Mood: Springy

Wine Selection: 2003 Ilona Howell Mountain

The birds are chirping, the sun is out and I’m ready to clean, clean, clean! The thought of cleaning make you cringe? It won’t after you hear my new motto…never clean without a glass of wine! Do you like it?! I thought you would.

The wine of choice for me right now is the 2003 Ilona. This proprietary blend is mainly Cabernet and Merlot with some blender varietals in there somewhere. There is so much that I love about this wine it’s hard to think where to start. First with the actual taste…when I saw Howell Mountain on the label, I thought it was going to be the “manhattan” style wine with +15% alcohol and jammy, jammy, jammy. This is NOT that wine! It’s much more refined. It has nice fruit up front, including plum, blackberry, and cherry, however, when the wine moves from the tip of your tongue to fill your mouth, you get a nice, velvet and clean spicy finish. It’s not obscenely hot or tannic. It’s elegant! How many of you have had an elegant Bordeaux style blend from Howell Mountain? Well, this wine is perfect for many occasions: cleaning, bbq’n, un”wine”ding after a long week, etc.

There is one catch…there always is, right? This wine isn’t going to be released until April 2009! I do believe that Catherine Eddy, owner, will let you buy some if you call or email her, but you won’t be able to pick it up from you local store. Sorry Charlie! Have patience or make it happen! Sign up for her mailing list at www.ilonawine.com/join.html and get more information on release info and specials.

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