2002 Kistler Occidental Vineyard Pinot Noir

A few days ago, my husband pulled out this 2002 Occidental Vineyard Cuvée Elizabeth Pinot Noir to drink with our meal. Let me tell you what the circumstances were. We were weed wacking our vineyard, (a blogpost to follow on that activity). This takes a lot of energy and after weed wacking, no one wants to cook dinner.

But, on this occasion, I made Chinese style barbecue pork rib with Stone Acres' new spring asparagus for dinner. The ribs had been marinating overnight in a mixture of 1/2 store bought hoisin sauce and 1/2 teriyaki sauce. I put the ribs into a Dutch oven and put it into the oven for 2 hours at 300 degrees. The asparagus was parboiled and I put butter on it. Simple! And I got to rest while the oven did the work.
How was the wine? It was inky, dark purple in the glass. The flavors were of black cherry, currants, cassis. The wine was unctuous and of medium-heavy body. It was the perfect pairing for the Chinese style pork ribs.
Kistler has a wonderful addition on their wine label where they tell you how many cases were made and what number bottle the one we had was. So, after drinking the wine, I was curious to know this number. When I looked at the label on the back of the bottle, I was shocked! The bottle we had was No. 0138 of only 3168 bottles produced! I asked my husband why we drank this wine with our dinner, didn't we have something less precious? He said "Wine is meant to be drunk!" I felt worthy!