This is thirty-six dollars worth of Pinot Noir, pure and simple.  In our minds, to spend that kind of money on a wine demands something wicked good, and this stuff was definitely up to snuff.

The first thing that caught our attention when pouring out glasses of McKenzie-Mueller’s Los Carneros Pinot Noir 2005 was the light intensity of its exquisite ruby color.  This is not the stereotypically (and fashionably) heavily extracted California style of Pinot Noir, but rather the lighter, European style that we tend to prefer.

Upon sniffing our glasses, we picked up vanilla, wood, berry, and cherry scents, along with a touch of marzipan, and in the mouth we found smokey cherry and berry flavors.  The finish lingered on for a while.  Best of all was the near perfect balance, with light tannin and medium acidity that gave this wine a silky smooth texture.  It was simply a pleasure to drink.

As you might have guessed from the name, the region of origin is Carneros, which straddles the southernmost Sonoma/Napa border.  We bought our bottle at the winery, and we highly, highly recommend a visit.

Where to get it: As noted above, we bought our bottle at the winery.  You can buy it directly through McKenzie-Mueller’s web site, but you can also find it using the Snooth search function under “Wine Locator” in the right hand column of this page, or by visiting wine-searcher.com or winezap.com.