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Lioco and Sonoma Coast Tasting
House of Nanda - Chicago IL
Tasted March 20, 2015 by Burgundy Al with 523 views
Introduction
Rich invited over a few people to taste the wines from Lioco, a producer of leaner, elegantly styled Pinot Noir and Chardonnay mostly from Sonoma Coast. Of course there were a few extra bottles to follow. Excellent and educational evening.
Flight 1 - Lioco (5 notes)
White
2012 Lioco Chardonnay Demuth Vineyard
88 points
Very pleasant apple and pear with some lemon peel character. Very good component pieces, perhaps not quite yet perfectly balance. Enough concentration to get better with more cellar time.
White
2013 Lioco Chardonnay Hanzell Vineyard
93 points
Just released, this is a very impressive wine that showcases ripe apple complemented with lemon peel. Lots of spice everywhere. Long and very persistent. Tough to assess its age-worthiness, but this is a true head turner today.
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Red
2013 Lioco Pinot Noir Saveria Vineyard
86 points
Perhaps this is too soon after release, or perhaps this wine is slightly too aspirational. Good red fruit with a nicely floral start. A slightly herbaceous character that I think might be from slightly too much (50%?) whole cluster given the level of fruit ripeness.
Red
2012 Lioco Pinot Noir Hirsch Vineyard
91 points
Very impressive start with red cherry, raspberry, summer flowers and sweet spice. Good cross-section of cherry flavors, well supported with spice. Very good acidity. Very good energy and potential. My favorite of the three Lioco Pinot Noir cuvees served.
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Red
2012 Lioco Pinot Noir Klindt Vineyard
89 points
Fat red berry aromas and flavors with nice floral touches, ok spice. Moderate depth and nuance. Good now, but with the bones to last.
Flight 2 - (Mostly) Sonoma Coast (8 notes)
Red
2009 Soliste Cellars Pinot Noir Narcisse
90 points
Ripe black cherry, some red cherry hints with sweet baking spice. Came across as very modern styled Sonoma Pinot Noir, but with some elegant background structure. Best now through the next few years.
Red
2005 Williams Selyem Pinot Noir Hirsch Vineyard
91 points
Tasted double blind. Lots of red berry on nose and palate with sweet baking spice, good overall textures. This showed many of the same traits as the younger Hirsch earlier in the evening and had the spice I often associate with Williams Selyem.
Red
2012 Reuling Vineyard Pinot Noir
Tasted double blind. Pinot Noir on steroids. while some enjoyed this wine's power, I found it too flamboyant and sweet.
Red
2008 Rivers-Marie Pinot Noir Summa Vineyard
91 points
Ever-so-slightly more advanced than another recent bottle, but otherwise very similar. Lots of maturing berry aromas and flavors with subtle baking spice hints. Good concentration, moderate length. Tasted alongside the Summa Old Vine, which was rock star.
Red
2008 Rivers-Marie Pinot Noir Summa Old Vines
93 points
This might have been my first time tasting this wine for this vintage and it certainly didn't disappoint. While the "regular" Summa tasted immediately prior was charming, this OV was more fresh, nuanced and powerful. Red berries, anise, fresh thyme. Lots of acidity and a mineral/ saline quality. Long and precise.
Red
2009 Kutch Pinot Noir Savoy Vineyard
Tasted double blind. Fun and open cherry flavors and aromas, Far more of everything vs the prior bottle, confirmed that the earlier bottle was in fact corked.
Flight 3 - Fascinating Blind 2009 Horizontal (3 notes)
Red
2009 Rivers-Marie Pinot Noir Summa Old Vines
87 points
Tasted double blind in flight of 2009s. Very mature red berry aromas and flavors with good spice. Good fruit, slightly short finish. This tasted far older than others in the flight, certainly older than i would expect from this wine. Cork was in perfect condition.
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Comments (1)
Red
2009 Domaine Robert Arnoux / Arnoux-Lachaux Echezeaux
92 points
Tasted double blind in flight of 2009s, all others Sonoma Coast. Way too young to fully appreciate, but still drinking great tonight. Slightly floral, still showing some pronounced new oak, intense red berry throughout. Ripe and very dense. Very good.
Red
2009 Rhys Pinot Noir Alpine Vineyard
93 points
Tasted double blind in a flight of 2009s. Cross-section of red berry and cherry aromas with baking spice. Very impressive balance and textures. We were told 1 of the 4 wines in the flight was Grand Cru Burgundy partway through tasting the flight, and I thought it was this wine. Better than I recall from when tasted shortly after release.
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Flight 4 - Odds and Ends (3 notes)
Red
1996 La Jota Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain
90 points
Served double blind, i thought this to be Bordeaux. Nicely mature with floral, earth, spice, cigarbox and black fruit in harmony, this has moderate length and power, but very good balance.
Red
2012 Carlisle Syrah Papa's Block
Huge wine wine lots of extremely ripe, candied black fruit, lots of smoke, slice, liqueur. Fun in its own way, just not what I want to drink.
White - Sweet/Dessert
2001 Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey
90 points
Very pleasant, but slightly disappointing given its critics' scores. Good apricot and baked apple aromas and flavors, but modest botrytis character coming through for the quality of the vintage and ever-so-slightly hollow/short. I have a few stashed in the back of the cellar, so will try to retrieve one shortly to see if this bottle was representative.
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