January 10, 2021 - Deep purple color. Steel edge followed by oak, boysenberry, blueberry and tart blackberry. Some raspberry and flint. Initially thought there was an overripeness to this wine but as it’s evolved in the glass, it seems to brighten up. Quite enjoyable and shocking that this is a 25 yr old wine.
p.s. leftovers
March 2, 2019 - Q1 - 2019 Tasting - 1995 Vintage Napa Valley (NYC): 4th/16 wines tasted double blind. Color on this has some browning. On the palate I am getting dark fruits, herbs, menthol and black licorice. Quite tasty but just outside the top quartile for me.
March 2, 2019 - Q1 2019 Tasting - 1995 Napa (The Apt): Wine #4: This was a wine that I sortof tracked down as the big brother was one of the top wines from that vintage and so thought it would be fun to see how the junior did in the tasting. Probably about what you'd expect. Lots of much darker fruits. Fruit dominant, but some spice. Lower acid. It's more of a 'tasty' style of wine. Still going strong. (2 pennies)
December 28, 2014 - Very primary, ripe and forward nose of black fruit, coffee and oak. Extremely fresh ripe and thin on the palate. Exciting because of it's vitality but a little boring as it was quite one dimensional and lacked depth. Medium finish that showed a little bit of heat.
February 21, 2014 - Beautiful, sweet, black cherry nose, black cherry fruit and plum flavors over dominated by french oaky flavors, excellent structure, short finish, wine was disappointing given its Harlan heritage
February 8, 2014 - I was a little underwhelmed, probably because expectations of Harlan name were high. Seemed way thin and light compared to the real deal (which I've had a couple times), but was certainly tasting a crowd pleasing to the family members gathered at Story. Wouldn't recommend spending big bucks for this.
January 2, 2014 - The wine was fantastic! Wish it wasn't my last and only...
December 16, 2013 - Shocked at how fresh this wine was. Extremely high acidity which burned off after an hour. Mint and eucalyptus started showing up and spice box interwoven with current and cherry. Great wine and could go another 10 years
November 30, 2013 - Dinner for a 50th wedding anniversary (Clooney Restaurant, Auckland, New Zealand): (crumbly cork) Outstanding new world cabernet with notable VA that (for me) added great lift to a richly textured and multi-dimensional wine - in a very modern style. Licorice, hazelnut, plums and creamy oak feature on the nose The palate is impeccable - lovely bottle age character, smooth tannic structure, intense fruit quality with echos of the nose clearly on display. The wine got better and better in the glass - the VA did not over-take the wine and in fact by the end the complications of the wine became more pronounced. Modern wine making that has developed positively with age.
October 4, 2013 - It's a nicely integrated mature California wine. It has too much VA, it's the biggest detracter Gaining a touch of cinnamon on the deep red to black fruit This will have no problem going 25 years, will it be worth the effort, probably not.