Kynsi, 2008 Pinot Noir, Edna Valley

Tasting Notes
This is a flirty wine, a wine that figuratively grabs your nose and lures it back into the glass for another enticing sniff. Bounding from the glass you'll find aromas of dark mission fig, dark berries, some nutty vanilla along with some floral notes. The palate delivers wispy layers of berry pies baked on a campfire, and served with vanilla cream and a sprinkle of cinammon. Yeah, there's a lot going on here.

The Winery - Some Great History
If you get a chance to visit Kynsi’s tasting room, you'll be standing in a re-purposed dairy from the 1940's. You'll enter through the old milk processing room and taste wine where the cows used to be utterly relieved, so to speak.

Look up and you'll wonder who dusts the high, coved ceilings, then look around and wonder what you have to do to get invited through the passageway protected by the original Cold Room door, the one that leads into today’s wine vault. This is definitely a visit you'll remember.

After sampling the wines and chatting with the staff, and taking home a few bottles of your favorites, be sure to notice the old barn adjacent to the winery. That's where the barn owl lives, the one that you see on Kynsi's label. You see, she earned her label position the hard way - by catching and eating thousands of gophers as the Othman's first began to restore the winery. Their new venture was threatened by the gophers, who found the fresh young roots of their vines to be tasty morsels. The Othman's had heard that Barn Owls could eradicate them, and they hung an owl house on the barn in hopes it would be discovered. And it was. The owl and her growing family were able to eradicate the little pests within their first years in residence.

In fact, the word “Kynsi” is Finnish for “Talon”. A most apt moniker, given the importance role Barn Owls played in reclaiming the land.

Cheers!
Dave "the Wine Merchant" Chambers