2007 Joseph Phelps Insignia
Community Tasting Note
kostaslonis Likes this wine:
96 Points
Sunday, April 14, 2013 - (Deals/Genka Gastronomy Fair, J. Phelps Backus & Insignia mini vertical, Intercontinental Hotel)
This is a blend of 88% CS, 4% Petit Verdot, 8% Merlot. Inox fermenting tanks, 22 months in oak, total production 162.000 btl.
Fresh (as expected) nose, fruits and flowers as well, plums, raspberries, black cherries, violet, toasted hints, chocolate and hints of ink.
In the palate the wine is quite round for its youth, almost sweetish, balancing acidity, a world of fruits in there, rich body and thick, chocolate again, medium to long aftertaste of chocolate, dired plum and tobacco.
I think this was probably the wine of the event for the most.
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1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue (9,171 views)
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Comment posted by Champagneinhand:
4/25/2013 1:22:00 PM - Great notes. I am holding my 2 bottles of this, but it looks as if it is drinking well early. It always amazes me when a winery/winemaker can make a staggering amount of great wine. The cult cabs are super small production and can be blended fairly easily, where huge productions really need a genius to get things to match up well. The people in Bordeaux seem to get this done, and Moet champagne blows my mind by producing almost 1 million bottles of vintage DP each time they release it, which is almost every year.
Comment posted by kostaslonis:
4/26/2013 12:50:00 AM - I couldn't agree more. Of course the large companies (even though J.Phelps Vineyards doesn't belong in that category) have the means and resources to get their hands on the best quality of grapes out there and deal with them the best way possible) most of the times we do not give them enough credit. We have been so much focused on the small wineries or micro-bottlings of single vineyards that we overlook the huge difficulty of making (or blending to be exact) a wine that counts hundrends of thousands of bottles in production.
I am glad you mentioned Champagne because (even though I'm not a fan of Moet & Chandon), I always thought one should measure a brand's value by the quality of its basic bottle.
The same principle applies to whisky as well. Of course the 18yo Jameson is great, but the difficult part (and the immense capability of the master blender) is to taste, remember and blend thousands of casks to produce each year the same basic Jameson.