Community Tasting Note

• MotoMannequin wrote:

  January 30, 2015 - ZAP Flights! 2015 presented with support from The Historic Vineyard Society (Four Seasons Hotel, San Francisco): Poured at the Zap Flights presentation by the Historic Vineyard Society including discussion with winemaker Charlie Tsegeletos. This was an interesting opportunity to taste Charlie's work at Cline next to Matt Cline's Three Wine Co. Matt left Cline and Charlie took over around 2002, which roughly coincides with the time I started losing interest in Cline.
  
  Color is medium/light ruby. Candied dark fruit on the nose, smells sweet and heavy. Palate is soft and round, raspberry/blackberry palate with little acidic lift. Some oak and some heat apparent on the finish. 15.0% ABV. According to Charlie Tsegeletos, the wine is a native yeast fermentation with no enzymes added, pressed off the skins slightly sweet, and bottled with no fining and no filtration, seeing all French Oak 35% new.
  
  With the slight sweetness, low acidity, and apparent oak, this wine seemed to speak less of Contra Costa and more to a flavor profile Cline is trying to hit, which I think is more mass-market and less wine-geek appeal. It's a perfectly tasty wine, but at $29.99 retail I think there is a lot of generic zin at lower price points that would compete. Just the same, I put this at #3/5 on the flight.

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