“I’ve got something really special for you.”
My wine salesman - I’ll call him Steve to shield him from any fall -out from his indiscretion you are about to hear - was wearing his cat-that-ate-the- canary grin. In the manner of the more successful of his breed, though, he was offering said bird to me.
This juicy morsel was a bottle of 2007 Carneros Pinot Noir from Michael Pozzan, with his best, Annabella, label. I was interested, I knew Pozzan specialized in buying wineries’ odd lots of more expensive wines to sell under his own label. He could not reveal his sources, so they did not have to discount their brand prices.
I knew that was the case when ‘Steve’ said, “You might recognize this wine.” He had somehow found out what it was.
I sniffed, I sipped. It was the richer fuller style of Carneros Pinot Noir. I recognized but couldn’t quite place it.
I knew what to do. My wine tasting notes for the last 15 years (40,000 and counting) are all organized in my computer. I searched under Carneros Pinot Noir. There it was - “Mouth: rich chocolate and plum, cola notes, well-integrated oak, very dense,” just like the wine I was tasting, but perhaps a shade less ripe being from the 2005 vintage.
I named a single vineyard bottling from one of northern California’s better Pinot Noir labels.
“Mmmmm, not far off, but not quite,” he replied. That was his indiscretion. He hadn’t told me, but he had ummed just enough to make me sure I was on the right track. I flipped through more notes on that winery’s Pinots.
I found another 2005 single vineyard Pinot from the same winery that was selling for $48. I was sure of it. The winery style, the fruit richness was as unmistakable as a fingerprint.
‘Steve’s’ only response was a Cheshire cat grin. I was right.
“But we can sell this for 15.99. This is a major winery. 2007 is a wonderful vintage. Nothing wrong with the wine; it’s great. Are they having this much trouble selling their best stuff?”
He nodded sadly, feeling the recession grate on his commissions for higher priced wines, rubbing his fur the wrong way.
For you it’s different, at least in this case, at least. If you like the fuller style of Carneros Pinot, you can drink a quality of wine at 1/3 the price you would have last year. It’s a wine that will go with any bird as well as most meats meant for bigger cats. Too full for fish, though. Sorry, Whiskas.

2007 Michael Pozzan Pinot Noir Annabella (Carneros); Color: dark brownish -orange hue good color depth; Aroma: heady thick very dense full, clean light wood ; Mouth: thick ripe very dense, cola and plum, very rich, nice acid edge underlying rich fruit; very, very concentrated; Very Good Plus 15.99; Mixed Case, 14.39; Case, 13.59


....and a Napa Cabernet, too

At the same time, ‘Steve’ brought another 2007 Pozzan, a classically round and ripe Napa Cabernet, and like the Pinot shows the full ripe roundness of an excellent vintage. Like the Pinot, it comes from a more famous name (Think of who makes Cabernet in Knights Valley The savings are not quite so dramatic as the Pinot, but the wine is very, very good, much better than its $15.99 price

2007 Michael Pozzan Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa, Knights Valley); Color: very dark black, purple; Aroma: dusty very rich, very clean, earthy graphite; Mouth: thick sweet very clean heady & dense, clean very ripe sweet firm, , long fine grained tannins on a very ripe finish; Very Good Plus 15.99; Mixed Case, 14.39; Case, 13.59