Stags' Leap In Steamboat Springs

Wine is made in all 50 of these United States and I’m crap on 45-and-a-half of them. Forgetting California - for obvious reasons - I’ve had world-class wines from the Pacific north-west (Oregon and Washington) and stunning rieslings from upstate New York. A recent “Texitalian” sangiovese  was a minor revelation (although I may be the neologist here, so best not go asking around for such a thing, even if there were any point) but that‘s about it.

Out here in the heartlands, Mrs G’s small-holding half-step-brother-in-law (something like that, anyway) proudly thrust a bottle into my hand the other day. It came into being because various local folks deliver some of whatever grapes they happen to grow (or tolerate) to the Holy Cross Priory in Cañon City, Colorado. A few months later (and having contributed to the cost of bottling and so forth) Rich and family take delivery of a couple of cases.

This is no place to debate whether it’s any good but, chilled down, to my mind the difference between “Wild Cañon Rosé” and Latour is always going to be narrower than the difference between “Wild Cañon Rosé” and an empty glass.

Heading back tomorrow and I reckon the best bottle we’ve had this trip has been Stags' Leap “Artemis” 2004. Probably partly because it reminded me of a lovely day cycling thereabouts in the Napa Valley a couple of years ago and probably partly because we drank it on a side-trip stopover to see if Steamboat Springs is as super in summer as it is for skiing (which it is). But mainly because - in the right place and at the right time - that toasty, blackcurrant-vanilla taste-bomb thing can be just cab-tastic.