March 6, 2024 - Decanted for 5 hrs. Violets, cassis, cigar box, very fine tannin, powerful, long
January 23, 2024 - 6 hr decant. Drinking very good.
November 23, 2023 - Mint, cassis and blue fruit.
Opened for 5 hours prior to drinking. As good as Napa gets. Aside from Harlan and Macdonald not sure there is better in Napa.
November 4, 2023 - Our groups last night at Blackberry Farms was capped off by two wines in which I had been thinking about for awhile.
19 Kinsman wines I've been told are approachable early so this bottle made the trip to Tennessee. So well in advance of dinner, Rhadamanthus was prepared by the sommeliers with a double splash decant and held at cellar temp along side the 2nd largest private collection in the country.
Rhadamanthus was presented along side another selection, this time off the restaurants list. 2001 Martha's Vineyard.
I got to say I have a love hate relationship with Napa. I love to taste them now but only like to drink them with significant age. I'm fortunate enough to have these in the cellar but "god willing" I'll drink these in a window with secondary and tertiary flavors. Nigel's wines have some of the most compelling fruit from the best terroirs in the Valley. The balance, structure and energy are all there to reward those with the cellar space to store these for the long haul.
As a side note, even the 2001 Martha's was young. In fact AG's recent 2022 review marks the drinking window as 2021-2041 and I totally agree.
98+
19 Bedrock Cuvee Karatas
19 Kinsman Eades Rhadamanthus
01 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard
21 Sadie Family Kokerboom
October 21, 2023 - Decanted for about 4 hours before pouring back in the bottle to serve.
Long story short, Napa simply doesn't get any better than this. Rhad is my 'last meal' wine and is everything I look for in a red wine. I normally hate the word hedonistic when describing wine, but there's simply no better way to characterize this bottle. I savored every sip and it continued to get better in the glass over the 2 hours we drank this. Tons of blue fruit, graphite, plush tannins, and a wonderful dance between structure, depth, acid, and fruit. Nobody manages tannins better than Nigel, and it's what puts this bottle completely over the top.
I hesitated opening this, as it's bordering on infanticide, but with sufficient air, this was singing and I don't regret it one bit! I managed to come across a few additional bottles, so couldn't resist checking in on this, but will tuck my remaining stash far back into the cellar and out of arms reach for the next few years.
May 22, 2023 - Drank over the course of two nights. Very dark and dense. Bordeaux on the nose with almost a green note but the body is unmistakably Napa. Dark fruit (plums, blueberry), graphite, anise, and mint. Fine/soft tannins and perfect balance.
Outside of Harlan, MacDonald and Abreu this is as good as Napa gets. I’ll hold my other two for five years.
April 7, 2023 - The prep was worth the time and wait! Popped the cork at 10am. Decanted for 1 hour at 12noon. Back in the bottle it went with the cork in place. Took the cork out at 4pm. Back in the decanter for another hour, back in the bottle with the cork. Did not try the wine during the experiment. I modified Shae's instructions slightly. The anticipation (aka foreplay) was great.
Tried my 1st sip at 6:30 and it was very good but it needed a decant. Once it was decanted, it was beautiful. And delicious. Very dark purple, blue and black coloring. Like prior vintages, it is concentrated and full-bodied. It has energy. It has verve. And it has depth. Cassis, licorice, earth, iron and crushed rocks. Very long finish. It is a special wine from a special place with an excellent wine maker. It's interesting and memorable.
We also had 2019 Tusk and 2019 Memento Mori Dr. Crane. Tusk was silky smooth and rich, but lacked backbone and structure. Yes, it was a little primary. No, it did not get better as the night went on.
Memento Mori was very good. It had Sam's signature structure but it kind of got lost in this mix. In the end, these two seemed very typical Napa Cabs and not worth the price of admission. Kinsman kicked the s*it out of those wines.
98-100 points
January 13, 2023 - No notes simply impressions. A horizontal tasting of all three KE - all three very different than it’s siblings yet all with a central theme. Double Decanted 24 hours beforehand and these wines are still big bad and delicious. Rhad, no surprise was the biggest of them all however if you would have asked me to guess vintage, I would have assumed 2018 not the super sexy 2019 vintgae. Hold min of 5 years.
August 20, 2022 - Tasted at wheeler farms with Isabel, the assistant winemaker. Double decanted a day prior.
The 19 Rhadamanthus was a bit dark and brooding today. A blend of CS, CF, PV and Malbec, it felt like a long slumber will be needed. Some violets, iron ore, blackberry compote and bitter chocolate with, great supporting acidity. I’m not a fan of measuring finishes, but this was super long.
A serious wine with great potential, but shame on you if you pop this wine before 2025
May 26, 2022 - Kinsman 2019 & 2021: You know when you were in school back in the day and there was always that one real serious kid that you just couldn’t figure out. I’m not talking about the one kid who always wore the same stained Darth Vader shirt for 4 days (wait, that might have been me), but rather the more stoic kid that you didn’t dare talk to because you didn’t know if he would instantly just punch you in the face for looking at him squirrelly. We aren’t talking about the Judd Nelson goth-rebel, but more the maybe-cool mystery kid who looked like he was 10 years older than everyone else in the class, had unusually large shoulders, and you just assumed he probably lived alone in his own slick apartment in “the big city,” or maybe had an orphan backstory that made him seem so much more “adult” than anyone else, even though he was 12 years old. This kid would later grow up and move to Zurich where he becomes the CEO of the Union Bank of Switzerland and owns three castles in North Tyrol.
So ya…the Rhad. It’s that kid…
Too cool for school. Chiseled, exacting, persistent – in a serious way – like an athlete focusing on one thing: being the very best, but knowing it’s not at its best self…just yet, but it will be, and everyone in the room knows it too (So, get the hell out the way!). ‘Must train more. Must focus more. Must not let others distract me.’ It’s the kind of execution that simply says, “I’m Rhad and you’re not.” (nice double entendre there, eh? Rhad/Rad…get it?…anyway…). Distinctive iron notes switchblade their ways through the black and red fruit, in fact, particularly more red-fruited than its other siblings. Finishes with a dusty resolve that really revs-up the back end. Depth comes to the stage, but there is a meticulous linearity that is currently more omnipresent. Never astringent, never overly tannic, the Rhad shows its scaffolding and energy in the form of insistent grip and precision. This is gonna be an ager for sure. It is a singular wine. It is an awesome wine. It will be an awesome-er wine in time.
For those with the means, this is one to grab a Maggie of and store it in your grandma’s basement for the next 20+ years. Of course, I’m gonna pretend I store anything for more than a few years before cracking the cranium on my bottles. Such the impetuous Yankee I am.
97-98+ points for the no-joking-around Russell Crow-in-Gladiator Rhad. This wine is on a mission…a mission with an extended forecast for turning into a trailblazer. Give it time. Hold bottles until Marvel finally kills the Spiderman franchise, Bing actually happens, or Arizona gets a coastline.
Note: This bottle had been open around 24 hours before service.