4/3/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

At a wonderful point in its evolution, this offers cavernous freshness with elegant, deep fruit and minerality and ultimately a juicy, inspiring balance of gravity and play. You can feel the hands in the vineyard and the heart in production. Try a bottle now with a brief decant, or any time over the next five years -2028.

4/4/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

I finally found a way to sufficiently aerate Envinate. See photo!

After 5 hours like this we melted the astringent, rubbery reduction, leaving a boundary of stone under which lived a pulsating core of crystalline red fruit.

3/15/2024 - slulkin wrote:

Best, and I think, last of our bottles. Dark ruby in the glass, nose of wet tobacco, black fruits and forest floor. Silky mouthfeel and the palate followed the nose. Nice medium plus finish. Wish I had one more to see if this continues to evolve.

2/24/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

The appealingly savory and evolving bouquet keeps you coming back. Good density but not bold, mostly dark fruits but not without some strawberry, cranberries, smoke, and herbs to keep things fresh. Nice balance and acid.

A beautiful instance of the underrated 2014 Burgundies, which seem to be drinking just great right now, (though based on my tiny sample, Nuits may be better than Beaune).

1/4/2024 - Sperls Likes this wine:

While I liked it, the bottle definitely underperformed expectations. Purchased after released and stored well, the wine felt older than it should have been with more evolved aromatics (elevated alcohol, some nuttiness), slight bricking in color, etc. Still very nice to drink but not fresh and lacking something I thought.

11/26/2023 - slulkin wrote:

Drank over two nights and slightly better on night two. Pale yellow in the glass. Nose of salty air, lemon/lime and tart apples. Palate is energetic, with nice acidity and weight. All the elements from the nose follow on the palate to a medium plus length finish. Highly enjoyable.

9/23/2023 - slulkin wrote:

Wow!! First time I've had the pleasure of tasting a Williams Selyem and it was amazing. On the nose dark black and red fruits along with hints of mint, camp fire smoke, and eucalyptus. Just wanted to keep swirling and smelling, it was intoxicating. On the palate, the fruit on the nose was rich and mouth filling with the addition of baking spices leading to a balanced and lingering finish that just had you coming back for the next sip.

To make this even better it was a completely unexpected and generous gift from the next door neighbor of a close friend. Thank you, Mr. Grush.

1/28/2019 - Rollerball wrote:

Sommelier's Atlas of Taste w Rajat Parr and Jordan Mackay (The Morris): Herbal and round with nectarine and slight oxidative notes; pairs just beautifully with smoked trout.

5/12/2023 - drrobvino wrote:

2nd bottle from a 6 pack. Last consumed about 18 mos ago.
Drank with dear friends at AQS, the wine was firing on all cylinders and approached perfection in the moment.
Splash decanted and consumed over ~45 mins...utterly refined, elegant, with red tart cherries and spice, brilliant earthy notes, long and incredibly brilliant finish with lovely tannins and supporting acidity. Drink through 2028 or so, just awesome.

8/26/2023 - bbq_grandcru Likes this wine:

Different experience this time. 2 hour decant, which was not enough and about one hour was in bottle before actually decanting. Browning robe. Light to medium body. Blackberry and spice flavors. Quite stemmy, with drying stemmy tannin into the finish. Not sure the fruit will hold up long enough for the tannin to integrate. That being said it is still enjoyable.

5/13/2023 - slulkin wrote:

Color was deep red with slight bricking towards the edges. With a quick decant, the nose was gorgeous and full of sour cherry, flowers, leather, and hints of tar. Palate was silky yet juicy with the fruit and leather prominent. Finished long and balanced. This one really grabbed me and held my attention. Finished half the bottle on Friday and the remainder a couple days later with no degradation.

6/5/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Dirty with some sort of bacteria and secondary firmentation.

5/28/2021 - djhammond Likes this wine:

I find myself having this wine a couple of times a year, and it never disappoints in its delivery. I always slow ox it for a couple of days and then allow time in an open decanter, but I am starting to think that at 20 years old this is becoming less necessary. It is perfection embodied with a depth on the palate and finish which is overwhelming. Orange, honey and burnt caramel combine intoxicatingly, and deliver a very special experience. I do find it needs to be drunk with food. 99+

9/30/2022 - P.A. Cross wrote:

Wonderful, clear purple, leads into fresh, high toned berries, bay leaf, sea spray and forest aromas. Pedigreed in the mouth, layers of flavors such as raspberry, Christmas spice, tangy cranberry, and oak wood. Truly coastal in make up and nothing else like it. Very, very nice.

1/1/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Like so many Occidental bottlings, this is pure and true but funky and totally unique in its particular balance of components. The cherry, berries, flowers, iodine, orange rind, sous bois, and more are just arranged and poised differently somehow here than anywhere else. Top notch. Now - 2030.

5/10/2022 - haldolugr wrote:

Nice fruit structure. Light to medium bodied. But had a racy acid finish that was a little too tart. Hopefully it mellows with some time.

11/16/2022 - rmalloy Likes this wine:

This is a blend of nebbiolo and barbera (50/50 according to online sources) aged in new oak. I’m typically resistant to anything untraditional in the wine world, but this wine works for me. It has exceptional weight and intensity, good structural balance, and a complex flavor profile. It tastes like it is still on the upswing and certainly will drink well a decade from now. For under $40 a bottle at KLWines auction, this is a steal.

11/14/2019 - Rollerball wrote:

Today, the day WS awarded this the #3 woty, we opened our first two bottles of a case bought last June. In sum, the balance and quality of fruit stand out— and with time a beautiful hollow iron note emerges— but this is still quite young and tannic. Decant 2-3 hours if opening today; ideally wait until 2022-

It is impossible to objectively score something on the day it received a high-profile #3woty and 95 points. Note CT gives this an 89.8 right now. Let’s see how that changes. What if we all started exclusively rating blind.

8/20/2022 - slulkin wrote:

Drank over two nights; first night with pizza and second night with a spicy cherry tomato sauce.
Nose and flavor profile gave similar impressions to our bottle back in February. The improvement this time was there was no heat from the wine and it paired nicely both nights with what we were eating. For me, this was definitely better with food than without.

6/14/2022 - jvphoto Likes this wine:

Nearly translucent. Horse saddle sweat, sauvage, sour cherry, tart cranberry

12/5/2020 - Rollerball wrote:

Drank without decanting over four weeks. Room temp. Just got better and better. Very high pleasure quotient.

12/26/2021 - Mr T wrote:

I found the wine shockingly backward for the vintage and age
PNP on Xmas evening and figured this was a Bordeaux I didn’t have to decant at cousin’s house. This needed Toni’s time to open and show its stuff and honestly never got there. Hard to keep telling folks to be patient when they keep coming back to the bar and this not showing a lot other than initial acid
And very subdued fruit. Clearly will decant all future bottles and give them tume

1/20/2022 - Rollerball wrote:

2010 Pavelot 1er Cru: Aux Guettes vs Aux Gravains: Two very good, wines. This--the Aux Gravains--has a beautiful bouquet and is a little riper, wilder, spicier, more saline, and more structured; it's not as well balanced (as the Guettes) but offers more of its own presence and personality, especially with time in the decanter.

The Aux Guettes has a nice austerity and makes a great dinner wine if you're looking for something cleansing and classic; elements well integrated.

Each wine finishes short though the Gravains offers a bit more on the tail. Each undoubtedly has four+ years of continued great drinking ahead -2025.

12/28/2021 - Montesquieu Likes this wine:

This bottle crushed it. Granted, the warmup included great aged Brunello and Barolo. We paired this appropriately with chocolate. Maybe my higher score reflects my condition as much as the bottle's. So learn from me: maybe drink great aged Italians before you get to this, then pop and pair with world-class choco and cigars. The Graham will deliver.

11/19/2021 - Rollerball wrote:

This fruit here is somehow still young, forward, and grapey but the texture is mature and resolved with the elegance of silk (in weight) and worn velvet (in texture). The tannins do come in at the end, suggesting, honestly, that this could go years. This good through 2025 and then possibly, possibly even more perfect 2026 - 2027.

8/1/2021 - Rollerball wrote:

Double Mag decanted at 4:00 into four decanters and one final glass with the sedement. Back into the huge bottle at 5:00--with the sediment glass missing, plenty of surface area for more aeration--to serve at 7:00 dinner for 11. It was singing!! Dark with balanced, low-alcohol, beautifully acidic fruit (actually, I'd characterize it as sour on opening, and that trait had completely relaxed with the few hours' air), with coffee and earth tones; very food friendly. Accelerated until it was gone at 9:30 or so. This was the cherrished final bottle of many many bottles of this incredible wine. Thank you 2000 Quinault L'Enclos!

In this format, definitely aerate for a few hours. Will serve beautifully through at least 2025. 750s I'd say drink now with an hour's+ decant.

6/13/2021 - AlphaMikeFoxtrot Likes this wine:

From a magnum - drinking great right now! Stewed dark fruits, blackcurrant, blackberry, black cherry. Dired porcini mushrooms, pencil shavings, tobacco. Full bodied, the acid and tannins are both pretty mellow. Drink now!

7/11/2021 - Rollerball wrote:

Mind blowing after 6 hours in the decanter. And still accelerating. All pervasive fruit with anchors and flourishes. A bear hug. Wotn surpassing a 2001 valdicava Madonna del piano.

6/25/2021 - Rollerball wrote:

Not poorly made but not pleasant either. Though as the wise Dave P rightly comments, I only gave this 10 minutes in the decanter.

12/31/2015 - slulkin Likes this wine:

Nice wine at a great price point. Recollections are a little fuzzy, but dark fruits, vanilla, toasty oak and spice.

4/4/2021 - Chomsky wrote:

This really is unique - what a strange and beguiling wine. According to Livingston-Learmonth, only 400 bottles of this vintage were produced. The nose is much as Rollerball states - tiny little ripe cherries, dry herbs, a sense of roasted something, light touch of soy sauce, faint notes of amaretto, and something like toasted straw. The body is light - very light for Cornas - and the wine is fresh and delicate. The wine runs freely and flavors come across as savory herbed meat and soft, delicate, mulled cherries, among other elements that escape description. With air Syrah's briny edge becomes more apparent. Everything is wild and unexpected; I suppose it has to be Cornas, but this breaks the mold, is sui generis. It's so out of character for the appellation that I'm not sure this is an instant favorite, but it's truly its own thing. I am grateful for the experience and look forward to tasting the other vintages of this that I managed to buy.

4/4/2021 - slulkin wrote:

Pnp - Dark purple in the glass. Nose seemed less expressive than our previous two bottles. Still interesting with red & black fruits, dried herbs, spice and licorice. Palate was spicy, full and balanced with the fruit and herbs dominating. Tannin is well integrated on a medium + finish and went well with grilled lamb chops.

Last two glasses were good on day 3 but not as good as when first opened.

3/7/2021 - jrick Does not like this wine:

For all the times I say that a wine tastes like cherry, this makes a mockery of that because this really tastes of cherry! Really black, almost overripe cherry. Very sweet fruit, and tannins are very discreet. Herbal and mineral qualities as well, but the overall feeling is round, with a bit of alcohol bitterness coming through. This is overall ”meh”, a little cloying and not much fun. I had Pertimali and Constanti Rossos from the same vintage in close connection, those were actually excellent and, goes without saying, much better than this although this hade the best review of the three by Vinous. Fair or not, this experience will steer me away from Fuligni in the short term at least.

3/3/2021 - vide Likes this wine:

On the third day = wonderful depth on the palate, and a superb complexity of flavours. I don't, however, see the underpinning of acidity. But because I am a no-sugar person these days, it is possible that my palate has changed and I can't pick that up (only a sightly fat bottom line).

But is there such a thing as an objective palate? The advocates of the points system would have us believe that there is. But my palate, which is reasonably sophisticated, has changed with the years. One part of my wine-drinking brain thinks that it call still recognise absolute values in wine assessment; but the other part, the brainier part, is starting to have doubts.

3/26/2021 - slulkin wrote:

Picked up on a whim based on shelf talker. Dark purple in the glass. Espresso, dried herbs, licorice and dark red fruited nose. Palate followed the nose nicely. Rich mouth feel with grippy tannins on the finish. For $14, definitely worth the price of admission.

3/22/2021 - slulkin wrote:

Hooray for Rose! Had been excitedly awaiting our delivery this year and the first bottle did not disappoint. Only got one glass but noticed a stone fruit (peach, apricot) and mineral nose. Very light on the palate yet pleasing. Looking forward to the remaining bottles and some warmer weather.

2/14/2021 - slulkin wrote:

Just another great bottle. Very pretty red fruits and earthiness with a floral hint. Silky on the palate with a balanced and juicy finish.

Kicking myself for not buying a case.

3/23/2019 - IJC Likes this wine:

Assertive, but controlled, especially from this hot vintage. Plum and nutmeg, ie, extremely rich, but with an edge of spice. Pairs well with hearty food, especially a bolognese sauce, for example.

Rated 2 on a scale of -1 to 3.

2/14/2021 - Rollerball wrote:

OK the nose is currently a slice of heaven. The Andromeda galaxy 45° up from its horizontal plane. I am coddling a baby, then drinking an infomercial's worth of orange juice, then watching the masturbation scene in blue lagoon.

From 375 with an hour in the decanter. Great with steamed Alaskan king crab. Many good years ahead, even in this format.

9/3/2020 - drwine2001 wrote:

Medium yellow. Primary fruit plus a whiff of baby powder which I find at times in German Riesling. Still a bit of JJ spritz. Light to medium weight, off dry rather than an overtly sweet Auslese. Relaxed, perfectly pure apple and peach, spice, faint slate. The acidity is by no means deficient, but it doesn't really bear down on you either. Harmonious and long. At almost 20 years of age and for how open it is, it's amazing how little in the way of secondary mature notes this wine has developed. I could see it perking along gaining complexity for another 2 decades. Already outstanding, it could become majestic.

9/2/2015 - Eric Guido Likes this wine:

This showed an intense and extroverted bouquet of vibrant red fruits, spice, sweet floral tones and milk chocolate. On the palate, a wave of silky textures delivered intense ripe fruits with mouthwatering acidity and spice, which seemed to coat all of the senses. The finish showed tart cherry pits and herbal hints. This is an incredibly attractive Brunello.

1/30/2021 - Rollerball wrote:

Revelatory. Descriptors would sell this so short but if necessary: the most uncompromising sweet, ripe, dried soprano cherries and roasted tomatoes; a journey not racing but biking down a path of wide centrifugal turns with agile grace. Mind-blowingly fresh. Meaty and feral. Gently brushed with tar and florals. Rustic but pin-point gracious and pure. And most importantly: utterly unique, savory-soulful, and unlike any wine I’ve ever had.

Note: I’m liking ratings less and less.

8/17/2019 - JEP007 Likes this wine:

Sourced through RareWineCo last year. PNP last night during a casual get together, homemade mushroom/prosciutto pizzas using Caputo 00 flour, cooked with a modified gas Ooni pizza oven. This wine paired perfectly! The nose was typical aged brunello with notes of tobacco and earth and red fruit. The dark red fruit was completely alive and progressed through the evening. Not much complexity, but I didn't mind as the earthy notes were so enjoyable. I'm sure this wine could hold-up for another 10 years, but it really did feel it was at its peak. The tannins were fully integrated and was quite smooth. It really was a great wine and can't wait to try my 2010s in another 20 years.

10/12/2020 - Latache01 Does not like this wine:

I've been monitoring E&M for several years now: Sometimes stunning wines, lacking some consistency though.

This one (Liaison 2017) has to be the most troublesome wine I've ever tasted from this eastate: Edgy acidity, strong notes of dried herbs and absolutely NO fruit or charme.
Maybe a flawed bottle, maybe another example of E&M being heavily dependent of the vintage. Almost undrinkable.

1/9/2021 - slulkin Likes this wine:

Deep red/purple in the glass, almost opaque. Red fruits and spice jump out of the glass. On the palate the fruit dominates but there was also a bit of spice, florals and minerality. Finish was medium plus with silky but drying tannins. I loved this, though feel it is still very very young.

12/5/2020 - thesternowl wrote:

Year in and year out, the 7XX series by Jacquesson is, to my palate, one of the finest NV champagnes money can buy. They were one of the first to openly declare their base vintage for their NV champagnes by using this series. No. 743 is based on the 2015 vintage, a warmer year, and the wine displays the roundness of the vintage with aplomb. The nose is incredible; fresh and pure like a smell of an alpine breeze on a sub-0° day. Light red and orchard fruits. On the palate, gratuitous fruit with green apples, pears (think those “wind-scarred” Harry & David, Royal Riviera pears) and minerals. There is plenty of acid for lift which also contributes to the length on the finish. This is a hedonistic edition of the 7XX series, delivering immense pleasure already. You could probably age it, but why? Disgorged August 2019. Over 215,000 bottles made.

12/25/2020 - Rollerball wrote:

first one corked.

9/19/2020 - Rollerball wrote:

Just had to grab the last bottle of these unforgettable, best-ever-level, Goff '12 Webers. Hasn't lost a step. Hard to grasp how good this wine is. 100 point palate, and the nose isn't far behind, though the two are more complementary than consistent: the smoke on the bouquet contrasting with the rolling, changing, strawberry, mint, french-pressed coffee, mineral, and finally, sweetening fruit, all of which come after an initial pump of citrus whose high-toned notes refrain. The weight is extraordinarily judged and the finish, if anything, is a second too long.

3/19/2018 - christyler Likes this wine:

If someone else gave this a 77, then I guess I can give it a 99. Probably not _really_ a 99 point wine, but tonight it’s making me really happy.

The nose is worth the price of admission. Classic Loire can franc. More earth than fruit or bell pepper. Lighter body - it shows that this is a budget wine. A little drying and tart on the finish. Still a good time.

There you have it folks - the world’s first 99 point $15 wine.

10/5/2019 - Partenaire wrote:

Belle prise de mousse qui s’estompe rapidement. Rémanence du cordon assez faible...peu de gaz carbonique (ce n’est techniquement pas un vin mousseux). Arômes de tilleul, de biscuit, toasté et de pomme oxydée. En bouche, l’acidité domine clairement. Bien, mais n’en vaut pas son prix.