realtor. He was patient (I looked at over 35 houses in one neighborhood!), he didn’t make us feel rushed, or pushed into a house. He was very professional and really knew his stuff. 
He was very personable and a pretty fun guy (We just went to his Halloween party this past October). Plus he has great taste in housewarming gifts (Seriously how many realtors give a housewarming gift anyway? Nice guy right?). As afore mentioned housewarming gift he was kind enough to sign us up for a wine of the month club/delivery. So once a month I would come home to a bottle of wine on my porch. Today’s wine recommendation found it’s way to me via this lovely gift.
If you’ve been reading a while I’m sure you’ve figured out that Rieslings are my favorite wines, and I tend towards white wines in general. I believe this is the first red wine I’ve recommended to y’all. (Sorry feeling a little cowgirl today for some reason.) Celebration! Finally a red wine! So you should probably thank my awesome realtor for this fact, because its my wine a month delivery that inspired (forced?) me to really branch out and try a lot of new wines, reds especially! While I still love my Rieslings best of all, I’ve really come to appreciate red wine as well. Now regular red wine drinkers do not be afraid of this recommendation, while a milder red, this is not excessively sweet.
Before I start describing taste for you, I think I’m going to give you a little background. Because to be honest, the first thing I thought when seeing this bottle is what is a Côtes-du-Rhône anyway…I haven’t heard of that one before? Ok, here’s the lowdown: Côtes-du-Rhône (click here for pronunciation) is not a wine categorized by grape type (such as Chardonnay or Merlot) and is neither red nor white, but rather is a region of France. In fact it is the second largest wine producing region next to Bordeaux. Wines produced in this region (some other rules apply as well) are allowed to use the name Côtes-du-Rhône.
18 individual villages in this region are also allowed to declare their village name as well as use the Côtes-du-Rhône designation. (Side note: If you ever happen upon one of these names on a bottle nab it right away! They will be fine indeed: Bagnols-sur-Ceze, Cairanne, Chusclan, Laudun, Massif d’Uchaux, Plan de Dieu, Puymeras, Roaix, Rochegude, Rousset-les-Vignes, Sablet, Saint-Gervais, Saint-Maurice-sur-Eygues, Saint-Pantaléon-les-Vignes, Séguret, Valréas Vinsobres, Visan)
I should add that both red and white (and in fact rosés) are produced in the Rhône region and carry the name Côtes-du-Rhône. Most reds in this group are blends crated from different types of grapes. Most of these blends are based on Grenache or Syrah (two major grape types from this region). Louis Bernard Côtes-du-Rhône 2010, today’s recommendation is one of these blends. It has a large percentage of Syrah grapes, which gives it a lovely ruby red color. The wine is supposed to have flavors of red currant, red cherry, oak and black pepper. I can pick out the fruit flavors, and perhaps even the oak; but I have to admit, despite my palate improving significantly as I taste new wines, I can’t really pick out the black pepper. But regardless of your ability to taste black pepper, I do recommend picking up a bottle of this wine. I actually plan on giving 2012 a try myself soon. (I will update at some point and let you know.)
BTW if anyone in the Denver area needs a relator shoot me an email, I’ll get you in touch! I can’t recommend my guy enough!
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