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| Drinking Windows and Values |
| Drinking window: Drink between 2011 and 2019 (based on 25 user opinions) |
| Community Tasting History |
| Community Tasting Notes (average 88.1 pts. and median of 88 pts. in 25 notes) - hiding notes with no text | | | Tasted by David_T on 9/18/2016 & rated 88 points: A unique wine with notes of grapefruit, butterscotch and sherry. Oxidative with light acid & minerals. Drink now. (1675 views) | | | Tasted by wormfarmer on 11/11/2014 & rated 93 points: "Drinking window ending in 2013" my ***. This thing's still singing its weird song. Amazing yellow color -- it's almost tennis-ball-bright, or the urine sample of a dehydrated and over-'vitamined' athlete. Rich oxidative notes for the first two hours -- plus stone fruits and butterscotch. Left a glass out and went off to a movie -- that glass, two hours later, was perfection. Some of the sherry notes had blown off, or integrated, and what was left was a considerably less weird, if equally great beast. Glad I socked one away; wish I had more. (2477 views) | | | Tasted by Mtnmd1 on 7/17/2014: Interesting wine. Golden amber, hazy. Flavor profile almost running up against some of the mild barrel aged beers of late. Score? What's the comparison point? It may be a Sauvignon blanc but to compare it to "typical" doesn't make sense. I enjoyed it for what it is. (2607 views) | | | Tasted by salil on 4/28/2014 & rated 85 points: I had a hard time finding any Sauvignon Blanc characteristics in this initially, though the Scholium style was apparent - there's a funky earthy character to the nose, the fruit's very ripe and tropical with floral and herbal notes emerging with time, and there's lots of extract and intensity on the palate with a faintly coarse, almost tannic quality to the texture. (3120 views) | | | Tasted by amateurwino on 4/28/2014 & rated 72 points: Tasted double blind, I found this wine puzzling. Nose was redolent of tropical stone fruits. The palate confirmed this - strong peach and apricot notes. I was thinking Gewürztraminer or some other aromatic white when someone guessed Scholium, which seemed reasonable. Only after the reveal could I pick out any Sauvignon character here, a slight herbal grassiness. I liked the nose but not the palate. Strange wine. (2748 views) | | | Tasted by SteveG on 4/20/2014 & rated 88 points: 22K gold, more or less. Slightly volatile nose of ripe pineapple and peaches. The palate is viscous and mild, ripe stone fruit and wax. The finish is rather hot, barely tart, and very ripe white fruit. The vagueness of this description I think reflects some lack of focus in this wine. It is enjoyable on its own but I don't see it much complementing food.
An hour or so of air did this wine some good, it is now cloudy orange and distinctly savory, less hot and more palatable. (1484 views) | | | Tasted by french16 on 8/12/2013: Scholium Tastings (RT NYC): Skin contact. Similar to the 2008 but more savory. Still alcoholic. (1698 views) | | | Tasted by K is for Kate on 3/9/2013: In a vertical of 2009, 2010, and 2011, this was the clear group favourite. Peachy, herbal and delicious. It carried its high alcohol well, though it did start to poke through a bit as it warmed. (1382 views) | | | Tasted by sstoloff on 10/13/2012 & rated 92 points: Vivid wine. Cloudy, dusky gold. Soaring nose that was Sauvignon Blanc but more dimensional—grapefruit, apricot, something candied. Bracing on the palate, not sweet at all but with great fruit presence, citrus zest. Altogether a knockout. (1881 views) | | | Tasted by ksmith on 4/15/2012 & rated 90 points: Dark brown/yellow and cloudy. Nose of peach. On the palate this is not at all SB like; peach and pineapple, a hint of caramel, followed by bracing acidity. This was interesting by itself (as all Abe's wines are), and actually paired pretty well with the meal we had (artichokes, deviled eggs and bruschetta). An interesting wine that was very good but not at all what I expect from SB, even from California. (2232 views) | | | Tasted by zheem on 2/19/2012: Interesting nose between pine and pineapple, with a little starfruit petrol. Body is moderately rich, with both acidity and bitters that make the taste somewhat cocktail like. Finishes with oil and glycerin, and citrus rind. Very good! (2274 views) | | | Tasted by BillB656 on 11/17/2011: Peachy, lychee, roundish, copper colored, tannic, shows a bit sweet then dries out on finish. Intriguiging but way odd for a sauvie blanc. (2325 views) | | | Tasted by drdebs on 11/1/2011 & rated 88 points: I adore this more than the score shows. Not recognizable as modern sauvignon blanc, it has the amber hue of beer, and the aromas of canned peaches, litchi, and tangerine peel. Those elements are echoed in the palate, with hints of fruit cocktail, bitter orange, and yeast. As the wine opens it is Elderflower Cordial all the way. Strange, wonderful, and wild. A wine experience, rather than a clear varietal example. Still, this is instructive in terms of what Sauvignon Blanc CAN do (should you want it to...) I always love my Farina wines, because they are so strange and yet oddly riveting! (2199 views) | | | Tasted by Serge Birbrair on 10/14/2011: I asked Andy to bring "one of your kinky Schlolium project wines" to South Florida Epicurean Exploits dinner and Andy surely obliged! Amber color, nose of tangerines, tropical fruit market. Acidity was lacking, but 14.6% alcohol was not noticeable. The wine just cut through "stinky wish with pork" pancakes. Vodka would probably do better job with that dish :) (1940 views) | | | Tasted by Acohen on 10/13/2011 & rated 88 points: Unique reddish tinted rusty wine that was all tropicalnfruit on the nose with an interesting blend of guava, tangerine and lychee flavors. Sweet but not cloying and not very acidic. (1832 views) | | | Tasted by greening on 7/31/2011 & rated 82 points: A little too sulfurous to be pleasant. Interesting, though. (2185 views) | | | Tasted by QwertyMIDX on 7/8/2011: Murky rusty golden brown in color. Upon opening nose and palate of pear and mango with hints of lemon and rust. With more air this sewer water/muddy forest creek smell became incredibly dominate, but a sewer water you wanted to swim in for some reason. Only flaw was slightly unbalanced alcohol at warmer temperatures, making this a slightly sub-par vintage of Prince in His Caves. (2356 views) | | | Tasted by Cellar Fiend on 5/29/2011 & rated 96 points: My lone bottle of this and my first Scholium Project wine. Pop and pour at cellar temperature. Upon pouring I did not know what to expect and it was a browning golden color with some murkiness. I believe this wine to be unfiltered. The nose smells delicious. Peaches, ripe tropical fruits, and lychee. The palate reveals the most delicious elixir I have encountered within the Sauvignon Blanc varietal. This wine seriously made me rethink the possibilities of SB. Amazing palate of peaches, extremely ripe pears, more tropical fruits with perfectly balanced acidity. The finish is extremely lengthy and mouth watering. I can honestly say this is the best Sauvignon Blanc I have ever had. I wish I had more bottles. I am extremely excited to try my other Scholium wines as this was an experience I will not forget. I will attempt to acquire more bottles of this and it is worth every penny I paid. Amazing white wine! (2236 views) | | | Tasted by gutt22 on 3/2/2011: Rusty brown-yellow color. Initially a strong scent of ammonia on the nose, which blew off with vigorous swirling. The nose then opened up with a rich, quite sweet canned peach aroma, with some floral notes in the background. In the mouth, quite viscous but not as sweet -- quite surprisingly dry. With honeysuckle, peach, and ripe pear notes. Smooth mouth feel. Long finish shows a hint of heat. But this is very pleasant and interesting. A thinker's wine. A- (2205 views) | | | Tasted by GrandeSerataFuori on 2/11/2011 & rated 81 points: Like Loire Valley SBs. We didn't like it much, but for the 1st time in history our dog was ALL about it. She usually likes Sake and beer but NEVER wine. Maybe it was the cat pee she dug? What sort of foods does one eat with wines like this? (2300 views) |
| Scholium Project Producer Website
THE AIM
The aim of my winemaking is an activity; or more properly, a set and series of activities. The first set of acitivites is the winemaking itself, from studying and attending to the vineyard, to imagining when to pick the grapes, to smelling the fermentation begin . . . and on to bringing the wine to bottle. The making of the wine is, in this sense, an end in itself.
But wine has the remarkable ability to preserve within itself not only the character of a vineyard, a growing season, a fermentation– but it does so in a way that is portable. You can put it in a bottle and give it to a friend, or set it adrift in the vast sea of the market, so that it finds itself eventually in the hands, on the table, of a perfect stranger.
This possibility raises a second set of activities– those that are separate and beyond the making of the wine iteself. These are the activities that the wine can inspire and engender in others who drink it.
Beyond the essential bacchic activities that almost any wine can inspire, I have three particular ones in mind: the wines should make one feel and think of complexity. Not the complexity of arguments or syllogisms, but this kind of complexity: imagine the flat asphalt of a new mall's parking lot. Imagine the same asphalt cracked and broken after years of weathering, traffic, ground shifting underneath it. The pointless complexity of these cracks can be a feast for the eyes, even if it means nothing. The wines should present a similar complexity for their consumer to feast on.
The wines should make one sense decay, decomposition, transformation. The wines should be so distinctly wine and not fruit that one can sense both the yeast and the bacteria, on the one hand, and the passage of time, on the other hand, that transformed the unspoiled fruit into a new substance. The wines must capture and preserve decay and age.
The wines should make you happy that you are drinking them.
THE PRINCIPLES
Specificity of vineyards: our fruit comes from the small vineyards of individual farmers. These vineyards offer sites or farming practices, or both, that cannot be duplicated. For this reason, each wine is a single-vineyard bottling and bears the name of its vineyard. We work very closely with each farmer as partner rather than client. The winemaking is inevitably guided by the fruit that the vineyard produces; but the winemaker may reciprocally influence the farming of the vineyards. But much more important than influencing, or much worse, shaping, the vineyard to the winemaker's needs– much more important is to discover excellence in the vineyard and then attend to and exalt it.
Husbandry of microbes: once we have harvested the fruit, our prime task is husbanding the microbial population of our wines. We do this by interfering as little as possible in the spontaneous development of a natural (if invisible) ecology in our fermenting wine. We do not sterilize the must, we do not add commercial yeasts. If the developing system veers toward winemaking disaster, we intervene. If not, we add and take away nothing. We observe the developing system through the signs available to our senses: we taste, we smell, we measure temperature. We punch down, pumpover, and sometimes chill the must to delay or slow down a given activity–but outside of these activities, we do nothing to interfere in the development of a stable and complex living system in our wines.
Undisturbed maturation: in general, the flavors that we seek in our wines come from ripe fruit, long macerations, and long maturation in barrel. When one of our wines demands by its own nature a variation from these principles, we vary (see the 2004 Glos). Otherwise, we seek to transmute the fruit, not to preserve it. We seek not the primary aromas of the freshly-sliced apple or the just-bitten plum, but the secondary and tertiary aromas of rose petals, chocolate, roast coffee, dried fruits, hung game, old leather, dried mushrooms, a broken firecracker. These aromas depend most of all on the undisturbed elevation of the wine in barrel. No sulfur is added in barrel, the wines are topped seldom, and they remain in barrel until they develop a ripeness that is peculiar to wine, not fruit. During this period of maturation, the microbes reach equilibrium and the wine become used to air. The result are wines that are sturdy and prone neither to bacterial spoilage nor to oxidation. They are used to, and have overcome, these threats before they ever make it into bottle. The wines that did not survive this rigorous elevage never see a bottle. They disappear.
Vineyard designation: the foundation of these wines is the vineyard that produces each one. The winemaking is very much the same for each wine. The character of the vineyard and the microbiology of the barrels each dwarfs the range of possible characteristics suggested by various varietals. For this reason, varietal designation has seemed insignificant for this project. A given wine is not a "cab" or a "merlot" in this project; it is a Tenbrink or a Hudson. Typical designations of appelation are not useful here for similar reasons. One wine is not "Napa" in character, while another is "Monterey." The specificity of the vineyard is so much more significant than the appelation that we avoid such a general (and non-specific) designation. On the other hand, the realm in which all of the project's vineyards are found is the dream-world of California. For this reason, all of the wines bear the California appelation and a single vineyard designation.
2009 Scholium Project The Prince In His Caves FarinaThe Prince in 2009 is gloriously turbid. Cloudy is not even the right word. It is so nearly gelatinous that one truly wonders what strange techniques, what unspecified additives, brought about this result.
The wine is simply a skin-fermented Sauvignon Blanc. No additions or subtractions. It is more dense than the 2008, less orange than the 2007, more citrus-y than any previous incarnation. It is quite yuzu-like. It gives joy as unforeseen pleasure succeeds surprise and atopia.Sauvignon Blanc Varietal CharacterUSAAmerican wine has been produced since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in New Mexico in 1628. Today, wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84% of all U.S. wine. The continent of North America is home to several native species of grape, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis riparia, Vitis rotundifolia, and Vitis vulpina, but the wine-making industry is based almost entirely on the cultivation of the European Vitis vinifera, which was introduced by European settlers. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France.California2021 vintage: "Unlike almost all other areas of the state, the Russian River Valley had higher than normal crops in 2021, which has made for a wine of greater generosity and fruit forwardness than some of its stablemates." - Morgan Twain-Peterson Sonoma CountyMendocino County |
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