Library purchase during an Open House back in 2016. Day 1 about 2 hours in. This is still a baby, dark fruit is prominent, a real mouthful but not like HonestBob mentioned in the prior note. There’s nothing sticky about this. Plenty of ripe tannins with some nice pyrazine notes, mouthwatering acidity. Keep this lying down for another decade at least. While enjoyable it has so much more to offer as it ages. I’ll check back in tomorrow but am not expecting much to change. I’ll just enjoy it’s youthfulness for now. Now, to reload.
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From 75cl, exquisitely perfect cork, stained only 0,3mm(!) back. Decanted 30 minutes off crystalline deposit, 6 hours would have been more appropriate. My TN from 23.05.2012 seems a lot more accurate than my more recent ones. At this exact moment, this exact bottle of this wine (perfect storage since purchase from winery in 2010) is completely primary. To be more precise: It has the texture and taste of super-ripe hard-core red-grape juice. If you have harvested grapes, you'll know that feeling that your skin is being leached, even attacked by the sticky sugar and intense essence of the grape-juice? Well, this is how this feels: It jet-cleans your palate with super-concentrated blackberry-flavoured grape juice at what feels like a Trockenbeerenauslese level of residual sugar (and 14,5% alc.) If you have this in the cellar: Well done, but please wait at least 5 years (unless you like immature Aussie Shiraz, that is...) or decant this overnight... The only Cabernet experience I remember as similar at a comparable age was a 2003 Forts de Latour tasted in late 2015 (CT TN 11.09.2015). NR, no idea, it might turn out really great and made for eternity, or it might just be that this sugar-mess is the end-point.
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From 75cl, exquisite cork (barely stained 0,5mm back from wine end) decanted 1 hour. Super mint-cedar-dark fruit-pencil lead scent; same again on the entry (blackcurrant, blackberry) with added eucalyptus zing. Full-bodied, with unctuous glycerine and 14,5% alc. For my old-world palate, this is an exciting, very high quality Cab in the mould of the 1998 D'Arenberg's Coppermine Road, but in European terms showing quite some super-ripe Syrah (blackberry, extravagant spice, aromatic herbs) and Grenache (fat! sweat! lubrication!) characteristics. A luxury experience at a very civil price, entering maturity now, but with a decade to go. 91-92P
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Drinking well now. Cherries on the nose, currant, cherries , dark fruit, spice. Balanced and smooth finish. Medium long finish. A touch of heat. Sad this is my last bottle :-(
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in a good drinking spot with dark fruit and some evolving tannins that serve to give some nice backbone;there is some spice/cassis too which adds to the depth
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Demonstrates both the virtues and the limitations of its grape and appellation. On the one hand, just textbook beautiful Cabernet Sauvignon, cool-fruited, well-apportioned, and impeccably made. On the other hand, this wine doesn't budge an inch over the course of 90 minutes of airtime. So, what you get 5 minutes in is pretty much what you get at the hour mark... which amounts to black fruit, some oak spice, and fine-grained, silky tannins, all very harmonious but also a touch slick. A bit of bottle evolution and some softening of the 'Cab!' character would be nice to see in an almost ten-year old bottle of largely-unspoofy wine. Still, this is rock-solid qualitatively, albeit a bit boring after awhile. Maybe it just needs more time sideways?
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From 37,5cl, beautifully perfect cork. Decanted 1 hour, it needed perhaps 3. Very pure and very young, telling a rather monolithic if restrained Northern Californian Cabernet story right now: Concentrated, medium-bodied, ripe but not obtrusively sweet dark blackcurrant/blackberry fruit, some vanilla. Long finish with not quite resolved but pleasant mouth-furring tannins. I can't find any Bordeaux-style cedar, pencil-lead etc: this comes from where it comes from and doesn't make pretences. Classy, will probably improve (for my old world taste) over the next 5-10 years. 90P(?)
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Ordered off the list at Bev Gannon's ($80). Red fruit and minerals with mild notes of cedar, leather and herbs. Refreshingly dry for a Californian, and would guess at or near peak.
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Sonoma County April 28; 5/27/2013-5/28/2013: Aromas of vanilla, dried herb, red currant and cedar. More cedar on the palate with leather, cassis, black cherry and vanilla- well balanced. Charmingly rustic but with nice smoothness to the tannins. Long finish with spice and cherry. Very nice.
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From 37,5cl, decanted 30 mins, consumed over 2 hours. Darkish red cherry colour with a blue-purple reflex; quite viscous; 14,5% alc. leave dramatic legs in the glass. Still rather closed aromatically, but with the promise of great things to come - rumtopf, dark berries, the whole package actually quite Syrah-like. Sweet, primary entry with very ripe fruit - even a slightly cooked note; fine, slightly squeaky tannins. If I tasted this blind I might well get lost a continent away from the Alexander Valley and start speculating about a mythic Spanish blend in a hot year, in which Cabernet Sauvignon plays no role at all. Mencia? Carignan? mixed with Merlot? (Acustic? Petalos? Capcanes?) I recommend leaving well alone for 2-5 years, perhaps even a decade. 90(?)
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2/5/2020 - River Rat wrote:
Library purchase during an Open House back in 2016. Day 1 about 2 hours in. This is still a baby, dark fruit is prominent, a real mouthful but not like HonestBob mentioned in the prior note. There’s nothing sticky about this. Plenty of ripe tannins with some nice pyrazine notes, mouthwatering acidity. Keep this lying down for another decade at least. While enjoyable it has so much more to offer as it ages. I’ll check back in tomorrow but am not expecting much to change. I’ll just enjoy it’s youthfulness for now. Now, to reload.
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1/13/2019 - honest bob wrote:
From 75cl, exquisitely perfect cork, stained only 0,3mm(!) back. Decanted 30 minutes off crystalline deposit, 6 hours would have been more appropriate. My TN from 23.05.2012 seems a lot more accurate than my more recent ones. At this exact moment, this exact bottle of this wine (perfect storage since purchase from winery in 2010) is completely primary. To be more precise: It has the texture and taste of super-ripe hard-core red-grape juice. If you have harvested grapes, you'll know that feeling that your skin is being leached, even attacked by the sticky sugar and intense essence of the grape-juice? Well, this is how this feels: It jet-cleans your palate with super-concentrated blackberry-flavoured grape juice at what feels like a Trockenbeerenauslese level of residual sugar (and 14,5% alc.) If you have this in the cellar: Well done, but please wait at least 5 years (unless you like immature Aussie Shiraz, that is...) or decant this overnight... The only Cabernet experience I remember as similar at a comparable age was a 2003 Forts de Latour tasted in late 2015 (CT TN 11.09.2015). NR, no idea, it might turn out really great and made for eternity, or it might just be that this sugar-mess is the end-point.
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7/1/2017 - honest bob wrote: 92 Points
From 75cl, exquisite cork (barely stained 0,5mm back from wine end) decanted 1 hour. Super mint-cedar-dark fruit-pencil lead scent; same again on the entry (blackcurrant, blackberry) with added eucalyptus zing. Full-bodied, with unctuous glycerine and 14,5% alc. For my old-world palate, this is an exciting, very high quality Cab in the mould of the 1998 D'Arenberg's Coppermine Road, but in European terms showing quite some super-ripe Syrah (blackberry, extravagant spice, aromatic herbs) and Grenache (fat! sweat! lubrication!) characteristics. A luxury experience at a very civil price, entering maturity now, but with a decade to go. 91-92P
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11/21/2015 - mrmikemtr Likes this wine: 93 Points
Drinking well now. Cherries on the nose, currant, cherries , dark fruit, spice. Balanced and smooth finish. Medium long finish. A touch of heat. Sad this is my last bottle :-(
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4/8/2014 - bugdoced Likes this wine: 92 Points
in a good drinking spot with dark fruit and some evolving tannins that serve to give some nice backbone;there is some spice/cassis too which adds to the depth
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3/12/2014 - Arinbraghe Likes this wine: 91 Points
Demonstrates both the virtues and the limitations of its grape and appellation. On the one hand, just textbook beautiful Cabernet Sauvignon, cool-fruited, well-apportioned, and impeccably made. On the other hand, this wine doesn't budge an inch over the course of 90 minutes of airtime. So, what you get 5 minutes in is pretty much what you get at the hour mark... which amounts to black fruit, some oak spice, and fine-grained, silky tannins, all very harmonious but also a touch slick. A bit of bottle evolution and some softening of the 'Cab!' character would be nice to see in an almost ten-year old bottle of largely-unspoofy wine. Still, this is rock-solid qualitatively, albeit a bit boring after awhile. Maybe it just needs more time sideways?
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12/7/2013 - honest bob wrote: 90 Points
From 37,5cl, beautifully perfect cork. Decanted 1 hour, it needed perhaps 3. Very pure and very young, telling a rather monolithic if restrained Northern Californian Cabernet story right now: Concentrated, medium-bodied, ripe but not obtrusively sweet dark blackcurrant/blackberry fruit, some vanilla. Long finish with not quite resolved but pleasant mouth-furring tannins. I can't find any Bordeaux-style cedar, pencil-lead etc: this comes from where it comes from and doesn't make pretences. Classy, will probably improve (for my old world taste) over the next 5-10 years. 90P(?)
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11/29/2013 - Neecies Likes this wine: 90 Points
Ordered off the list at Bev Gannon's ($80). Red fruit and minerals with mild notes of cedar, leather and herbs. Refreshingly dry for a Californian, and would guess at or near peak.
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5/28/2013 - MattMauldin wrote: 92 Points
Sonoma County April 28; 5/27/2013-5/28/2013: Aromas of vanilla, dried herb, red currant and cedar. More cedar on the palate with leather, cassis, black cherry and vanilla- well balanced. Charmingly rustic but with nice smoothness to the tannins. Long finish with spice and cherry. Very nice.
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5/23/2012 - honest bob wrote: 90 Points
From 37,5cl, decanted 30 mins, consumed over 2 hours. Darkish red cherry colour with a blue-purple reflex; quite viscous; 14,5% alc. leave dramatic legs in the glass. Still rather closed aromatically, but with the promise of great things to come - rumtopf, dark berries, the whole package actually quite Syrah-like. Sweet, primary entry with very ripe fruit - even a slightly cooked note; fine, slightly squeaky tannins. If I tasted this blind I might well get lost a continent away from the Alexander Valley and start speculating about a mythic Spanish blend in a hot year, in which Cabernet Sauvignon plays no role at all. Mencia? Carignan? mixed with Merlot? (Acustic? Petalos? Capcanes?) I recommend leaving well alone for 2-5 years, perhaps even a decade. 90(?)
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6/27/2009 - OneLastSyrah wrote:
Sonoma-Napa Trip Day 2 and 3; 6/27/2009-6/28/2009 (Sonoma): More reticent nose than the 2001. A little inky with graphite, cedar aromas. Deep color. Rich fruit. Nice but chewy tannins. Good.
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