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Wine Type
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Vintage
Name
Variety
Locale
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Date
Posted
Score
Helpful
Comments
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Red
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2004 Beckmen Vineyards Grenache Whole Cluster Purisima Mountain Vineyard
Santa Ynez Valley
more
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still a little out of balance, with the fruit hiding behind the additional green/tannins from the stem inclusion. Improved w/ about an hour in the decanter, but could've used more.
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Red
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2005 Foxen Syrah Tinaquaic Vineyard
Santa Maria Valley
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Winemaker note:
One of the most asked questions in our tasting room is "what does dry-farmed mean?" Well, the answer is that we have no water to irrigate our estate at Rancho Tinaquaic Vineyard. Every vintage we have to thin down the fruit set to keep the vines in balance with the annual rainfall. In addition, there can't be one weed in the vineyard that would rob the vines of any available moisture. Needless to say, the Tinaquaic vineyard fruit is some of the most intense and exotic on the Central Coast. This Syrah is brimming with disinctive white pepper, Herbs de Provence, molasses and Elephant Heart plum. 250 Cases.
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Red
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2005 Foxen Sangiovese Williamson-Doré Vineyard
Santa Ynez Valley
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Winemaker notes:
This is a special offering from Jenny and Dick's little vineyard in eastern Santa Ynez Valley. I was in Italy this past summer and took the opportunity to immerse myself in the Tuscan culture - meaning, I drank a lot of Chianti. Well, this wine has an old world charm that puts it right up there with Chianti Classicos. It displays incredible structure, firm and assertive with a dry, robust finish - making it a perfect food wine. I aged it for 22 months (with 25% new French oak) because the fruit could handle it. With my newly inspired Italian-style home cooking, this wine is my new kitchen fave. 200 Cases.
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Red
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2004 Foxen Cabernet Sauvignon Vogelzang Vineyard
Santa Ynez Valley
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Winemaker notes:
This is our fourth vintage of Cabernet from Vogelzang, one of the gems that will be the Happy Canyon Appelation. 100% Bordeaux Clone 337, aged in 100% new Taransaud (Cognac region) barrels for 2 years. The wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered. This version is full of blackberry and cedar aromas. with generous flavors of berry, mocha, and espresso. I would recommend additional bottle aging of 6-10 years, or decant if you find yourself wanting to drink it now. 250 Cases.
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Red
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2006 Delas Frères Côtes du Rhône Saint-Esprit
Red Rhone Blend more
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great buy for $8 @ Costco.
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Red
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2002 Reignac
Bordeaux Supérieur
Red Bordeaux Blend more
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very good. $20 at BevMo ... getting some more.
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Red
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2005 Yann Chave Crozes-Hermitage
Syrah more
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pretty good. nice color, decent amount of fruit. Little light on the finish. Pretty good weekday wine for $20
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Red
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2004 Ampelos Grenache Harrison Clarke
Santa Ynez Valley
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Winery notes:
harvest and fermentation: this is one of the few pure grenache bottlings done in santa
barbara county. our grenache is from Harrison-Clarke vineyard, located in high
elevations above the stolpman and the purisima mtn. vineyards off ballard canyon in the
santa ynez valley. the vineyard has extreme weather conditions which is perfect for
rhones in our program. grenache is a temperamental vine that is starting to show its
beauty. we picked the grenache grapes twice –first on sept13 (26.2 brix) and later on
sept 27 (26.4 brix). our first pick was meant to be used for our “syrache” but we got a little
less than expected. trying to compensate for this we got some more in the second batch
–and now we had more than we needed. based on this as well as the quality of the
grenache we therefore decided to make this small batch –and we love it!
aging: we use 35% new french oak barrels. the wines were racked twice prior to
bottling.
tasting notes: the color is a rich burgundy with a nose of ripe blueberries and figs
leading to a delicious creamy strawberry shortcake on the mouth. chocolate and
cinnamon resonate on the back palate for a deliciously spicy finish. when the berries
came in from the vineyard peter kept eating them out of the fermenter–surprisingly
something was left, they just tasted so good.
production: 48 cases bottled march 22 06 –planned release nov06. going forward we
will now start to have a small, annual release of grenache
what is this greek thing? ampelos is the greek word for vine –this is where it all begins.
rebecca and i love greece. we were married there and visit there every year! “epsilon”
is a small, positive constant and we will every year release a small quantity of something
special with this name.
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Red
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2004 Beckmen Vineyards Syrah Barrel Select
Santa Ynez Valley
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looks like someone got a cooked bottle. Wonderful deep red color, and showing beautiful fruit. Still a little hot for having no new oak, so it can probably use another couple years in the bottle to really come around.
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Red
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2004 Hacienda el Espino Almansa 1707
Red Blend more
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a little tight at first, but w/ a little bit of air in the glass it opened up nicely
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Red
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2004 Bogle Vineyards Petite Sirah
California
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boring. little black fruit, slight hint of nuts. not what a PS should be, I don't recommend.
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