Dear Colorado Wine Club Member,

Fruit set is now about complete in the Grand Valley.  The flowers flowered, the wind blew, and Presto!  We have pollinated and successfully begun growing tiny wine grapes.  There on the vine they will rest, soaking up resources for the rest of the growing season.  What’s so amazing is that they know what to do and don’t have to think about it.  They just sit there, basking in the sun, and through photosynthesis, make the sun’s energy available to the rest of the planet in a useable form – first sugar, then wine.  In these energy sensitive times, I’ve sometimes wondered what it would be like to make industrial alcohol from grapes.  We could use it to heat our homes or run our cars or supply our fuel cells.  Probably a worthless endeavor . . . who would do that if they could make scrumptious wine instead?

Enclosed are your Wine Club bottles.  This month’s wines for the Vintner’s Choice Colorado Wine Club are:

2004 Merlot, S Rhodes Vineyards

Every once in a while we come across a big, muscular, fruit-driven merlot that dominates the lineup for months at a time.  We think this may be one of them.  It’s got so much fruit and jam we might recommend this wine with peanut butter and buttered toast.  It’s ridiculously tasty and appealing with moderate oak and a nice clean finish.  Steve outdid himself with this one.  Seriously consider this wine with ribs and a spicy hot BBQ sauce like what you might find at one of those Ravenswood weekend Barbie plates.  It’ll knock your sandals off.

Sweetheart Red

If a person wanted an insider’s view of winemaking, this wine will deliver.  One of the most enviable duties of a winemaker during harvest is tasting the fermentations as the yeasts transform the very sweet grape juice into wine.  Each day as this is done, the winemaker usually is feeling pretty good about his or her line of work.  Early in a red fermentation there are flavors and aromas that are deliciously uniquely to that stage in a wine’s life.  It’s very unusual for a wine to retain that special rich, grapey fruitiness that’s tasted by so few.  To borrow a phrase, a taste is worth a thousand words.  The trouble is that because of the millions of live yeast cells in a mere mouthful of fermenting juice, it’s a bad idea to swallow, no matter how thirsty you may be.  This wine conveys that special flavor, and you can swallow all you want.  Enjoy!

As always, enjoy the wines in good health!

Sincerely,

Glenn & Natalie Foster