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| Drinking Windows and Values |
| Community Tasting History |
| Community Tasting Notes (average 93 pts. and median of 93 pts. in 141 notes) - hiding notes with no text | | | Tasted by mxpbuy on 2/19/2024 & rated 95 points: 2 hours slow ox. Consumed over next 2 hours. Loads of black fruits but the 3% white grapes add a distinct but integrated layer of salinity, citrus and melon. Some vanilla creme /Oak. 40 second finish. 15.7% alcohol is fully integrated and not noticeable - until you finish the bottle. (322 views) | | | Tasted by jshufelt on 8/27/2023 & rated 92 points: Consistent with previous tasting notes. (559 views) | | | Tasted by mxpbuy on 12/4/2021 & rated 93 points: 1+ hour decant. A very interesting wine where 3% of white rhone grapes really punch through the black and red fruits, especially on the finish. 58 months of French Oak and an 15.7% alcohol are quite a combination. This bottle was not quite as good as my last, but I still love this California spin on Côte-Rôtie (although not the 98 Parker points level of love). (1948 views) | | | Tasted by TMacpherson on 10/3/2021 & rated 100 points: Everything we look for in a wine. Body, nose, color. All perfection. An incredibly special wine that took us completely by surprise (though we have ranked it highly earlier). Outstanding. (1634 views) | | | Tasted by derrington on 8/29/2021 & rated 98 points: Opened 8 hours before dinner, and decanted for 6 hours with a second decant right before dinner. Open and concentrated, great structure, deep color with no hint of fading, luscious black fruits, blackberries, currant, a hint of cedar in the background, graphite, tannin fully integrated, smooth with a sensation of sweetness, no alcohol heat at all. At least 10 more years of life ahead of it. My first bottle of the vintage, and I will wait several years before the next one. (1600 views) | | | Tasted by Quiet Lion on 6/11/2021 & rated 92 points: Pop and pour. This wine is a firestorm of black fruit and rustic tannins. Very enjoyable if you like the style. (1876 views) | | | Tasted by jshufelt on 11/3/2020 & rated 91 points: Consistent with previous tasting notes. (2096 views) | | | Tasted by mxpbuy on 10/17/2020 & rated 94 points: 2 hour decant. Even after 2 hours the wine came out as though it were grenache-based, which loads of spice and some red fruits. 30 minutes later the overripe black fruits too over with the spice not quite as dominant and the white grapes appearing on the finish. I would have expected more vanilla notes for 58 months in French Oak barrels, but that is Ok. The 15.7% alcohol was clearly present but a blind guess would have been 1.5% less as it did not come across as being that hot. (1320 views) | | | Tasted by SteveG on 10/15/2019 & rated 88 points: A nice example of what it is, ripe and slightly alcoholic syrah/Rhone blend, so not precisely to my taste but still very well done. (3011 views) | | | Tasted by jshufelt on 7/7/2019 & rated 93 points: This wine is a shapeshifter. After 15 years, it now seems to have morphed into a young Rhone ranger again, with ample blackberry, and hints of cedar, but with none of the astringency I sometimes get from these wines when they've passed their prime. Where is this going from here? I have no idea, but it's going to be fun to find out... (2081 views) | | | Tasted by mjf@ulkner on 4/14/2019 & rated 93 points: Inky black. Full bodied. Plenty of savory bacon and smoke laced notes. Black fruits like currant and blackberry dominate. Plenty of tannins remain on the long finish. Terrific tonight, still has room to improve in bottle. (2145 views) | | | Tasted by pjhr on 3/15/2019 & rated 94 points: Finally the wine has opened up and is singing! Wonderful layers of blackberry, pepper and spice on the nose and palate with delectable savory notes on the long finish. (1824 views) | | | Tasted by dutradan@msn.com on 2/23/2019 & rated 92 points: Holding its own, Was very enjoyable Was worried but the fruit was still there (1820 views) | | | Tasted by dougie on 8/18/2018 & rated 93 points: Went from rustic, to more fruity and then back to rustic. Nice! Many years to go. (2371 views) | | | Tasted by markcic on 5/27/2017 & rated 95 points: The final bottle of the dinner and the hit of the evening. It has been over a year and a half since I last opened a bottle and it has gotten better. Opened 5 hours before dinner and then poured though a vintorio. Dark fruit on the nose, berries, plums and spices on the palate and long smooth lingering finish. I am happy to have a few left. (5300 views) | | | Tasted by G_H on 5/7/2017 & rated 91 points: Staying at the maturiy plateau. Still very nice, but at the moment the acidity is a bit too dominant to merit a higher score. (3951 views) | | | Tasted by jshufelt on 4/14/2017 & rated 90 points: More or less consistent with our previous tasting notes, but less complex and lush than those notes suggest. Need to pop another one soon and see where we are... (3956 views) | | | Tasted by Quiet Lion on 11/24/2016 & rated 94 points: Deep, elegant wine that kept improving over two hours. I would guess this will improve further with age. (4700 views) | | | Tasted by dougie on 3/16/2016 & rated 93 points: Still a monster of a wine. Complex without being jammy. Wait at least 5 years for last one. (6325 views) | | | Tasted by markcic on 11/26/2015 & rated 94 points: Amazing wine, slow ox'd for 6 hours, dark fruit on the nose, the palate is alive with dark berries and spices, the long lush full lingering finish. (4150 views) | | | Tasted by markcic on 8/27/2015 & rated 94 points: I decanted through a vinturi and let sit for three hours. Dark fruit on the nose, the palate was dark berries, plums, a touch of spice. A long finish which let a lush feeling in your mouth. (4320 views) | | | Tasted by Vinobruin on 8/7/2015 & rated 88 points: very disappointed - nothing - this may be past its prime - no clue - color was fine but no aroma no flavor (4300 views) | | | Tasted by Rubinstein on 7/20/2015 & rated 94 points: Delicious (3641 views) | | | Tasted by pjhr on 6/25/2015 & rated 92 points: Wonderful blackberry, pepper and spice on the nose and palate with chewy tannins on the long finish. Ha evolved much in the 5 years since the last bottle. (2524 views) | | | Tasted by ParisWino on 4/25/2015 & rated 90 points: On the first night I PnP'd this and it was fairly monolithic, all blackberry juice (not liqueur -- this wine is dense and has plenty of fruit but it is not over-extracted syrup by any stretch) with some notes of prunes. As of the second night this wine has opened up considerably more; blackberry still predominates on the nose but there is also some smokey complexity and a bit of pruniness. Retains prominent acidity and some tannins with (seemingly, at least) no residual sugar; the 15.7% ABV is also hidden by the blackberry-pruney fruit and does not impart any sense of viscosity or sweetness. I would peg this as Northern Rhone, not California. Still, for what this cost, I was a bit disappointed, as it was lacking the complexity I had hoped to find. I opened the first of my three bottles five years ago and it was way too young and primary; I will open the third and final bottle at least five years hence with fingers crossed. (2733 views) | | | Only displaying the 25 most recent notes - click to see all notes for this wine... |
| Agharta Wines Producer website
Bottled by Pax Mahle Wines.2004 Agharta Wines Black Label2004 Agharta
Evolved aromas of roasted earth, dried leather and meat jus immediately emerge from the surface of this opaque liquid. Eventually fruit aromas respond to your coaxing and tiny currants, the ripest blackberries and the densest of blue fruits fill out the darker more evolved aromas of leather and tar. The wine is thick and immediately mouth coating with a very richly textured and immensely concentrated sensation of fruit and spice. The secondary aromas of delicate white flowers, black summer truffles and dark roasted coffee highlight the fruit as the wine unfolds in your mouth. This wine isn’t noticeably oaky or excruciatingly tannic or seemingly sweet, it is just all kind of ‘there’ composed and finely knit together in a very decadent glass of wine.
Winery note:
If you are reading this invitation, you have been chosen to enter the surreal realm that is Agharta.
Agharta is a unique group of wines that by the time they reach your table will have been aged in French Oak barrels for extended lengths of time. Quite obviously this project has been in the making for many years now and has been called almost as many names.
Originally the 2004 Agharta that we are offering for purchase today was meant to be a continuation of a wine that I made in 2002 & 2003, called Pangea. The first two vintages of that wine were such a tremendous success, the next installment needed to make a statement. After discussions with many people that have been influential to me, and my wine-making, I came to the conclusion that extended barrel aging would accomplish my goal. I was convinced that the 2004 vintage had delivered the goods, so I selected the most textured and complete barrels and all I had to do was wait...and wait I did...the 2004 Agharta ended up spending 58 months in barrel.
Throughout the years many visitors to the winery were given a taste of this wine. Word spread and eventually, to my surprise, the rumor of this elixir started to exist in underground circles. Based purely on the word of mouth accounts of friends, colleagues and customers that had tasted it, this wine developed a following before it really even existed. And it almost didn’t…
My working title for this wine had always been C36 or Cuvee 36, meaning I was going to age the wine in barrel for a minimum of 36 months. Due to the risky nature of this process and the open-ended and undetermined length of elevage, it seemed best to keep it a secret. Another safeguard was to select a diverse selection of barrels from as many different parcels as possible and to select more barrels than I may eventually need. This would offer greater flexibility in building the final blend, assuming that we may ‘lose’ a percentage of the barrels to spoilage along the way. Interestingly the barrels from Alder Springs Vineyard proved to be the most captivating. These barrels also proved to remain the freshest and Alder Springs will continue for that very reason to be the primary source of grapes for this project for the foreseeable future.
The twisting plot that was the evolution of this project started to remind me of a piece of music history that I was very fond of. Miles Davis, the man who epitomized cool, recorded two of his most controversial and to many of us his greatest ever recorded live performances of modern jazz. They just happened to take place on the very same day, February 1, 1975 in Osaka, Japan. Pangaea was the big event which was recorded and released by a major record label, but it was a rarely heard daytime performance that the people in the know raved about. Eventually word spread about this performance that had apparently captured the band before the travel, illnesses and overindulgences had caught up with them later that evening. This ‘underground’ recording was nicknamed Agharta by Miles in reference to the mythical subterranean society that welcomed only the enlightened few to enter its magical realm. Agharta the recording was eventually released, and boy was it worth the wait.
According to legend, Agharta is an underground network of colonies illuminated by a smoky central sun. The hidden entrances are said to be under mountains, at the bottom of deep lakes and in the center of vast deserts. The capital city of Shamballa, or 'place of peace', is said to have hills of gold and rivers that flow with wine. I thought that this great little story was just crazy enough for these just crazy enough wines.
Syrah Varietal article (Wikipedia) | (Wines Northwest)
Note that some producers in the Northern Rhone distinguish between simply Syrah and "Serine", the latter described as ‘an ancient clone of Syrah, the berries of which are more oval-shaped and less deeply pigmented than Syrah’ by producer Tardieu-Laurent. USAAmerican wine has been produced since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in New Mexico in 1628. Today, wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84% of all U.S. wine. The continent of North America is home to several native species of grape, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis riparia, Vitis rotundifolia, and Vitis vulpina, but the wine-making industry is based almost entirely on the cultivation of the European Vitis vinifera, which was introduced by European settlers. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France.California2021 vintage: "Unlike almost all other areas of the state, the Russian River Valley had higher than normal crops in 2021, which has made for a wine of greater generosity and fruit forwardness than some of its stablemates." - Morgan Twain-Peterson North CoastThe North Coast American Viticultural Area (AVA) in California, covering more than three million acres, includes Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake counties, and portions of Marin and Solano counties. (see The Wine Institute for more information)North CoastLodi |
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