Community Tasting Note

• mflesh wrote: 94 points

  February 7, 2018 - This has to be one of the worst QPR wines I've ever had. But, I am rating the WINE here. Poured from Coravin and let sit for about an hour. I will tell you that I was excited initially, as the nose of this wine overpowered the grass fed beef burgers that were just cooked about 2 feet away from where the wine was being poured. DENSE blackberry and vanilla rolling out of the glass. The entry of this wine is silky, but also has that gritty Napa youthfulness. POWER. Fruit forward monster, ripe blackberry, graphite, mineral and spice rich middle with cherry blossom and finish with a very deep, dark core of blackberry, black pepper spice. The finish is where chocolate covered blackberries and minty notes come out, but the wine was still rather tannic. I blind tasted my wife on this one who guessed that it was a '13 William Harrison cab (vineyard is only 2 miles away as the crow flies, although Hall's is elevated 750 feet).

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9 Comments

• JEP007 commented:

  2/7/18, 8:45 PM - Haven't popped mine yet so I appreciate you taking one for the team and reporting. It's rare to find a high quality valley floor cab from 2013 ready to drink at the moment. Most of the ones I've tried have been sacrifices on impatient whims. On a side note, I recently had a 2015 Realm Bard, which ranks on my list as the worst QPR I've had in awhile. It always sucks when expectations are high and the elements are there, but the results don't deliver, like two plus two equaling...fish.

• mflesh commented:

  2/7/18, 9:02 PM - Yeah, I did take that into account for sure, as I know that these Hall cabs are just very tight. I gave it an hour of air and it did definitely wake up and most certainly came out of its unidimensional clothing. Taking "QPR" into account I would have given this wine a 91, but rating just the wine it was a solid 95, and if I could rate it a "95-96+" that's probably what I would have given it, but CT freaks out if I try to put that into the rating bar :)

• JEP007 commented:

  2/7/18, 9:14 PM - I agree, CT users (I'm guilty) get hurt when potential is not included in the rating. If I hadn't included potential, the last 2013 Plumpjack Reserve I had (100RP) would have been received a whopping 91pt review. That baby was so wound up, a ceremonial sacrifice was needed.

• mflesh commented:

  2/7/18, 9:22 PM - Yes, and many times for that reason I just don't put a number at all. However this one I was fairly certain I knew where it was going. And I still think it will definitely improve as it integrates over the next 5 to 10 years. I just don't see it going to 98 like some people rated it!

• T.O.Wineaux commented:

  2/8/18, 11:53 AM - Hi MFLESH - Just out of curiosity...you rate this wine a 95 with a potential of 96+ in one of your comments but also state is "one of the worst QPR wines you've ever had". I'm thinking retail for this wine is about $140....what would you expect a 95 pt wine to cost? 95 to 96+ is pretty high from my perspective...

• mflesh commented:

  2/8/18, 11:57 AM - There are plenty of 95 pointers in my opinion that are sub 125. Heck, sub 100 for that matter.

• TXRDW commented:

  2/9/18, 2:44 PM - Great comment mflesh on the KH QPR. I made a similar obsevation last August. My issue was how effective Hall was at hyping their wines, in this case based on heavily marketing a 98-100 RP barrel tasting score compared to the final product. Had the wine matched the hype, $140 would have been a great QPR. I also agree that this wine is a solid 95, just not the QPR it would have been had it ended up a 98-100 pt wine.

• mflesh commented:

  2/9/18, 2:53 PM - WELL SAID TXRDW. Spot on.

• mflesh commented:

  2/10/18, 8:58 AM - Updated rating to 9.4 as, after thinking about it again I just can't see 9.5 at this time. Finished this one last night (finally popped the cork after using Coravin for the first few and letting the glasses sit and breathe). My final takeaway is that this wine hopefully wasn't on its A-game and has quite a bit more growing to do in the bottle. Unfortunately my price was closer to 170 on this wine. I am going to let the other one sit......for 5 years.

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