Nose dominated by secondary and tertiary notes to start. Tons of toasted cedar, graphite, raw chanterelle, mulched leaves, and gunsmoke. Some grilled hatch pepper. Well-integrated oak adds soft baking spices. As the wine continued to open up, fruit started peeking through. Ripe dark cherry, strawberry preserves, and black currant all powerful and fresh. Complex and intense.
Palate is very well structured with wonderful mid palate presence and a long, satisfying finish. There is a bit of astringency as the midpalate leads into the finish that detracts from the overall experience. The wine is impeccably balanced.
This vintage is just missing some of the intensity and focus that makes SHL transcendent in its best vintages. It's an average vintage for me, but an average vintage from SHL still beats up on good and great vintages from lesser producers. When my price per bottle is around $60 USD, it's a no-brainer.
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Picked up on closeout at random liquor store for $21 while I was bourbon hunting. Decanted for 2 hours.
Very light bricking at the rim. It would be difficult to tell that the wine is 10 years old on appearance alone. Med + legs that show quite a bit of extraction. Stains the glass quite easily.
A bit simple on the nose. There's some blackberry and blueberry, alongside cooked bacon and crushed peppercorn. The unsweetened cocoa and ground espresso bean notes from the oak have not integrated well and are overpowering. There's some crushed violet and herbal notes underneath the surface that are obscured by the oak.
On entry, the wine starts with some nice tart blue and dark fruits. Spent coffee grounds and bacon smoke start to muddy up the wine's nuances on the mid-palate and add some ambiguous character to the finish. Acid is the wine's saving grace here as it carries the fruit through the murky mid-palate and cuts through a long finish that would otherwise be ruined by oak. Tannins probably need another few years to further resolve as they're still overly dry and chunky. It's possible that the fruit has peaked
Overall, this wine is a bit maddening because it keeps suggesting to you what it could be (violets! garrigue! lavender! peppercorn!) and then just buries those secondary and tertiary aromas/tastes with oak. For the price, it's fine and has a very long finish that would pair well with barbecue and grilled meats. But it just isn't as satisfying as many of the region's other wines can be from well-known producers for similar prices when not on sale (in between $25-$35 USD). It's possible that the fruit peaked some years ago, but I can't make that distinction because I haven't had enough aged northern Rhone wines to do so reliably.
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One of the steakhouses I used to work at served this. I didn't like it then and like it less now. It's just a massive disappointment from Drouhin, and even more so when it's 80% Willamette fruit. Opened 2 bottles of the 2022 and they were nearly identical, so I can't say they're necessarily faulted, but just poorly made and rushed to market.
The 2022 Cloudline is a light ruby in the glass. It has massive amounts of VA on the nose that didn't blow off after 30-45 minutes in the glass. Bright strawberry and raspberry notes turn to forest floor and OFF mosquito spray.
Okay entry on palate with uninteresting red fruit that hits the mid palate with an awful cloying sweetness. Sweetness leads to a thin and sickening finish reminiscent of pine-sol. There's some silkiness on the palate, but otherwise no redeeming textural qualities of note.
When there are entry-level alternatives on the market like Willamette Valley Vineyard's Whole Cluster for similar prices (or even Drouhin's own serviceable Cote-de-Beaune - Villages for an additional $5-$10), this wine is a slap in the face to consumer. Stay away and take your money elsewhere.
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2006 Château Smith Haut Lafitte
12/31/2023 - Magickjohnson wrote: 94 Points
Decanted for 4 hours.
Nose dominated by secondary and tertiary notes to start. Tons of toasted cedar, graphite, raw chanterelle, mulched leaves, and gunsmoke. Some grilled hatch pepper. Well-integrated oak adds soft baking spices. As the wine continued to open up, fruit started peeking through. Ripe dark cherry, strawberry preserves, and black currant all powerful and fresh. Complex and intense.
Palate is very well structured with wonderful mid palate presence and a long, satisfying finish. There is a bit of astringency as the midpalate leads into the finish that detracts from the overall experience. The wine is impeccably balanced.
This vintage is just missing some of the intensity and focus that makes SHL transcendent in its best vintages. It's an average vintage for me, but an average vintage from SHL still beats up on good and great vintages from lesser producers. When my price per bottle is around $60 USD, it's a no-brainer.
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2013 E. Guigal Crozes-Hermitage
12/8/2023 - Magickjohnson wrote: 86 Points
Picked up on closeout at random liquor store for $21 while I was bourbon hunting. Decanted for 2 hours.
Very light bricking at the rim. It would be difficult to tell that the wine is 10 years old on appearance alone. Med + legs that show quite a bit of extraction. Stains the glass quite easily.
A bit simple on the nose. There's some blackberry and blueberry, alongside cooked bacon and crushed peppercorn. The unsweetened cocoa and ground espresso bean notes from the oak have not integrated well and are overpowering. There's some crushed violet and herbal notes underneath the surface that are obscured by the oak.
On entry, the wine starts with some nice tart blue and dark fruits. Spent coffee grounds and bacon smoke start to muddy up the wine's nuances on the mid-palate and add some ambiguous character to the finish. Acid is the wine's saving grace here as it carries the fruit through the murky mid-palate and cuts through a long finish that would otherwise be ruined by oak. Tannins probably need another few years to further resolve as they're still overly dry and chunky. It's possible that the fruit has peaked
Overall, this wine is a bit maddening because it keeps suggesting to you what it could be (violets! garrigue! lavender! peppercorn!) and then just buries those secondary and tertiary aromas/tastes with oak. For the price, it's fine and has a very long finish that would pair well with barbecue and grilled meats. But it just isn't as satisfying as many of the region's other wines can be from well-known producers for similar prices when not on sale (in between $25-$35 USD). It's possible that the fruit peaked some years ago, but I can't make that distinction because I haven't had enough aged northern Rhone wines to do so reliably.
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2022 Cloudline Pinot Noir
11/23/2023 - Magickjohnson wrote: 76 Points
One of the steakhouses I used to work at served this. I didn't like it then and like it less now. It's just a massive disappointment from Drouhin, and even more so when it's 80% Willamette fruit.
Opened 2 bottles of the 2022 and they were nearly identical, so I can't say they're necessarily faulted, but just poorly made and rushed to market.
The 2022 Cloudline is a light ruby in the glass.
It has massive amounts of VA on the nose that didn't blow off after 30-45 minutes in the glass. Bright strawberry and raspberry notes turn to forest floor and OFF mosquito spray.
Okay entry on palate with uninteresting red fruit that hits the mid palate with an awful cloying sweetness. Sweetness leads to a thin and sickening finish reminiscent of pine-sol. There's some silkiness on the palate, but otherwise no redeeming textural qualities of note.
When there are entry-level alternatives on the market like Willamette Valley Vineyard's Whole Cluster for similar prices (or even Drouhin's own serviceable Cote-de-Beaune - Villages for an additional $5-$10), this wine is a slap in the face to consumer. Stay away and take your money elsewhere.
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