Community Tasting Note

• AGELVIS Likes this wine: 93 points

  February 27, 2024 - 90-minute decant. Ultra deep, bright magenta color. Black cherry, blueberry, powdered sugar, buttercup, and subtle basil. Dry, plush, medium bodied palate. Firm, full tannins on the medium long+ finish.
  
  This is my first experience with Vine Hill Ranch’s “second label”. It’s better than I expected, but certainly not in the same league with its big brother. The decant helped quite a bit.

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16 Comments

• Mark1npt commented:

  2/28/24, 6:08 AM - Sounds like yours was similar to my (very decent) experience last year.....I have one left I may try soon.

• AGELVIS commented:

  2/28/24, 6:30 AM - It’s perfectly solid, although nothing to shout from the mountain tops.

• Franken Berry commented:

  2/28/24, 9:46 AM - Is this good to go, or would you suggest waiting. I tried one a year ago, wasn't blown away, given some of the Pro reviews

• AGELVIS commented:

  2/28/24, 10:01 AM - This will never blow you away, but it’s ready to go now (with a two hour decant). I doubt it’s going to get much better. It’s an afterthought, but from a good winemaker, so it is what it is.

• #1Winelover commented:

  2/28/24, 11:41 AM - FB - I agree with AG's comment. You might as well try another bottle now.

• Asull2k commented:

  2/28/24, 11:55 AM - Agree, definitely nowhere near same ballpark as the VHR. I was quite irritated at the performance for price of this one honestly

• wren460 commented:

  2/28/24, 2:13 PM - Ok ok ok, we should not compare VHR with Baker and Hamilton ! The same way we cannot compare a Mercedes S class to a C class. Backer is extremely solid and MAYBE we are paying 20% extra for the name, but it is nowhere near a $70 Napa cab neither a $200 bottle. I think the problem is that we are all comparing it to a master wine called VHR and obviously it is not a fair comparison. I love the wine and have 11 more in the cellar. It is not a Materium, a VHR, or a Myriad Elysian, but it is a FAR better wine than many $100 cabs out there.

• Mark1npt commented:

  2/28/24, 3:20 PM - Asull, I agree....for its price there are a few others that beat it, however, we don't yet know if this will improve further in the next 2-3 years?

• Mark1npt commented:

  2/28/24, 3:23 PM - wren, I did get some VHR-like nose off my last bottle in July '23. I am not a hater on this, but I would have been more impressed with it had it been in the $75-85 range. I am still thinking this may gain a point or two with some short term aging of another year or two.

• wren460 commented:

  2/28/24, 4:00 PM - For $80 there is Caymus ! I think we are forgeting that wines went up in price at least 25% this last couple of years. If it was 2019 I would have guessed that Baker was $80 or so, but even supermarket mediocre wines like Faust are now $60

• Mark1npt commented:

  2/28/24, 4:19 PM - Lol, I can't buy Caymus or Faust....Baker & Hamilton is way better than that (it's actually REAL wine!), but still should not cost what it does, IMO.

• Asull2k commented:

  2/28/24, 9:06 PM - 100% agree. Definitely not happy with the inflation especially with Napa wines but I suspect maybe there will be a correction at some point (after the 2023’s arrive?) considering how poorly this industry is marketing to Gen Z. Sure this wine may improve with age but there are quite a few others I think are much better QPR from Napa, Bordeaux, Tuscany, and Chile

• Mark1npt commented:

  2/29/24, 9:01 AM - 100% agree.

• sfwinelover1 commented:

  4/30/24, 8:51 AM - Having just done a tasting at the winery that included the ‘21, I’m in complete agreement with Mark and AG that 1) this is a perfectly decent wine (when I write my TN, it will be a 92+, since I’m often a bit inflationary compared to others, 2) there are much better wines at the price (I’m not going to go into a long laundry list here, but if the price hasn’t gone up in the past year and a half since my tasting and you’re in the market for a “second” cab, I’d nominate the Arrow & Branch “Black Label”), and 3) none of those better wines include Caymus or Faust. Cheers to all!

• Mark1npt commented:

  4/30/24, 9:00 AM - sf, one bottle of this I had, I actually gave a 94, to.....I think I just caught it at it's best possible point, that particular day. Next bottle was a 91-92 for me. I have one left to try soon. I don't think these will get much better with long term storage but who knows? If I had extras I might would hold 1-2 back just to see. Cheers!

• sfwinelover1 commented:

  4/30/24, 9:14 AM - Mark: I express my views on this and the ‘22 flagship with more than the usual reserve and humility. My usual wine drinking is having one bottle of wine open, a glass before dinner with snacks, a glass with dinner. On this day, there was so much wine, including 3 truly great bottles (the ‘21 VHR, the ‘19 Harlan and the ‘16 Morlet CdC) by this time and by starting with that ‘21, we seemed to be drinking the wines in descending order of desirability so that I’m not sure my palate was as sharp as it would usually be (or at least I’d like to think it would be). I had my notes from the tasting before I wrote my TN for the ‘21 of this, but perhaps reading others’ TNs for the ‘19 was a case of bias confirmation, even though I’ve been known to buck the CT echo chamber? Anyway, if someone has one of these open in the future and I can drink with less noise, I’d find it interesting to see if I came to the same conclusion, but I’m not going to do that $125 experiment on my own.

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