Brrrr

Central Park January 2011

I’ve been living in the Northeast for over six years now, but I’m still a native Texan at heart. At least when it dips below freezing! According to the meteorologists here the high for today is 23. And that’s the high! Yikes! This cold spell is scheduled to last a few more days, which means along with donning my warmest scarves, hats and mittens; I’m going to need a perfect warm-me-up wine.

For me a warm-me-up wine achieves this status with two basic requirements. First, it must be full-bodied: rich and complex with a taste that lingers. Second, it must be from the Southern Hemisphere (where right now it’s summer.)

My warm-me-up wine for today is a 2006 Concha Y Toro Merlot Marques de Casa Concha. (Try saying that five times fast.) Primarily you are going to smell plum and a variety of wintry spices. It smells so tantalizing it’s going to take you a few minutes to process! When you finally taste the Merlot you are going to find a pleasant array of blueberries, cherries, and dark chocolate. This is a tannic and aromatic wine with a flavor that is going to last for a long time. 

Warm up with this!

For me this is a quintessential Chilean wine in that you have a good mixture of fruit and earthiness. This would pair excellently with steaks and roasts. Maybe even a zesty pasta with a fierce, meaty sauce.

This particular wine hails from the Rapel Valley, an extremely large area of the Valle Central (Chile’s most well-known region) where the climate and soil lends itself well to Cabernet and Merlot. Chile is extremely unique for wine production for its abundance of diverse climates. This particular 2006 Merlot was aged fourteen months in French oak, making it seem even more like an Old World wine.

Spring is still several weeks away, so for now bundle up, watch for icy patches, and enjoy a lovely warm-me-up wine!