SUPERIOR WINE ALERT:

Once again, our good friends at Raymond Burr Vineyards deliver the goods. Today’s wine is well worthy of this special alert, which we issue whenever we come across a really exceptional wine.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE ALERT:

The Wine Spies are proud to be the only wine merchant to be showcasing today’s wine! Once again, our superior connections in the wine trade gain us exclusive access to the world’s finest – and rarest – wines!

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Mission Codename: The Orchid

Operative: Agent Red

Objective: Send Agent Red back to Raymond Burr winery, to retrieve their stellar 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon – before any other wine trading organization gets their hands on it!

Mission Status: Accomplished!

Current Winery: Raymond Burr Vineyards

Wine Subject: 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

Winemaker: Phyllis Zouzounis

Backgrounder: Our Operatives are huge fans of Raymond Burr wines. We have had the great fortune to have featured several successive vintages of their flagship wine, their Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. Where prior vintages have been Cab blends, today’s wine is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Where previous vintages have impressed us, today’s wine blows us away!

Wine Spies Tasting Profile:

Look – Dark cherry-red with clarity through its slightly darker heart. The wine holds its color, right out the the very edge of the glass, where a fine line of pink lines the rim.

Smell – Fragrant and lush, with an initial rush of red flowers. This is followed by black cherry, blackberry, blueberry, dusty bramble, semi-sweet chocolate and soft cinnamon.

Feel – Smooth and light-weight on entry, then a soft and easy dryness slowly emerges, drying the cheeks, lips and mid-palate with a tasty mineral-fruitiness.

Taste -Delicious red and black fruit, leading with prominent earthy cherry, blackberry and dusky blueberry. After the dryness is introduced, additional flavors of slate, cassis and raspberry emerge, followed by evolving chocolate and soft cinnamon.

Finish -As noted in the Feel and Taste sections, above, this wine absolutely and deliciously evolves on the palate. The wine starts fruity and flavor-filled, then additional flavors emerge, along with minerals and spice, leading to a long, slow and dynamic finish

Conclusion – In a word, Delightful!. Ready to drink, right now, I can’t help but marvel at how great the wine will drink over the next several years. Our tasting panel was very impressed with this wine, even though we had already-high expectations. We loved the aromatics and flavors, and had a great time with the dynamic progression that the wine presented on the palate. The fact that the flavors and the feel evolved while the wine was in our mouths – and after – was a fun addition to an already terrific wine. Enjoy now, or cellar for several more years.

Mission Report:

Now that we are great friends with the folks at Raymond Burr Vineyards, additional surveillance or infiltration is not necessary. Now that they have been recruited into The Wine Spies Network, we can just return to them to ask for wine.

No new mission report today, so please read below for a recap of our initial mission to Raymond Burr Vineyards.

Please note that we enjoyed today’s featured Cabernet Sauvignon even more than the Cabernet Franc that we mention below:

Prior Mission Recap:

Ask anyone to describe Raymond Burr in a single word and, resoundingly, you will likely hear, Classy.

The veteran actor, for whom today’s winery was honorarily named, was also a cultivator of orchids, a war hero, a philanthropist and more. Most of all, he was cherished and loved by his close friends, who say that his warmth, humor and compassion made him a remarkable man.

When I was given the mission – finally – to seek out a new Cabernet Franc, I riffled through my mental Rolodex and recalled hearing great things about a Cab Franc from Raymond Burr Winery. In fact, it was in the most unusual way that I had come to hear of the wine in the first place.

On returning from a mission to Latin America, our flight got in to Miami too late to make our connecting flight back to California. the airline put us up in a swanky hotel and the next morning we found ourselves in a shuttle back to the Airport. I struck up a conversation with a young couple who were also on our inbound flight and, as always, I steered the conversation toward wine. We compared tastes in varietals and found that Cab Franc wines were among our very favorites. We traded recommendations and they assured me that Raymond Burr had a wine that I would be sure to love.

Now that I was finally assigned a Cab Franc mission I knew just where to go, so I called proprietor and long time companion to Mr. Burr, Robert Benevides. I used the direct approach and told him that I was very interested in sampling his wine and, if they passed the test, feature his Cabernet Franc here for our Operatives to enjoy.

I enjoyed this exceptional wine more with each sip. With enough time to stretch out in the air, the wine really opens up and loses the rough edges present on opening. For best results, decant the wine for a few hours – and enjoy at cellar temperature.

Aromas, flavors, acid and mouth-feel are all in harmony here and the finish is really very unique. If you love great Cabernet Franc, look no further Operative, its right here.

Finally, I remember hearing a story about Mr. Burr that sums up his life and his wines: While working with Errol Flynn, Flynn told Mr. Burr that if he died with ten dollars in his pocket he hadn’t done a good job. This inspired Mr. Burr to always share his wealth with all. His legacy lives on in today’s wine from Mr. Burr’s namesake winery.

Wine Spies Vineyard Check:

The location of the Raymond Burr Vineyards can be seen in this satellite photo.