2008 Robert Oatley Sauvignon Blanc

I was having one of those days.

Kids were being difficult.  No one would do their chores.  I am limping more today than I was Friday because I pushed myself yesterday walking around.  Kevin said, “Hey!  Why don’t you open a bottle of wine.”

What a great idea.  So I did.  And there was something really, really wrong with the wine.  I think the bottle went bad.  At least, I hope so…

So, Kevin said, “Um… let’s stop drinking this…,”

This was a relief and so we opened a new bottle.  The 2008 Robert Oatley, Sauvignon Blanc*.

Immediately our mood lifted.

The wine was crisp and light, with citrus and melon with a lite scent of kiwi.  There was a nice minerality and well balanced acidity.

Ahhh, that was nice…..

Now I can relax…

* I received this bottle as a sample.

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Taking a break over the weeked to celebrate my father’s birthday, this delightful bottle was opened.

Casas del Bosque was a Sauvignon Blanc from the Casablanca Valley of the Valparaiso Region of Chile.

For me, there are two really interesting aspects to Chilean wine. The first is that while the main European influence in Chile is Spanish, their wine typically has a very French flair. When the Chilean people visited Europe, they fell in love with French wines and brought vines back with them. This helped Chile become a repository for French grape varieties that ended up being hard hit in Europe by phylloxera. Which leads me to the second really interesting thing about Chile. The country has never been hit with an outbreak of phylloxera so as a result the grapes are not grafted onto more resistant rootstocks.

The Casas del Bosque Sauvignon Blanc shows that French influence. It smelled of grass and tasted of piquant grapefruit that was so initially strong that I said, “GRAPEFRUIT!” when Kevin asked me what I thought of it. In all fairness, while the citrus flavor it was strong it did give way to raspberry and a slightly tart (under ripe) peach. Overall it was very pleasant and I would go out of my way to find it again.

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