Wine Review – 2004 Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant, Santa Cruz, California
Winery: Bonny Doon Vineyards
Bottling: 2004 Le Cigare Volant (35% Syrah, 38% Grenache, 12% Mourvedre, 8% Carignane, 7% Cinsault)
Region: California
Sub-Region: Santa Cruz Mountains
Estimated Retail Price: $30 – $35
Purchase Details: Purchased for $44 off the wine menu at Spork SF in the Mission District neighborhood of San Francisco. A great deal considering restaurant pricing.
Tasting Notes: In the glass, pretty violet hues. On the nose, spices and wild berries. In the mouth, flavors of cherry, blueberry, pepper and dried herbs. Tightly wound and taut tannins and a fairly long finish. I think this wine has a nice blend of savory and sweet flavor components. The sweet kirsch flavors are very apparent as well as the spiciness and meatiness of the wine and they work very well together to balance out the wine and give it a little yin and yang flavor dance.
This is a new world wine with an old-world sensibility that can easily age for several more years. I think its worth having several bottles lying around the home cellar.
Food Pairing & Context in Which to Enjoy: We had this with a dish of piping hot steak stroganoff. It was a nice pairing. The dish had the same combination of sweet and savory as the wine and made for a great food and wine pairing explosion in the mouth.
Winery & Other Background Information: Le Cigare Volant is winemaker Randall Graham’s homage to the wines of Chateauneuf du Pape. It’s a wine that solidified Bonny Doon’s reputation as a quality producer of Cal-Rhone inspired wines and allowed it to develop a loyal and cult following of consumers in the 80’s and 90’s.
Although I’ve known about this wine for some time now, as it used to be a powerhouse value in the mid-80s, I never had the chance to drink it until recently. Upon researching the wine, I found that it had a reputation of being a super concentrated wine that held it’s weight and intensity well with a good tannin and acid structure. In other words, it was intense, but un-heavy.
Although I enjoyed the Le Cigare Volant a lot, it didn’t fit the description of what this wine supposedly used to be. The biggest knock on it is that it never maintained its quality once the winery started to ramp up production of all their wines. With the recent sale of their Big House and Cardinal Zin brands though, the winery intends to re-focus their efforts on wines like the Le Cigare Volant. I missed out on the eighties versions, so I’m excited to see this wine return to form in future vintages.