Community Tasting Note

DaveZack Likes this wine:

Saturday, December 5, 2015 - This wine is ALWAYS good, often placing in the Top 100 of Wine Spectator’s Top Wines of the Year. I bought a couple of bottles of the 2009 vintage from Total Wine & More and that was a fabulous vintage. Once I read that Wine Spectator gave the 2010 vintage a very positive review, I also bought a couple of the 2010 bottles as well. Sure enough, the 2010 vintage was also 90+ points (in Wine Spectator’s and my opinion as well).
Like any bottle of wine on the planet, every vintage can be very different from vintage to vintage. The 2009 vintage was light-to-medium-bodied and delicious while the 2010 vintage is very dark, intense, brooding, and more like a Syrah, Zinfandel, or Petite Sirah. Either way, it’s still fabulous and delicious.
The bouquet is fairly subtle, unlike the flavor profile. There are suggestions of oak, earth, and the usual dark-fruited red wine aromas, such as herbs and spices and dark fruits. Totally opposite the 2009 vintage, the 2010 vintage is a big, bold, spicy, rich, creamy, powerful red. The wine pour almost black like a Petite Sirah, and also shows similar flavor elements of a Petite Sirah, like dark fruits, such as plums and blackberries, as well as an abundance of black pepper and dried/savory herbs. Also unlike the 2009 vintage, the 2010 is rich and creamy, almost like a typical Paso Robles Zinfandel. This wine is gorgeously well-structured, with steel-like firm and unbending tannins and acidity which should allow this wine to age beautifully for another 5-to-10 years. Despite the structure’s strength and firmness, the wine is drinking beautifully now but should continue to age, mature, and develop gracefully over the next decade or so. The oakiness adds a subtle essence of baking spices as well, along with complexity and depths-of-flavors that are difficult to surpass for a sub-$20 bottle.
I paired this beauty with a pork loin spiced with Kosher salt, black pepper, and Herbs de Provence because the 2009 vintage paired PERFECTLY with the pork loin, but because the 2010 vintage is much more muscular and powerful than the 2009 vintage, it would have paired better with a fatty steak, like a ribeye or porterhouse smothered with black pepper, Kosher salt, and Herbs de Provence.
As usual, the 2010 vintage is definitely a 90+ point wine, and for less than $20 a bottle (from Total Wine & More), this beauty is difficult to beat. The 2010 vintage is VERY different from the 2009 vintage, but is still a delicious, deeply-flavored and complex wine that has the “legs” to age and mature elegantly for another 5-to-10 years. This is a fabulous wine for the price. But whereas the 2009 vintage paired perfectly with a nicely-spiced pork loin, this beauty should be paired with fatty and well-spiced red proteins.

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