Valentine's Weekend 2025

The wine of the week for Valentine's 2025 was a Donum Estate 2015 Carneros single-vineyard pinot noir. One word for the wines from this estate - elegant - and what a great word to describe pinot/burgundy. When I first moved to DFW from the west coast 18 years ago, I shipped my wine collection here, but quickly found myself drinking more pinot and chards than cabs, mainly because it was so hot here and I didn't feel like drinking a red wine that would make me even warmer. One of my favorite pinot finds was Donum located in the Carneros (southern most region of Napa wine country). This area has cooler summers since it is right on the bay and thus produces really good chardonnay and pinots and is also home to a really good CA sparkling wine in Domaine Carneros. Donum, which is Latin for "gift" is a really neat winery to visit as they have a crazy art collection on the grounds of the property. Here is a photo from me in 2015 - I am way over dressed because I just arrived from an IPO drafting session in the city (San Francisco) earlier that day.

Big fan of "Bull" Markets

The 2015 Carneros is full of cherry flavors in a very subtle, smooth way. Also has hints of espresso, which I really like in the wine. The wine is 100% pinot from that vineyard, 46% Donum clone, 34% Dijon 667, and 20% Pommard (so a mix of pinot clones within the bottle). Hands down Donum is/was my favorite CA pinot, even more so than Kosta Browne, Arista, and the handful of other higher end pinot brands. Sadly the winemaker (Ann Moller-Racke) left the winery a few years ago to start her own winery (Blue Farms). I picked up a few bottles from her new winery but they weren't as good as her Donum's and today's Donum's are not as good as when she was there (IMO). So truly a case of where you need both the terroir and the winemaker (like peanut butter and chocolate).