This is the essay I submitted to 2026 Wine Writing Competition on JancisRobinson.com. The theme of this year’s competition was “”A Great Pairing That Wasn’t Food and Wine,” so I took the idea of a Chilean coast pinot noir being paired with my favorite Edgar Allan Poe poem, “Annabel Lee.” Though my entry was not chosen for final competition, I wanted the opportunity to share it here with you.
It’s not difficult to taste the salty, cold air in the wine that helped make the pinot noir grapes so flavorful in the Casablanca Valley. On the coastlines in central Chile, rolling hills are lined with vineyards; a calm, quiet place where a “many and many a year ago” there once could have been a “kingdom by the sea.”
The luscious, yet soft, pinot noir fills your mouth with dark fruits, while it fills your mind with memories of emotions long past. In knowing the surroundings of where this wine was made, thoughts went to the cold Pacific air and morning fog that this cold-climate grape thrives in. But such environments can also be detrimental to the soul that mourns, such as that of Edgar Allan Poe when he wrote “Annabel Lee.”
In his grief, famed American author Poe would’ve sat by the very sea responsible for “chilling and killing” his love, with a loss so heavy and a glass of this kingdom’s most abundant red wine. There, he’d penned the poem about the death of the soul that neither the angels nor demons could ever dissever from his own.
The beauty told of his dearest Annabel Lee can also be found in the 2021 Indomita Duette Pinot Noir, with its aroma of tart cherries and cinnamon, and a smokiness left in the mouth that makes one think of being outdoors near a fire on a chilly evening.
Like Annabel Lee, this wine is delicate and pure. But the prevailing winds that took the life of Annabel Lee made this wine forceful in flavor and strong on the vine. This Pinot Noir stands up to those made in more popular areas for this varietal.
So, this wine pairs best with Edgar Allan Poe, the writer of the poem whose love stands strong against his loss, who remains laid down by the side of her tomb against the night tide. And against the sea air that delivers an elegant Pinot Noir to the world.
IMAGE: A man mourns his lost love, as her ghost walks toward the ocean holding a bottle of the local red wine.
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