Hartford Tasting with Don Hartford

Bin 75
Tasted Wednesday, April 23, 2014 by Rezy13 with 356 views

Flight 1 - Whites (3 Notes)

The wines progressively got better which I believe was due to the extra year in bottle. All very respectable. If you like Aubert you may want to take a look at these.

  • 2012 Hartford / Hartford Court Chardonnay Four Hearts Vineyards

    USA, California, Sonoma County, Russian River Valley

    A little shy on the nose initially, gave the overall impression of a well crafted Burgundian styled Chardonnay with nice acidity and oak treatment, but I would suggest giving this youngster a couple years in the cellar. Revisiting the wine after being opened for several hours the wine had filled out and showed more lemon which I really enjoyed.

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  • 2011 Hartford / Hartford Court Chardonnay Stone Côte Vineyard

    USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast

    Power was the characteristic of the Stone Côte with a firmer structure, riper fruit, more leesiness, but still enough acidity to keep this muscular Chardonnay balanced and a great cellar candidate.

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  • 2010 Hartford / Hartford Court Chardonnay Fog Dance Vineyard

    USA, California, Sonoma County, Green Valley of Russian River Valley

    My favorite white and almost my favorite wine of the tasting the nose was the most delineated (probably because it had the most bottle age) with obvious minerality, citrus, lemon and kumquat, a hint of butterscotch, with a fresh and more regal mouthfeel; overall a very classy wine with still many years ahead of it in the cellar.

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Flight 2 - Reds (4 Notes)

The reds also got better with each new one. After tasting the 3 pinots the Zin tasted quite a bit like a restrained and proper Zin in my opinion, but I'm sure in a lineup of other CA Zins this may be overshadowed by jammy monsters.

  • 2012 Hartford / Hartford Court Pinot Noir Land's Edge Vineyards

    USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast

    Like the 2012 Chardonnay I found this to be a little young and not as expressive as you'd like. The fresh sour cherry and restrained ripeness was appealing but the alcohol stood out a bit on this bottle. Would like to re-taste in a year.

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  • 2011 Hartford / Hartford Court Pinot Noir Fog Dance Vineyard

    USA, California, Sonoma County, Green Valley of Russian River Valley

    A darker cherry, sweet spice, and plumper profile this did have depth that should more complexity with a couple years of bottle age or consume now for a more hedonistic treat.

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  • 2010 Hartford / Hartford Court Pinot Noir Far Coast Vineyard

    USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast

    A very tasty wine showing added complexity and more pleasing structure and balance, ripe cranberry, dark cherry, spice, ripeness in check and good acid, black tea like tannin grip is very pleasant, alcohol is only slightly elevated, obviously Cali Pinot but no candy, very serious stuff.

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  • 2011 Hartford / Hartford Court Old Vine Zinfandel Highwire Vineyard

    USA, California, Sonoma County, Russian River Valley

    My favorite from the tasting. Had the RRV Zin from them recently and was expecting this to be very feminine and soft like that one. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this wine had some claws, very gentle claws, but I liked the structure very much. Tart berry fruit in the darker red to darker end of the spectrum with subtle bramble and smoke notes. The mid-palate from these 100+ year old vines was very respectable along with the 15.5% alcohol that was invisible. Really well done. May need to get some of this.

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Closing

A very nice tasting.

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