| Wine Type | Vintage Name Variety Locale | Date Posted Score Helpful Comments More... |
|---|---|---|
| White |
2008 Domaine William Fèvre ChablisChardonnay more |
9/22/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRWine Spectator Smart Buy recommendation. WS liked it more than I did. Very much a food wine. We had it because we just wanted a glass of white wine - at least for us, just not that kind of wine. Very pale color. Very mineral nose and taste. Lots of acid and minerals on the palate. Some lemon lime and a little bit of flowers and some green apple. Nice long finish. Would be just perfect with seafood or a mushroom cream soup. If we had tasted the wine with fish I would probably be talking about how a low end Chablis is just the perfect wine for a throw together fish dinner on Wednesday night. |
| Red |
2005 Cadence Ciel du Cheval VineyardRed Mountain Red Bordeaux Blend more |
9/22/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRThis bottle was just a little off. Not off enough to be bad, but off enough so that the wow was not there. |
| Red |
2005 Eric Kent Wine Cellars Syrah Dry Creek Valleymore |
9/22/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NROne hour decant. Faintly hot when we started drinking, which was gone by the end of the meal. Rich, with herbs and leather. Probably was a fruit bomb 3 years ago, but now just rich and fat. Nice nose of leather and some black fruit. Hang around finish. Clearly Syrah, no way to mistake it for something else. VG to Excellent bottle of wine. |
| Red |
2007 Windy Oaks Estate Pinot Noir 100% Whole Cluster Schultze Family VineyardSanta Cruz Mountains more |
8/24/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRAs Burgundian as I can imagine a California Pinot Noir every being. Very nice bottle of wine. |
| Red |
2008 Colterenzio Schreckbichl Pinot NeroAlto Adige - Südtirol more |
8/24/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRBought on a whim. |
| White |
2008 Abbazia di Novacella (Stiftskellerei Neustift) KernerValle Isarco / Eisacktaler more |
7/20/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRIn 1964 the Saturday Evening Post put Carolyn Hester on its cover. For those of you not nodding in recognition, Carolyn Hester was one of the preeminent folk singers of the early 1960s. So well respected was Hester that both Buddy Holly and Bob Dylan recorded with her. Then the British came, Dylan went electric at Newport in 1965, the world changed and very few people today recognize Hester’s name. I am sure that there are thousands of wineries world wide that have had a similar fate, in that they are not as well recognized today as they once were. |
| White |
2008 Laura Volkman Chardonnay Bella Celilo VineyardColumbia Gorge more |
7/17/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRAn outside on the porch or sit down with left overs kind of Chardonnay. A mix of stainless steel fermentation and oak barrel fermentation. Popped and poured. Light, crisp, green apple aroma. Medium bodied. No obvious faults. The best attribute of the wine is how well it is put together, nothing out of whack. Green apple and vanilla in the taste. Enough acid to be pleasant. |
| Red |
2004 Cornerstone Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountainmore |
7/17/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRFedric Koeppel, in his July 3rd entry on his Bigger Than Your Head blog, went all Alice-Feiring-nuclear on the “international style” of cabernet. To wit, “I’m so tired of this crapola. I just want to pour out these damned wines. I’m tired of interchangeable cabernet-based wines that could have been made in Napa or Sonoma, Tuscany or Peidmont, Barossa or Coonawara, Rapel or Mendoza or Walla Walla because they all look and smell and taste and feel the same. Lord, I’m so weary of carefull-calibrated, committe-made cabernets that the toe the line of all the popular, 95-point conventions and cliches.” |
| White |
2006 Longoria Chardonnay Cuvée DianaSta. Rita Hills more |
7/17/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRReally, hasn’t Burgundy answered the question of how much you should oak Chardonnay pretty conclusively over the last 100 years. Just because we are the New World do we have to have this debate again. Also, I just don’t care that the Wine Enthusiast scored this sucker 92. This wine was so over oaked that it was pretty much undrinkable. Better the second day, but that is not saying much. Going to retry in about 5 years. I am thinking it has enough oak that it will easily last a decade. Five years from today I think it might be okay. |
| White |
2006 Shafer Chardonnay Red Shoulder RanchCarneros more |
7/1/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRDespite the easy criticism of the publication, I really like the Wine Spectator and look forward to each issue. In the latest issue (July 31, 2009) and in what has to be the most ironic column of his entire career, Matt Kramer asks use to look beyond the hype that goes with marketing wine and instead to focus on wines of substance, to focus on wines without the hype. Hello, McFly, anybody home - Mr. Kramer apparently you overlooked the obvious, but the primary goal of the Spectator is to hype wine. |
| Red |
2002 Hewitson Shiraz The Mad HatterMcLaren Vale more |
6/28/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRWhile not as absolute as the Third Law of Thermodynamics, it is certainly an axiom that child stars often end up badly. Take Lindsay Lohan for example, some time between The Parent Trap (1998) and Mean Girls (2004) she clearly “jumped the shark” and it has pretty much been downhill since then. |
| Red |
2007 Laura Volkman Pinot Noir St. James EstateChehalem Mountains more |
6/28/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NROliver Stone is out with a new movie, “South of the Border”, about Hugo Chavez. As with all of his movies, Stone takes factual events and manipulates them, oft times with small regard for the facts. That was and is fine for his other movies, which were clearly stories. However, “South of the Border” is suppose to be a documentary. A problem which lead Entertainment Weekly to call the film, “rose-colored agitprop”. While this is hardly an original thought, it occurs to me that wine should be a documentary of grape, place, season, and style. Once a vintner has started to mechanical manipulate the wine, then a point is reached where the wine ceases to be a statement and becomes rose-colored agitprop, with no more adherence to the truth than Stone’s film. |
| Red |
2002 Havens Wine Cellars Black and BlueNapa Valley Red Blend more |
6/26/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRSince I first drank this wine, two and half years ago, my taste in wine has changed and I have become less reticent to blast wines that I don't like. With that preamble, here is what I now think of this wine. |
| White |
2007 Windy Oaks Estate Chardonnay One Acre Schultze Family VineyardSanta Cruz Mountains more |
6/21/2010 - NPWolfe wrote: NRNot that anyone should have noticed - but I have taken an extended leave from writing wine reviews. (I will admit that a vanity on my part admits it would have been nice if someone had noticed, but that has no bearing on the actual absence.) I would like to say that there was some deep significance to my absence, that I was off on exploration of the anosognosic’s dilemma. But, the reality is far more mundane - circumstances just got in the way. Hopefully the desire has been rekindled to both keep track of the cellar (which is a mess) and to report on the wines I drink. Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comments (1) |
| Red |
2003 Sebastiani Vineyards & Winery SecoloSonoma County Red Bordeaux Blend more |
9/22/2009 - NPWolfe wrote: 88 points“We all have opinions. We all have palates. It helps to have experience even though experience does not equate to universality of viewpoint. Dan Berger is a good case in point. I love the guy, but I would no more let him choose my wines than I would let Cellar Tracker. Cellar Tracker? Please." Charlie Olken (editor of Connoisseurs’ Guide to California Wine) in a reply to a blog entry on Tom Wark’s Fermentation Blog, August 7, 2009 |
| White |
2007 Windy Oaks Estate Chardonnay One Acre Schultze Family VineyardSanta Cruz Mountains more |
9/15/2009 - NPWolfe wrote: flawed“Quantity has a quality all its own” |
| Red |
2003 Bodegas Bianchi Malbec Famiglia BianchiSan Rafael more |
9/13/2009 - NPWolfe wrote: 84 pointsThe Sunday New York Times arrived today, in roughly 2 or so pounds of glory. Included in this weeks edition was the New York Times Style Magazine, a 100 pages dedicated to stylish and conspicuous consumption. If restraint is the new style, you would not know that by this edition. I know that there are those who really care about fashion, otherwise this insert would not exist. However, I am glad that in the wine world I have never run across someone who does not enjoy a glass of well crafted wine, regardless of cost or providence. |
| Red |
2004 Buehler Vineyards Cabernet SauvignonNapa Valley more |
9/10/2009 - NPWolfe wrote: 88 pointsThree additional signs that the wine recession continues unabated. First, Wine Spectator reviewed a wine cube in the latest issue, don’t think they have ever done that before. Second, I was admitted to the Quilceda Creek mailing list after an absurdly short wait. Third, I received a “special” email offering of a well respected Napa Cab of a recent vintage at half off. Seems like cheaper prices will continue for awhile longer. |
| White |
2007 Martín Códax Albariño Rías Baixasmore |
9/5/2009 - NPWolfe wrote: 75 pointsPretty crystal color. Grapefruit and lime trying to sneak out in the nose, but were overpowered by an industrial chemical factory smell. Good overall mouth feel and structure. Typical Albarino flavors that were covered by tastes from a dentist office. Mushy finish that was trying to be crisp. I read a professional review of the wine that went on for a thousand words about how this was a nice wine. Maybe he got a special bottle. The wine suffered from the same complaint that I have about many high volume wines. It smelled and tasted of an industrial manufacturing process. |
| Red |
2005 Le Cadeau Pinot Noir DiversiteWillamette Valley more |
8/31/2009 - NPWolfe wrote: 84 pointsIt is hard to let the 40th anniversary of Woodstock pass without somehow working something from that period into a wine tasting note. One of minor figures of that period was Ivan Illich, who rose to his highest level of prominence with the publication in 1971 of “Deschooling Society”. His thesis was that the institutionalized education was ineffectual. His solution was the creation of “…educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring.” With an amazing prescience, for 1971, he described the social networking of the Internet. “The operation of a peer-matching network would be simple. The user would identify himself by name and address and describe the activity for which he sought a peer. A computer would send him back the names and address of all those who had inserted the same description.” Were Illich alive today I think he would find CellarTracker an application of the ideas that he was proscribing. |
| White |
2005 Ridge Chardonnay Home RanchSanta Cruz Mountains more |
8/25/2009 - NPWolfe wrote: 88 points“This collection is a wonderful reminder that good writing is not about knowing words, grammar or Faulkner, but having that rare ability to tell the truth, an ability that education and sophistication often serve to conceal.” |
| Red |
1975 Château La CabannePomerol Red Bordeaux Blend more |
8/19/2009 - NPWolfe wrote: NRWhy is it that Vermeer is Vermeer, an artist know to almost everyone, and not (for an example) Dirk van Baburen, an artist know to only the art literati? In the 17th century the artists in the Netherlands produced some 5 million works. Vermeer’s total output was some 35 paintings and he was not very well known during his life. So, how is it that this painter of such few works arose to such prominence in a vast sea of millions of paintings? As in all such circumstances it is the combination of the influence of taste arbitrators, the power of vested economic interests, the taste in fashion of the current age, and real quality. Those four factors are at work today in the wine industry where the taste arbitrators (Parker, Wine Spectator, the 1855 Bordeaux Classification), the vested economic interests (wine importers, wine wholesalers, wine critics), taste fashions (the international style) and real quality (California actually makes good wine) all shape not only what we drink, but also shape what we think is good. In order to comprehend how disruptive CellarTracker will eventually become in regards to what is acknowledged as good wine, one only has to recognized that free access to tasting notes, the largest database of tasting notes, and the continuous series of notes about each individual wine over time, will ultimately result in the users of CellarTracker becoming the wine world’s primary taste arbitrators. I doubt Eric set out to start a revolution, but that is what he created. |
| White |
2005 Domaine William Fèvre Chablis 1er Cru MontmainsChardonnay more |
8/11/2009 - NPWolfe wrote: 90 points“When I say that beauty has been banished, I do not mean that beautiful things have themselves been banished … I mean something much more modest: that conversation about the beauty of these things has been banished … (we) speak about their beauty only in whispers.” |
| Red |
2005 Les Cailloux (Lucien et André Brunel) Châteauneuf-du-PapeRed Rhone Blend more |
8/9/2009 - NPWolfe wrote: 91 points“How many times have you read a concert review in the newspaper and found you have no idea what the reviewer is saying? “Her sustained appogiatura was flawed by an inability to complete the roulade” Or, “I can’t believe they modulated to C-sharp minor! How ridiculous!” What we really want to know is whether the music was performed in a way that moved the audience.” |
| White |
2005 Ridge Chardonnay Home RanchSanta Cruz Mountains more |
8/2/2009 - NPWolfe wrote: 83 pointsPerestroika is one of those words that I thought I knew the meaning of; that being the reform and opening up of the Soviet economy and Soviet society. So, I was surprised to learn that from a Russian viewpoint perestroika means restructuring and in most cases wretched change. Given the number of emails that I am receiving from both wine retailers and wine producers about sales it looks like the wine industry is currently undergoing its own perestroika. I suppose that restructuring and wretched change has been part of the wine business for forever. But when you see email merchants letting good wines go for half price you know that times are hard. |
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- Tasting notes: 259 notes on 176 wines
