Saturday, April 28, 2007

Samsara 2005 Ampelos Vineyard Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir


Going wine tasting this afternoon in our local wine store we picked up a bottle of the Samsara 2005 Ampelos Vinyard Pinot Noir ($48.95) from the Pinot Noir section to try something new.
Samsara was founded in 2002 by proprietors Chad and Mary Melville. Chad is also assistant winemaker and vineyard manager at his dad's (Ron Melville) winery, Melville, since 1997. Deciding to start his own venture as well, Samsara was created. A little philosophy behind this name to give some thought: Samsara is sanskrit for the eternal cycle of life, the world we live in now, one of passion, oneness, harmony. It talks about each individual human being longing to be in control of every aspect of life. When it comes to farming, as so many other things in life, you can not control everything, no matter how hard you try, and the final result is a harmony of the power of nature, things beyond our control, and the human desire to reach perfection. This will ultimately result in the expressions of the finished wine.

This Pinot Noir has beautiful, bright, dark ruby red color in the glass. On the nose a big burst of dark, ripe raspberries with black berries, and a hint of tea and vanilla. On the palate the dark raspberries carries through with red cherries, some spice and a touch of freshly cut herbs. Juicy acidity and firm tannins, in symphony with the berries and spice, gives this wine a medium length, savory finish. This 2005 Pinot Noir is very drinkable at this point but I would opt to let it sit in the bottle for a couple of years to see what it has to offer at that point. Nothing short of great if I am predicting the aging of this wine somewhat close to what will actually happened...

This is a small production winery with only 96 cases made of this particular wine. I really enjoyed this bottle and I am excited to see how this winery will evolve in the next couple of years. It is definitely worth keeping your eyes on...
Find this bottle at Wine-Searcher.com or WineZap.com from $44.99.


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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, ask anyone who actually reads and studies Sanskrit and they will tell you that samskara means - "worldly illusion and mundane existence".

Victoria said...

Thanks for the correction. As you understand I do not know Sanskrit what so ever, and got the information from Samsara's website. And that is how they translate and explain the word Samsara there...

Anonymous said...

Wow, what a post killer...
In reponse to your comment from ???
We very much liked your definition of Sanskirt, which is in fact from the web-site you quote. Thank you for your information and please continue as we look forward to your posts here in Bozaman. There are book clubs and reviews but here we are a wine club and big fans of: www.Tastesoflife.blog.spot.com

Lilly