Sinister Hand Wine

To celebrate the inauguration, I opened a bottle of one of my favorite wines -- Sinister Hand. It is an Owen Rowe wine from Washington state, I first tried at my sister's. I've made a tradition of picking up a few bottles each Christmas when I'm visiting family. Since it's not widely known (and because this has been a boring weekend and I don't have much else to write about ;-), I thought I'd blog it.

The story of the label goes: The Sinister Hand label is a family crest - a depiction of a severed left hand that tells the story of a rowing competition among O'Neills and O'Reillys (Owen Roe was an O'Neill). Whoever touched land first after rowing across the lake was rewarded with the land he touched. Lagging behind, one of the kinsfolk grabs his sword and cleaves his hand and pitches it ashore to touch land first. He won the land and eventually ruled over it as king.

The version available now is the 2007 variety. It is quite good, but I think previous years have been better (2004 or 2005) in particular. Try it if you can -- and when next at my house, ask me to open a bottle...assuming any is left ;-)