2019 Westport Rivers River Flatts Red

When we left Rob Russell after visiting him, Rob gave us a bottle of his 2019 River Flatts Red. We recently opened the bottle and had it with our meal of marinated flank steak and Mexican beans and rice. The wine was clear dark purple in the glass. On the first night, the aroma was muted but on the second night it opened up with spice and black cherries and the flavor was one of rich fruit and spice with a hint of tobacco. What amazed us about the Marquette, was that if we were doing a blind taste test, we probably couldn't have picked out that the wine was made from a hybrid grape.
My husband texted Rob about the Marquette and Rob added that the wine also has 45% Petite Pearl in it and was aged in neutral French oak. Marquette and Petite Pearl are both complex hybrids created to be winter hardy and resistant to fungal attacks and, as we learned, makes a delicious red wine!

References:
1. 1. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, pg 599-600 and 795, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2.