2007 Vérité La Muse

Community Tasting Notes (17) Avg Score: 95 points

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  11/3/2023 - raysclafani wrote:

  Celebration of Beth’s new Porsche. Pizza and wings with the wine.

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  3/15/2023 - kostaslonis wrote:

  Tasting Ground official tasting, 2007 Verite (Oinsocent): Merlot-dominant La Muse delivers incredible depth and texture using the finest grape sources from the top micro-crus of eastern Sonoma County. La Muse was first produced in 1998 and was inspired by the finest wines of Pomerol.
  
  barrel aging: Aged 16 months in 100% new French oak
  varietal breakdown: 85% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc, 5% Malbec
  appellations: Alexander Valley, Bennett Valley, Chalk Hill, Knights Valley
  alcohol: 14.4%
  
  -/-
  decanted 10.00 tasted 14.00
  The wine shows bright dense black fruit, a bit dusty, fine oak frame, kirsch, blue berries, extrovert, fresh herbal notes, a thin oak frame, chocolate notes, milk chocolate sweetness. It’s the only one with a warmer alcoholic note
  In the palate, the wine shows warmth, filled with ripe fresh blue berries, black cherries, mild tannins, full body, elevated acidity, long finish

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  11/23/2022 - RAB007 wrote:

  Mistake recording. was Le Desir

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  8/3/2022 - KPB wrote: 95 Points

  A lovely balance marked the La Muse tonight, side by side with its siblings. Deeply colored and fragrant, there wasn’t a note out of place here. Stunning with our gigot of lamb.

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  2/14/2022 - sfwinelover1 Likes this wine: 98 Points

  This is the first time I've written tasting notes from a commercial tasting. My reasons for my reticence in the past have been many: 1) sample sizes too small, 2) too many tastes, even when I spit, resulting in a dulled palate, 3) uncertainty about aeration, 4) short drinking window not permitting seeing the wines’ development, and 5) lack of food accompaniment leaving off a key aspect of my notes. 1-4 were largely not issues here, as the tastes were generous, and I was invited to revisit any of the tastes; I had almost 2 hours to watch the wines interact with air; there were only 4 wines, and the wines, at least the 2016s, were open for approximately four hours before being poured. The wines were served at perfect, cool cellar temperature. This was the only tasting I did on my 3 day trip to Sonoma.
  
  It had been 2 years since I’d done a commercial tasting, and while I knew I’d been missing it, I realized how much once I got started. The Verite facility felt like it had been finished 10 minutes before I arrived and was comfortable and well-appointed in a slightly generic way.
  The overall experience had the overall luxe feel you’d expect from a winery of this stature. Michael, my host, was a highly educated (when was the last time you had an Ivy Leaguer pour wines for you?), knowledgeable (far more so than I generally, and at least able to go toe to toe with me on my beloved Toscanas) and urbane sommelier. The tasting was one on one and unhurried. The $175 cost, by far the most I’ve paid for an individual tasting, and up significantly from $75 5 years ago (according to what I read online), but the quality of the entire experience made it money well spent from my perspective.
  
  Although the 3 bottlings are very distinct Bordeaux blends (the Joie CS dominant, the Desir CF and the Muse merlot), they shared, as I experienced them, a number of similar attributes, per the below. To the extent any of the 4 diverged, I’ve noted that under the particular bottling, as well individual traits of the wines.
  
  All that said, for all wines, except as noted specifically:
  Medium ruby-purple, medium+ bodied, thick legs. Medium tannins and acidity, in all cases other than as noted, already well integrated, not a trace of heat. Very good complexity, good intensity, tremendous persistence. All wines are highly enjoyable at present, elegant, generally balanced and integrated, yet, with the possible exception of the ’07 Muse, strongly hinted that they will hit a higher gear at some point. Almost exclusively dark fruited, led by cherries and cassis. The wines skew more Bordeaux than Napa (yep, I know that they’re all from Sonoma, but bear with me: I don’t think that there’s a developed Sonoma Bordeaux profile the way there is for Napa), although there’s a brightness and power to the fruit that does place them in the 707. Other than the persistence noted above and its sibling, depth, there’s a trait to these wines, and the handful of other Verites I’ve had over the years that, particularly relative to their Northern California Bordeaux varietal kin, in the week since my tasting, I’ve struggled to put a label on. But the best I’ve been able to come up is restraint or minimalism, though never at the expense of generosity, Miles Davis doing Birth of Cool over Bitches Brew, Mies over Helmut Jahn, Hemingway over Bellow, felines over canines. Perhaps this is why they are a bit of a third rail with some of my CT friends.
  
  TN: This was the library wine, and Michael tested my knowledge by encouraging me to guess vintage and varietal. I did well on vintage, with the distinctly brownish crimson appearance and well-developed, well-integrated palate leading me to believe that this was in the 12-15 year age range but not so much on the bottling (I thought the Joie—unlike the current release of Muse, the tannins were completely integrated—and this Muse had 0% CS in it; guess I won’t be taking the Master Somm exam anytime soon!). Lots of cassis, blackberries, plums, a hint of black cherries, coffee, dark chocolate, vanilla, pencil shavings and graphite with an overall slightly, though not inappropriately, sweetish feeling. Concur with Motz that this is the most modern, or New World, Verite I’ve had (I’m guessing he’s had more). Drinking beautifully and fully resolved when I had it, this was a narrow winner over the ’16 Joie as my favorite wine of the day. I don’t know if further improvement is possible, but this has the structure to hang in at this level, if reasonably stored, for at least another 5-10+ years. Likely to be the best merlot/merlot-based blend I have unless I can get a CT friend to crack a better vintage Masseto. 98+

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