May I have your attention and attempt to express my gratitude for the wine selection at my neighborhood Costco. I am genuinely impressed that the store here in Timnath, CO carries Burn Cottage Pinot Noir from Central Otago, New Zealand. An extraordinarily beautiful wine growing location, Central Otago makes distinctive Pinot Noirs of the highest quality. I know this first hand from my visit to Queenstown, New Zealand in January 2018.
In the Glass
I opened my bottle of 2014 Burn Cottage Pinot Noir when my husband was away in Mexico for a boys’ tequila trip. What an amazing night I had alone with that wine. It transported me back to New Zealand’s South Island and immediately I tasted the joy from that fantastical place. Swirling the wine, I found classic cherry notes, ripe strawberries, purple plums and fresh, white, button mushrooms. There was even a trace of pencil shavings that excited me. Dusty, earthy and mysterious, the wine delivered on its price point of $54.
The Wine Label
The strange artwork on the label generated curiosity and more excitement. The eyes on the bottom right, a canoe, a giant serpent, and the almighty moon at the top left. What was it trying to tell me? Drink more Pinot? I had to investigate to find the deeper meaning. Evidently, it is based on the fairytale The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The story is about finding harmony with the “ideal human being” and “outer life experiences.” It is an illustration of Burn Cottage’s philosophy for biodynamic winemaking and creating the purest wines from the land.
Burn Cottage Colorado Connection
What a surprise to learn that the owner and president of Burn Cottage Vineyard, Marquis Sauvage, started his wine career in Colorado. He owned his own wine bar which eventually influenced his family to get further into fine wine. The Sauvage family now owns the Koehler Ruprecht estate in Pfalz, Germany and several importing and wholesaling companies in the US. I felt like I was connecting with this wine in more ways than one, beyond my New Zealand memories.
My private wine tasting reached a new height when I paired Burn Cottage Pinot Noir with the hot R&B single from 1991 Breakin’ My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes) from Mint Condition. Not exactly what Marquis would be listening to, since I saw a personal photo of him with Megadeth, but I was certainly dancing to the wine groove. Maybe the next bottle of Burn Cottage I’ll queue up Symphony of Destruction, or better yet, leave the Burn Cottage to age a little longer and uncork a bottle of Mustaine Vineyards She-Wolf Tempranillo Rosé.
Disclosure – And, no, this is not a sponsored post, nor am I getting paid by Costco. I just want to thank the Costco buyer who knows that great Pinot Noirs can elevate an average night. Cheers!
