4/25/2024 - Yako (New Haven Vino Club) Likes this wine:

Good acidity, good structure, red/black fruits, better than the 19 (had them side by side), some tertiary notes with a pleasing finish.

92+

4/25/2024 - jamesabdavis wrote:

Slightly reductive on the nose initially, blackberries and tart red cherries. Earth and spice. Caramel!
Quite full for the vintage, lovely pure black fruit, fresh acidity and discreet tannin on the finish, good balance, nicely done.

4/25/2024 - Yako (New Haven Vino Club) Likes this wine:

Dirty, earthy, black fruit galore, a step behind the 20 (had them side by side), but still quite delicious with years ahead.

4/25/2024 - Yako (New Haven Vino Club) Does not like this wine:

Unidimensional, unbalanced and super jammy, not for me.

4/25/2024 - Zweder wrote:

White and yellow fruits in the bouquet. On the palate the same impressions. No complexity, but also nothing wrong with it. BBQ wine for a large crowd which is not into wine.

4/25/2024 - sburtt wrote:

not my cup of tea

4/25/2024 - ChrisinCowiche wrote:

Solid, smooth rose, with big fruit pomegranate, subtle florals, and a crisp finish. Not as tart as I expected, but likely to be gone quickly once the heat of summer gets here.

4/25/2024 - csimm wrote:

I guess I’ll just have to keep giving this wine 100 points. I’ve had the privilege of tapping this wine a number of times now, and every time it just kills it. This time, its prowess was tested against some of the best-est bottles in Napa (blind, I might add). And wouldn’t you know it, the Mac was the group’s favorite. (And then a 2021 Mac popped up and that was my ultimate favorite of the favorite of the favorites). How many favorites can one have?! “And you get 100, and you get 100, and you….!” And to be honest, there were a few perfect wines in that 2019 blind lineup. It’s pretty awesome when all the wines you try blind simply rock. 2019 in Napa at the top level is really a stellar vintage.

My initial notes on the 2019 Mac this time around read, “Wow…super yummy choclately chewy unctuousness; not hot or angular at all; alcohol in total check. Slightly sweet in entry, but perfectly poised. Modern and dark but not ‘over-modern’ nor heavy. Black fruit, mineral, soil, more fruit with air. A slight rusticity on the finish that quickly finds a glide with aeration.”

I wonder what it’s like to be a bottle of MACDONALD, making appearances here and there at swanky parties, having everyone tell you that you are the best in the world and doting over every aspect of your presence and personality, being the topic of everyone’s conversation about why you are so super cool. Oh, to be a bottle of MACDONALD. The Emily Blunt of Napa Cabs.

4/25/2024 - Ben Christiansen wrote:

Cold vintage from start to finish. What a difference a year makes. Here more black olive and spice, very dynamic on the palate, really well done. And punctuated on the back of the palate. Young.

4/25/2024 - eco Likes this wine:

Väldigt mumsigt.

4/25/2024 - Sonoma Duck Likes this wine:

Opened right up. Medium ruby, drinking very well. Nice wine with lunch.

4/24/2024 - KeithSorem Likes this wine:

Dark cherry aroma, nice legs, smooth, good value.

4/25/2024 - joervd wrote:

Intense and fresh wine. Apricot and honey, on the background freshness of citrus. Only 7.5% alchohol.

4/25/2024 - Ski-u-mah wrote:

Beyond its peak

4/25/2024 - Radders12345 wrote:

Last bottle of this.
Nose is gorgeous with tomato leaf, leather, tobacco, terracotta and spiced cherry - nice balance of earthiness and purity. Good initial intensity on the palate with some orange peel joining the mix but a bitter streak comes in quite early in the mid palate which then thins out. Palate doesn’t deliver as much as the nose promises. Tannins quite prominent still.

4/21/2024 - PIntag wrote:

14.3% abv. Recent auction purchase.
Opened this after a bottle of the 2006 Keefer Ranch RRV and this absolutely outclassed it. This is aging beautifully and displays the attractive side of RRV Pinot, with excellent balance, good depth of fruit, and even some "freshness". Great mouthfeel and focus as well. The Keefer Ranch seemed clunky and disjointed in comparison. So sad to have had only this one bottle. RRV Pinot done right.

4/25/2024 - despore wrote:

A: deep ruby
N: dried and stewed black fruit, clove, vanilla, smoke, menthol
P: dry, med soft smooth tannins, med acidity, full body, 15%ABV
C: good wine = balanced overripe fruit and soft tannins, med concentration, med intensity, med complexity, med (-) finish. Drink now.

4/25/2024 - Ben Christiansen wrote:

Co-planted with Viognier. 1 - 3% viognier depending on fruit set. 40 - 60% whole cluster, 16 months in oak, 600 L demi puncheons which keep a ton of tension on the palate, but also gives allot of lees contacts, so builds power but also keeps tension. In an olive direction on the nose and a little reticent. And then a goodly amount of acidity to back it up. Focused, and tight right now.

4/25/2024 - sempervinum Likes this wine:

Slightly brownish rim. Great nose complec aromas. Dried fruit, red fruit, smoke. Everything gets more integrated. Still high acidity. Fresh. Do not mind. Ripe tannins. Round. Good. Franz says 10 of 10 points. I would say very good.

4/20/2024 - PIntag wrote:

14.2% abv. Recent auction purchase.
This wasn't terrible, but I think this is good example of RRV Pinot that is not aging well. VA is elevated and a little distracting, the candied fruit character is not particularly attractive, and the alcohol sticks out a bit. Opened a bottle of the 2006 Small Vines RRV right after this and the contrast between the two was stark - the Small Vines has the same RRV flavor profile, but has aged beautifully and just does everything better.

4/25/2024 - Ben Christiansen wrote:

Rosehip and rosewater, tomato leaf as well. Really quite charming. Lovely, light and with lots of depth.

4/15/2024 - Floral wrote:

Off. Apple cider prominent.

4/25/2024 - VinCrush wrote:

Meh. Very average. Doesn't compare to the other Luna varietal bottlings I've had in the past.

4/25/2024 - Henman Likes this wine:

Best before 11/2014; 6,5% alcohol. Full bodied, rather dry and robust, showing vibrant hop, pine and grapefruit with a bit of malty notes and a bitter finish. This is a nice basic IPA from the austere end of the spectrum. A good quaff after the sauna.

4/25/2024 - Ben Christiansen wrote:

Grapes from across the entire property. So a blend of the entire vineyard, a bird's eye view of the entire vineyard. 45% new french, 5 - 20% whole cluster. And that is wonderful smelling Pinot Noir. Pure and crisp and clean to it. And long finish, very young right now but so beautiful.

4/25/2024 - Ben Christiansen wrote:

Now the 2020. And this definitely riper, but riper only in the sense of this producer. More structure, phenolic and tannic. Briney,

4/25/2024 - VinCrush Likes this wine:

Aging very well!

4/25/2024 - ArmadilloBandit Likes this wine:

Opened this at 9am and decanted until dinner. Tannins were quite grippy when the bottle was opened, but wow was this good when dinner came around. Had all the trademarks of good Barolo with notable cherry and tar. This should age well for many years to come. If you drink it now, definitely decant for 4+ hours.

4/25/2024 - Ben Christiansen wrote:

Has a lovely Chardonnay smell to it, and then very vibrant with a clean line and mineral focus. Very fine wine. Maybe could use a bit more flesh, but MAyeb could flesh out further. Excuse me, this review is 2021, on of the coldest vintages they've recorded.

4/24/2024 - ArmadilloBandit wrote:

Well balanced right now; notably less oaky than a bottle consumed last year. Nice dark fruit. More of a juicy, refreshing cab which I really enjoyed.

4/25/2024 - Ingmars wrote:

Another cooking wine/cellar-defender contestant, priced on promotion at €4.49 at Maxima in Rīga. Conglomerated, medium-sized particle cork. Medium ruby, thinning at fringe. Savoury nose of not fully ripe cherry, but also minor (American, I suspect) oak. The mouth is lightish to medium bodied and broadly classically Italianesque, except when the wood shows-up and veers it to a New Wordly style just before the finish. That said, the acidity on the finish is properly Md'A. Some natural sweetness showing nicely. Overall, a good quaffing wine which takes me back to the mid-80's when I came across a public foyer tasting of basic Italian wines in a Melbourne food hall, resulting in the purchase of a couple of magnums of Citra Md'A at ten Aussie dollars per head. Fun times.

4/25/2024 - despore Likes this wine:

A: pale straw
N: fresh spring white flowers, ripe pear, lemon, saline, quince, green herbs
P: dry, high acidity, med waxy texture, 12.5% ABV, med (-) body
C: very good wine = balanced ripe green fruit/florals and acidity, med (+) intensity, med (+) concentration, med complexity, long finish, typicity! Drink now or over coming 5 years. Fresh, balanced, lively, really well done Gavi.

4/25/2024 - dino_mike Likes this wine:

Drinks well now with good complexity and medium weight spicy cherry fruit.

4/25/2024 - Realdoc1 Likes this wine:

This vintage is very good. A dependable pop and drink blend that pairs well with spicy food.

4/25/2024 - Derek Darth Taster wrote:

At home after work. Drank in Gabriel Standart.
Appearance is clear, pale intensity, yellow lemon colour. Thin legs.
Nose medium+ intensity, with aromas of green apple, tangerine, citrus lemon-lime, weathered stones minerality, light petroleum, honeysuckle, bit of burnt rubber tyre smoke and spice. Developed.
On the palate, medium-dry/medium-sweet, good bracing high acidity, low alcohol (7.5% alcohol), medium- body. Medium flavour intensity, with flavours of juicy green apple, citrus lemon-lime, weathered slate stones minerality, sweet honeysuckle, bit of smokiness and spice to the medium+ finish. Only a little of the sweet tangerines that were more obvious on the nose.
Very good quality for me. Doesn't really give me any difficult/bad vintage feel. Good supporting acidity. Was thinking to drink this sooner after reading other reviews here but no hurry at all I feel.

4/25/2024 - ACellarCat wrote:

Medium yellow with aromatic scent of lime, grapefruit and straw. I tasted lime, flint and grapefruit —which gave it that slight bitter finishing. It has that signature salinity that is expected of a Chablis.

Medium bodied at 12.5% ABV (not excessive) with medium acidity and a medium finish. It leaves a clean palate after some time. In this regard, some may find this wine light, even watery, but I think it is a sign of its refinement, where there is an “end” with a nice soft finish.

Appellation-wise. this is not Grand Cru or Premier Cru but a third tier, village-level Chablis. It is ok taste-wise and I do not want to over-state this bottle. It is not peak level Chardonnay etc. Just a nice middle-of-the-road village-level Chablis.

4/25/2024 - Jason Wu Likes this wine:

Wow! Great acidity, intense flor, dry fig, rice cracker, almond, such a long, persistent, ever-changing finish with nutty, dry fruit, saline notes coming waves by waves. Love it!

4/24/2024 - comlaw Likes this wine:

Decanted for 30 minutes. Complex, well balanced pinot with dark and red fruit, moderate tannins and acidity. Medium bodied with long finish. Drinking very well right now.

4/25/2024 - Tabascobill wrote:

Actually better than I expected. Good fruit. It overly complex but a nice bottle.

4/25/2024 - mark_k Likes this wine:

This is in a great place. Waxy and quite full and round despite being low in alcohol. Fruit driven, with a bit of smoke, this ticks all the right boxes for a glass of meditation Riesling. Slight hint of petrol, plenty of limey fruit - this is not one of those super stony, slate dominant Rieslings, it's more a rounded fruity style. I think it will sit at this happy level for another 5 years easy.

4/25/2024 - Jason Wu wrote:

Fresh strawberry, medicinal, nutmeg and spices. Palate very much aligns with nose.

4/25/2024 - Jason Wu wrote:

Lifted herbal notes, rosemary, spicy, canned sugary pineapple, dry apricot, oak, honey and marzipan. very ripe and fuller in body.

4/25/2024 - Radegast12 Does not like this wine:

Vypito u nasich jak delali slavky, trochu sladsi, ale ok

4/24/2024 - David Paris (dbp) wrote:

Drank from magnum... no formal notes taken, but this was absolutely alive and thriving. It took about an hour of air to really start to come around and reveal its fruit; at first I feared it was gone, but it actually was the opposite... just needed air. A beautiful, complete Valpolicella Superiore, with integrated, but still present structure. Look forward to exploring the next bottle in more detail, but this fit the bill exactly for what you want it to be at this age.

4/25/2024 - Jason Wu Likes this wine:

Red cherry, star anise, toast, juicy, dry orange peel, sweet spice, close knit tannins, structured but fine. Great flavour intensity, particularly at mid palate, with balanced oak and fruits. Persistent finish. Very well made. Need time to develop.

4/25/2024 - Jason Wu wrote:

Candied fruit, rosemary, spicy. Tannins a bit coarse, punch on the face.

4/25/2024 - markjanes wrote:

similar note

4/24/2024 - Schiffy Likes this wine:

Sweet cherry and raspberry fruit with notes of tobacco and spice on the finish. Balanced and drinking very well right now…will benefit from a 30 minute decant.

4/25/2024 - Radegast12 Does not like this wine:

Vypito u nasich jak delali slavky - trochu sladke, noc moc

4/25/2024 - Jason Wu Likes this wine:

Medicinal, wet dirt, red plum, red currant. On the palate, complex flavors with savoury, gamy, red plum, tree bark. Juicy and delicious. Drink at its peak.