I Can’t Believe I Forgot

Before last week I hadn’t tasted our 2012 Pinot Noir from Wolff Vineyard in over a year.

But in my Pinot Noir ice cream mission I slipped a dust-coated burgundy sloped bottle from the box, sliced into familiar thick foil and plunged in my well-loved corkscrew.

Wine diamonds clung to the ruby-stained underside of a perfect cork. As any good wine enthusiast should do, I poured a ‘taste’ just to be certain the wine was without fault before adding it to my ice cream batter (at least that’s what the lush in me justified it as).

You’d certainly think that by now I’d be accustomed to our wares. You’d expect that I wouldn’t keep finding myself surprised yet again by the garnet gold shining up at me from the bottom of a wine glass.

But maybe that’s where infatuation deepens into something more, like the start of genuine appreciation. No matter how many times I have it, it’s always like the well-loved first time… tantalizingly familiar but deliciously naïve.

Both my palate and I are pleased to report that despite all of the impeccable wines Double Bond has brought us and despite all the years we have been spoiled, we have not grown numb to excellence. Although I know what to expect, these wines keep exceeding my expectations. This bottle treated me like the 2010 Pinot(and we all know how I feel about 2010 Pinot.)

In its 10th year, the 2012 is tasting better than it ever has.

… A true testament to John’s successful marriage of cultlike Californian mouthfeel to French-inspired maturity.

I happily continued my tastes between each batch of ice cream enjoying each sip like a stolen treasure.

Days passed with the blink of an eye in the flurry of our Pinot in the Park event preparation before a phone call transported me back into that denarian bottle. It was from a club member who was unable to join us at the event but told me a tale of an afternoon glass of wine with her daughter-in-law the past week.

A dusty heavy bottle of burgundy so much like mine joined them filling their glasses; its face read “2012 Pinot Noir” framed with iconic twin Double Bond bars. In an instant, separated by miles and circumstances, this one wine gave them the same expectation-defying experience it gave me.

‘I forgot just how good your Pinots really are’ she told me.

She and me both… A mistake I seem doomed to repeat but at least not for as long as the replenished 2012 Pinot bottles in my wine rack last.