Bin Ends Wine Twitter Taste LIVE #5 – The Bloggers Take Over

On Saturday November 15th 2008 I will be participating in another Twitter Taste LIVE event.  Twitter Taste LIVE is the brainchild of the folks at Bin Ends Wine of Braintree, MA.  Wine bloggers (and their guests) taste wines and post tasting notes, thoughts, and questions on social networking site Twitter at a predetermined date and time.  The theme for event #5 is “The Bloggers Take Over.”  Each blogger decides which wine or wines to taste and will post to Twitter.  Others can purchase the same wine or wines and post along if they would like.

For this event I chose the 2005 Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards Right Bank.  I purchased this wine online a few months ago.  I can’t say whom I purchased the wine from as I don’t want them to get in trouble from the interstate shipping police, or be subject to a wine.com sting.  I purchased the wine for a number of reasons.  I only purchased one bottle as it cost $42 plus shipping as I am of modest means.  Firstly, I was just curious about any wine produced from the capable hands of Todd Anderson, he of Ghost Horse World cult winery fame.  The wines at Ghost Horse World cost from $500 up to $5000 PER BOTTLE so obviously I am not going to ever purchase those.  I mean, even if I won the lottery I would never spend that much money on a bottle of wine.  I have previously perused the 27-page thread in Marc Squires Bulletin Board on eRobertParker.com (concerning the Ghost Horse World web site) and found it to be *wicked funny*.  In his work at non-cult winery Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards in Napa Valley, CA, Todd Anderson produces quite a few very highly regarded wines included this Right Bank.

Yeah, THAT Guy

In Fact the 2005 Right Bank earned a 95-point rave from Robert Parker in Wine Advocate #174 December 2007. I’m an online subscriber so have access to the review but don’t want to get in copyright trouble by reprinting it, but I can say that Parker called it many nice things including a “total hedonistic turn-on”.  Yeah, Baby!  I’m up for some of that.  In fact, I have never tasted anything rated above 92 by anyone, so this should be interesting.

Another thing that intrigues me about this wine is that it is a Château Cheval Blanc homage.  Of course this is a Bordeaux Grand Cru that I would certainly like to taste some day but… in the mean time, I will be happy to try this American homage.  Like the original, it is a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc with smaller percentages of other grapes.  Miles in Sideways was obviously confused about the fact that his prize bottle of Cheval Blanc has a sizeable percentage of $%#@ Merlot in it.