Community Tasting Notes 44

• MJP Hou TX Likes this wine: 96 points

  October 28, 2023 - Pulled a couple of 12's for dinner party and both showed very well.
  
  2012 VHR
  
  2012 Blankiet Rive Droite
  
  Very distinct representations of their prospective AVA's yet only separated by only a few miles on the Mayacamas Mountains. Rive droit with more red fruit cherry and VHR the classic black & red mix. Both incredibly balanced with plenty of elegant energy at this stage.
  
  VHR more dark and broadening while the Rive Droite has more mid plate sweetness and length on the finish.
  
  Paradise Hill would have been a more proper comparison but this was fun nonetheless.
  
  The best part of the night was watching the lightbulbs go off for our guest.
  
  96

  Comment

• 3daywinereview.com wrote: 94 points

  October 20, 2023 - Wine Palooza (Eagan, MN): Outstanding wine with cherry, minerals, floral, dust, blueberries and earth. Right up my wheelhouse.

  1 person found this helpful Comment

• rocknroller wrote:

  October 19, 2023 - Judgement of Eagan (Jason P's, St. Paul, MN): Followed a glass over an hour. Also after a grouping of older wines,s and it was a tough act to follow. For me, this was just far too young, and a bit surprisingly it had a strong youthful green character for a wine over 10 years old. Very dense, very ripe, blackberry liqueur, lacquer, herbaceous. Sadly, I can't say I enjoyed this tonight unfortunately. Score reserved. My vote and group vote was 7-2 for the La Violette.

  Comment

• WineBurrowingWombat Likes this wine: 95 points

  October 19, 2023 - Cracking the whip; 10/16/2023-10/23/2023 (Eagan, MN): N: White and red flowers with dark red fruits, and a strong note of dried, crushed stone with dried top earth. Quite pretty and classy here on the nose.
  
  P: Ripe, dark red and black fruits, a bit of macerated fruits and almost vanilla. A high toned note of dried oak and earth that seemed to help offset the big fruits. The pretty flowers reflect here on the palate as well, quite pretty.
  
  For me, I preferred this over the Violette by just a hair. The pretty Napa fruit got me in this matchup.

  1 person found this helpful Comments (5)

• I'd Rather Be Drinking Wine Likes this wine: 94 points

  October 19, 2023 - Judgement of Eagan Wine Tasting (Jason's House): This wine had a 3-4 hour decant.....This wine was pitted against a 2008 La Violette Pomerol. The showing was a little disappointing, but I believe can be attributed to two factors: First, the wines that preceded the flight were older wines (see story); and second, there should have been a palate cleanser between the older wines and this flight. I was kind of surprised, even though La Violette is one of my personal favorites, that it beat out this wine, as I enjoyed my last bottle so much! Admittedly, I did think it would be a great match up, but both wines suffered greatly from my lack of thinking this through in terms of flighting all the wines. In retrospect, I should have had two different tastings....one with older wines and one with newer wines....sometimes, it is difficult to go from apples to oranges!
  
  The nuts and bolts: The wine was very good, but not as stellar as the last bottle. Several reasons could be responsible, and I can't even venture a guess as to which one(s) could be responsible: (1) Bottle variation (but doubtful); (2) Second time drinking this and expectations may have been unreasonably high based on how much I enjoyed this wine the first time (still doubtful, but possible); (3) This wine followed much better wines (unlikely the reason); (4) Our (my) palate(s) was synchronized to much older wines, and relative to that, nuances and tertiary notes were lost, which would otherwise have been detected (my best guess). Regardless of the reason, this wine did not show as well as it should have.
  
  Nose was floral and full of red cherry, spice and bramble. Palate was chalked full of chocolate covered cherries, some baking spices and some cigar box. Even with the disappointment, this wine was still a 94 for me, which is a great score, but this wine was likely even better than that! I think it is harder to be totally objective when you are drinking it with other wines, especially, as in this case, much older nuanced wines. Also, this wine didn't feel like it had those velvety tannins of the first bottle, but I attribute that to a tired palate.

  1 person found this helpful Comments (4)

Pro Reviews 4

Wine Definition

• Vintage 2012
• Type Red
• Producer Blankiet Estate
• Varietal Red Bordeaux Blend
• Designation Rive Droite
• Vineyard n/a
• Country USA
• Region California
• SubRegion Napa Valley
• Appellation Napa Valley
• UPC Code 461437937503

Community Holdings

• Pending Delivery 4 (0%)
• In Cellars 639 (59%)
• Consumed 434 (40%)

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