How we found HG III at Twisted 2 that 1 night
One of the joys of living in wine country is all the encounters we have with small production wines that don’t it make it out of the local market. There are plenty of these little wineries that don’t have tasting rooms and don’t show up in large retail liquor stores. Sometimes you can find these wines through services like LastBottle.com (which we’ve been known to use on occasion), but usually they’re only available in nearby wine shops and restaurants that have a direct relationship with the winery. It’s always a little exciting to find one of these wines.
In the few months that we’ve been in Sonoma, we’ve twice gone home with great little wines we found in non-wineries. The first was the 2006 Fletcher Louis Cabernet that we picked up at Vine and Barrel. The second is the wine we’re discussing today.
Our favorite Sonoma restaurant is Twisted 2. It is the coziest of cozy little restaurants, with seating for just 16. There’s been live music every time we’ve been, the food and service is excellent, and the wine is just as good. We’ll leave it to you to We can’t recommend it highly enough. It might be our all time favorite, just ahead of Buca in Toronto and Vie in Chicago. If you’re ever in the Petaluma area over a weekend, do yourself a favor and make a reservation. It’s simply top notch. We had the 2014 HG III Red Blend from Hourglass Winery as a pairing with a meat course during a prix fixe dinner there.
Twisted 2 is run by a husband and wife team. Here’s where it gets interesting for oenophiles like ourselves. The husband is a negociant and you can buy some of the wines that they pair with the prix fixe dinner. The HG III was in stock, so we gladly went home with 2 bottles. Enough background! Here are our notes:
Cherries, maple syrup and violets on the nose. It's very sweet and clear smelling. It’s a Cabernet heavy blend, to be certain. Cherries, beet greens, and sage on the tongue. Beet greens and a touch of espresso beans on the finish. It’s consistent from start to finish. Just an awesome food wine that's great on its own. We had it with duck and steak. It paired beautifully with both. Given the faire, it’s hard to say how big the tannins were, but the mouth feel was smooth and clear.
It seemed very well balanced, but, to be fair, it was maybe our fourth glass of wine that night. We may have been a bit under the influence at that point. With that being said, everyone at the table (we were actually out to dinner with friends!) remarked on how excellent the HG III was when it was first poured.
The moral of the story is this, muddled though the telling may be: when in wine country, don’t forget about the fantastic restaurants. Not just for the food, but because you might just a find a gem of a wine that you never would have otherwise. Oh, and the other moral of the story is that you should eat at Twisted 2 at least once in your life. Seriously.
