4/16/2024 - sfwinelover1 Likes this wine: 95 points

So rarely happens, but always fun to write a first TN. Brought to lunch at Rutherford Grill by Kelsey, representing IE, this wine was bottled but not released (the lettering on the bottle looked handdrawn, which made me assume final bottles hadn’t been prepared, but perhaps this is how the final bottles look?). This was a PnP, which did this wine, big and vibrant in all ways other than acidity (fruit, mostly black, tannins, oak, vanilla, secondary notes like forest floor and exotic spice) no favors. Like its 2006 tablemate, this is a delicious wine, but unlike that bottle, which was integrated to the point of verging on softness, this was downright fractious. Although this wine is from Sonoma, it definitely seems to me to have more in common with its Napa brethren than Verite, Laurel Glen, Arrowood Reserve Especiales, etc. (probably because it’s Melka, I think, the same as Kamen being Herrold, I think). While I’m not quite sure where this goes with air and/or bottle age, there seems to be lots potential here, even if, for me, at the $300+ price tag I understood it to be, it seemed a bit of a stretch. Like the HR, it was a complete mismatch with the Tuna salad, but there’s enough structure to think it likely to be a pretty good food wine, although it may still be best as a cocktail wine. It’s a bit soon to give this a definitive score, but I think it will settle in the 94-96+ vicinity. Thanks to Kelsey and J for arranging.

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