Cornerstone California Rocks! Red 2013

In Cornerstone’s 2013 California Rocks Red, the Old World clearly meets the New World, as this wine draws inspiration from the magnificent red blends one encounters throughout France as well as California. The choice of varietals (Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Syrah, and Pinot Noir) is a unique mélange of California, Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhône Valley. The result is a deep purple potion with smooth rich fruit and a velvety elegance, like the wines you'll find in our new Bold Reds Wine Club. The wine offers up a heady bouquet of cassis and currant fruit along with a pleasant toasty quality born of oak barrel ageing. Although a touch of Pinot Noir adds elegance and spice, the 2013 Rocks Red is no wimpy little blend. Medium to full-bodied, the 2013 Rocks Red reveals deep down fruit flavors, fine grained tannins, and plenty to enjoy. With just a few minutes of aeration the 2013 Red Rocks blossoms, revealing a suave, tasty mid palate along with plenty of luscious fruit and barrel flavors. For optimal enjoyment, we suggest serving Cornerstone’s Red Rocks at no more than 65° F after 15-20 minutes of aeration.

The 2013 Cornerstone Rocks Red makes the ideal accompaniment to appetizers, red meats, and all kinds of Mediterranean specialties. An appetizer of grilled French bread with Kalamata olive and bacon tapenade, topped with fresh arugula, shaved Manchego cheese, and a drizzle of olive oil, provides an ideal starter for the first glass of the 2013 Rocks Red. For the second glass, some favorite parings with Rocks Red include pulled pork rib sliders with melted cheddar cheese, ravioli stuffed with goat cheese and herbs, braised short ribs in a Cabernet sauce with creamy mashed potatoes, and sliced sirloin steak with mushrooms. And if any 2013 Red Rocks is left in your glass, why not finish it with a bit of cheese?

Since its inception in 1991, Cornerstone Cellars has earned an enviable reputation for fashioning knock-out, super premium Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. While Cornerstone’s age-worthy Cabernets are built for the long haul and demand time in the bottle to approach their apogee, the winery’s Rocks offerings deliver affordable luxury as well as immediate gratification, without sacrificing quality or abandoning Cornerstone’s practice of using the finest grapes, barrels, and facilities to make the ultimate in drinking pleasure. Moreover, each of Cornerstone’s wines provides an exciting and unique taste experience.

While many California wineries produce one or two exceptional wines, typically from a single well known varietal, too many others still offer an overwhelming portfolio of monochromatic varietal offerings that hardly distinguish themselves from one another or from their neighbor’s wines, either. Not so at Cornerstone! Every wine Cornerstone makes bears a unique signature from the winery’s outstanding Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon to Cornerstone’s Stepping Stone and Rocks Red and White Blends.

Rocks! are blended wines that are all about pleasure and being fun to drink, often! They are Cornerstone’s most affordable wines. Yet, both Rocks blends offer bright, zesty, mouth-watering flavors because wine, first and foremost, is meant to be enjoyed. From the winemakers’ point of view, Rocks provides the freedom each vintage to blend whatever varieties the winemakers find to produce the best wine possible. Consequently, each vintage of Rocks offers something new and unique. And in order to focus on the wine’s unique flavors, Cornerstone does not share the exact percentage of the Rocks blends, as they “want everyone savoring the wine that results vintage to vintage, not the statistics.” Rocks! is Rocks! as the folks at Cornerstone are fond of saying. And from our tasting experience and the feedback from club members on previous vintages, Rocks Red truly rocks.

It’s clear that in the varietal world of California wine, Cornerstone’s Rocks wines draw their inspiration from their European counterparts, who see blending grape varieties as a means of enhancing the pleasure quotient for the taster as well as adding to the complexity of a wine. After all, the most successful marriages bring out the best in each of the partners. The same is true for wine. Although European in cépage, Rocks Red and White retain distinctive California personalities with generous ripe fruit flavors framed by just the right amount of acidity to make the taster want to come back again and again. And while there may be a bit of mystery surrounding the Rocks blends, there is no secret about the pleasure they impart.