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Snow Bocce + Bear Boat Pinot Noir

» posted by Rich on 2011-01-03 11:01:47

Snow Bocce + Bear Boat 2006 Russian River Pinot Noir

I had to laugh when I saw this story about a Illinois town that held a frozen Bocce tournament this week, (see link below). Well... while I was home in New York last week during The Great Blizzard of 2010, we held a Bocce tournament in the backyard. That's right. When we saw the flurries accumulating outside we didn't think, "get out the sleds!" No! We went straight for the bocce set and got our game on!

I won the first game in which I played solo against my sister, Jen, and my brother-in-law Derek. But I was beaten pretty badly the second game one-on-one against Derek. And if it didn't get too dark to play, we could have played a grudge match to settle the score. By the time we woke up the next day there was over 17" of snow on the ground, another convenient excuse to forgo the final game. We'll have to settle it another time, perhaps in the warm New York summer on soft green grass? We'll see.

Besides hot cocoa, we did enjoy a nice bottle of Bear Boat 2006 Russian River Pinot Noir that day. A beautifully light Pinot with tons of blackberry and raspberry tones both on the nose and palate. It has a touch of oak and some heat (it comes in at 13.5%ALC), but that worked itself out nicely later on as it opened up. What made it a really exceptional bottle was that I shared it with my family. We were stranded in my warm childhood home during the storm. We had all luckily arrived before the blizzard and had no worries in the world. I guess there isn't a higher score than 100 points, but this bottle would have to be 100+ points.

Here's the original article:
Rochester winery holds bocce ball tourney- The State Journal-Register, Springfield, IL.