Notes from Wine Club: Pinots & Plugs

Last night was wine club. For almost 7 years now a group of girl friends have gathered on the third Thursday of every month to drink wine. It's been a journey -- we've evolved from drinking $8 bottles to $$20-$30 bottles and we've dated, married, birthed, adopted, and divorced our way through late 20s to mid 30s.

While we're not a snooty wine club, we have learned a thing or two through the years. When we first started wine club we had definite "themes" each month and came to each wine club having done some research/homework on our wine. We used to take tasting notes on each of the wines. Okay, not "we" -- there was one person who self-appointed herself the historian. Since she's had 3 kids and can't seem to break away to attend each month we've lost the written record of our imbibing.

Since last night was my first wine club post preggers, I made sure to make up for all those nights where I had a few safe sip/tastes and cursed the fact that I couldn't drink. So my memory of the wines is a little fuzzy, but I do know that the theme was California vs Oregon pinot noir.

From California:

• Rodney Strong 2005 (or maybe it was 2006) Estate Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley. This was your typical California pinot - fruity and velvety, nothing to offend yet nothing to really make it stand out.
  

From Oregon:

• I brought an A to Z 2006 Pinot Noir from Oregon. The Wine Spectator had an article on Oregon and said to keep an eye for for this one. Compared to the California pinots, this one had more of a clarity and a nice balance between fruit and acid.
  

• But best of all was the Solena Pinot Noir - not because it tasted so good (which it did) - it was noteworthy because it was the first time any of us had experienced the new glass stoppers that some winemakers are using in lieu of old-school corks, rubber corks or screw tops.

The glass stopper is a great idea. Nevermind that after 5 or 6 glasses of pinot, it bore a striking resemblance to a butt plug (we all had a few raunchy laughs and jokes), but it was super easy to open -- no need for a cork screw, it just pops off. Coincidentally, as I was skimming through the February 2008 Gourmet that came in the mail yesterday, I found a short article on glass stoppers on page 41 (how is it that I've never before heard of glass stoppers and in the last 24 hours have had 2 encounters?!):

James Rodewald says the glass stopper " is easy to open, reseals nicely, and imparts no flavors to the wine. It may not be the one perfect closure - there's probably no such thing - but it's nice to see U.S. wineries beginning to use it."


The 'morning after' each wine club the theme always emerges. Last night's wine club will forever go down as the "butt plug" wine club where we also happened to taste California and Oregon pinots. Remind me to blog about the "merkin" wine club some time soon.

So, wine club girls, what were the other wines we drank/tasted?