Feels Like Coming Home: Pride Mountain Vineyards 2013 Merlot
HOME.
You get the notion you're headed someplace special by the jittery feeling in your fingertips as you drive up the mountain to Pride Mountain Vineyards. It could be the jostle from the twists, turns and pot holes of the mountain road, but I think it's more than that. It's the exact same jittery feeling of excitement I get before opening the bottle now.
Coming back to old bottles you've loved before can be an experience quite similar, I think, to that of reuniting with an old, familiar friend or place. They may look the same, have the same label. They may have the same DNA as they've always had. But somethings different. They've matured, or perhaps you have.
Vines at Pride Mountain Vineyard
I felt the overwhelming need to revisit one of my favorite wines from a past adventure this week. The Pride Mountain Vineyards 2013 Merlot, this is not an average bottle of California Merlot. Pride Mountain Vineyards successfully blends the esteem of the Napa Valley with the down-to-earth qualities of the Sonoma Valley. Rightly so, the winery is divided almost equally between the two counties. Each of their estate bottled wines telling you from whence the fruit derived... "57% Napa County 43% Sonoma County" in this particular bottling.
Favorite hat... favorite wine... coincidence... I think not!
The vineyards roll along the side of the Mayacama Mountains above the fray of the valley below. The higher mountain exposure allows the grapes to soak up sun from morning until night avoiding any morning fog or inversion that can settle on the valley floor. The result is a richly structured and multi-layered Merlot brimming with thick plum and dark cherry. A coffee and spicy licorice palate add to the depth. I loved it for its structure, its age-ability and because coming home, to a wine like this, is sure to make anyone jitter, sparkle and glimmer with excitement.
How beautiful reuniting can be! Both profoundly changed and yet the same as before. The jittery, glistening excitement returned to my fingertips the moment the pilot announced we were beginning our final decent to Missoula. Happy to be back in my beautiful Montana home. Happy to witness how sincerely different and how overwhelmingly the same we have grown.
Reppin' PMV at a Montana Bonfire!
There's no place like home! XO, Ren