Wine.Woot : One Week, One Wine (SM)

Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Off This Foil

Honestly, you read enough winery press sheets, they all start to kind of blur together. This award, that prestigious restaurant, some gaudy score from Wine Spectator. But sometimes…

...a fact really pops out at you. So it went when we were writing about this Iron Horse Vineyards Sparkling Duet. They officially opened in 1979, that’s cool. Named after a train that used to stop near their location in Sebastopol, California, that’s interesting. Currently run by the children of original founders Audrey and Barry Sterling, that’s nice. Made the sparkling wine for the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Geneva in 1985, that’s-

Wait, what?

It’s true, though. Five straight presidential administrations have thought highly enough of Iron Horse Sparkling Wines to pop their corks in the White House. And they’re not the only ones. Wine & Spirits has named Iron Horse the Sparkling Winery of the Year no less than nine times. And Robert Parker said their wines “possess more texture and flavor than just about any sparkler I have tasted from California.” No wonder they’ve been witness to so much history.

So bringing you the 2004 Russian Cuvée directly from Iron Horse is a pretty historic moment for Wine.Woot, too. It’s made in the same style as the sparkling wine served at the aforementioned summit. Did its precision-harvested, estate-grown Pinot Noir and Chardonnay fruit put Gorby in the mood to compromise? Are its toasted hazelnut and ripe red apple aromas to thank for the end of the Cold War, or was that more of a job for those rich, creamy golden apple and Meyer lemon flavors? Or does it possess some other secret power to put people in good moods? The world may never know. But we’ll have a lot of fun trying to figure it out.

Slightly less sweet, maybe less historic, but no less spectacular, the Iron Horse 2004 Classic Vintage Brut demands its own seat at the table. (Note: actually putting the bottle on a seat is not recommended. Try a bucket of ice instead.) The Chardonnay and Pinot Noir lots chosen for this were a little shy on the nose – maybe they were coddled by the hand harvesting and gentle pressing. But after more than three years of aging on the yeast, they came out of their shells in a big way. Complex, creamy notes of toasted hazelnut, caramel, lemon, and apple nestle comfortably against everything from pâté to meat loaf.

So it’s a great thing for us writers when wines have a story behind them. But your tongue won’t care about that. All it will know is what critics, presidents, and especially sparkling wine lovers have been saying all along: this Iron Horse bubbly sparkles in more ways than one.

Rules and restrictions:

• Wine sold by winery (or a retailer in your state where necessary)
• You must be 21 or older to order
• Whoever receives the package must be 21 or older
• If you're drunk when the package shows up, you will not be allowed to receive it
• Wine cannot be delivered to a P.O. Box
• We highly recommend you use a business address as your shipping address

Thanks to stick-in-the-mud buzzkilling state legislators, wine may only be delivered to the following states:

• California
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• District Of Columbia
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If your state's not on the list, you're out of luck... for now. Keep up with the ever-changing laws over at ShipCompliantBlog.com, and/or sound the alarms with your state assembly person through FreeTheGrapes.org. Meanwhile, all Federal, state and local laws are complied with in providing this wine.