Carneros will on occasion make a deep red almost purple sparkling pinot which I loved when they had it. And one of my favorite sparklings of the last year or two was a purple to almost black sparkling shiraz from a Sonoma winery, but they won't have any more for a few years.

I can see Domaine Carneros going both ways with this one. They have a fairly rabid club following and as this is a fairly low production (162 cases) it was probably made for their wine club. But judging by the "we want you back" e-mails, I'm guessing their club numbers have been dropping off and they made too much of it so they are releasing it to the general public.

And of course, it could be they had a few tons of grapes for whatever reason they didn't want to make into their usual pinots, and this was the way to salvage those four containers of grapes.

I'll spring for a bottle if there's any left and let everybody know. Not expecting much from it, more of a novelty, but who knows, I've done that before and been totally shocked in a good way. Like the sparkling shiraz.