2004 Alban Vineyards Roussanne Estate

Community Tasting Notes (46) Avg Score: 90.5 points

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  8/21/2017 - Mrbuzz Likes this wine: 93 Points

  This is a "in the mood wine" and I was! Dark, alive, tasty! Rich and juicy apricot, peach, baked apple fruits...with a zesty vein of blood orange, pineapple, and grapefruit acidity. Exotic as seductive Roussanne...hot buttered rum spice, sautéed apples with ginger and nutmeg, white honey, butterscotch liqueur. Rich and full bodied, but there is still a nice lift of freshness that lightens and keeps it from cloying. Wonderful smokiness and minerality...pretty flowers and nuttiness. Still plenty years to go...for this unique style Roussanne.

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  5/7/2014 - BVal wrote: flawed

  Acquired at auction recently; bottle had been exported from US to England then reimported back to the US. I fear too much importing/reimporting has been done here as the bottle tastes prematurely aged and somewhat madeirised. Quite the shame because the you could still see the wonderful wine underneath.
  
  Color: bold gold with yellow tints; somewhat cloudy. Bouquet of honey, peaches, almonds, oak, a little petrol and Madeira. Dense palate showing that Madeira again, brown sugar, honey, lime, peaches and english toffee. Oak really did start to come through on the finish, so I don't think the advanced aging has helped that aspect of the wine. Still a nice medium-long finish.
  
  Definitely a testimony to how delicious the underlying wine is that the bottle was mostly finished even though flawed. I'd say that while well-stored bottles are probably still fine, drinking sooner vs later is probably wise.

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  1/17/2013 - Colia wrote: 92 Points

  Fully mature, in a good way. Honey, yellow apples, confected lemons, chestnuts, minerals, a whiff of smoke.

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  8/24/2012 - isaacjamesbaker wrote: 92 Points

  A Rhone-Inspired Evening (Dino's - Washington, DC): I opened a bottle of this wine in March and absolutely loved it. I figured it would be fun to share another bottle with the group and see how they liked it. I love the cloudy pineapple-copper color and the thick legs. You know this is gonna be big. Aromas of pineapple, peanut shell, chestnut, mango and wax. (Is there such a thing as a mango candle?) Plump and rich on the palate, full of nutty flavors and tropical fruit, accented with honey and brown sugar. The acid, which tingles the palate, saves this wine from being too big and overdone. There’s some oak here (the wine is aged in two-thirds new French oak) but somehow it’s integrated. This wine has aged very well.

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  8/23/2012 - manonthemoon wrote: 90 Points

  n canned peach, wax, little petrol
  p white peach, vanilla, spice, some minerals
  f long finish, some minerals
  one of the better roussannes I have ever had
  89-90
  3

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