This has a striking resemblance to Marcassin. Nose of orange marmalade, hazelnut, marshmallow and wet stone. Flavors of mango, papaya, lemon meringue and some mineral thrown in. Ends with a beautiful 40 second finish. First time having Ferren and really impressed. Even better than the Arista Chard's I tried in Cali in August. What a way to start off a tasting.

Wow what a wine! My wine of the night! This had such an awesome nose of smoke, honeysuckle, pineapple and mineral. Really quite unique. Reminds me of a le meal I had a while back. Flavors of melon, star fruit, saline, sea salt and tangerine. The finish is like a wall of flavors that never seems to let up, lasting at least 50 seconds. This is truly some impressive stuff.

Impressive showing for this wine. Nose of mulberry, wild cherry, boysenberry and brown sugar. Led to flavors of cherry, strawberry, some root beer and touch of earth. Ends with a 35 second finish. I do enjoy these wines but the barrier to entry for me is the price. This would be a nice alternative to the Kosta Browne wines, which use to be a very full throttle style but switching to appeal to the In Pursuit of Balance crowd.

This wine, to me, clearly saw better days. Nose of mushroom, earth, touch of dried cherry and funk. Simple flavors of dried cherry and earth. Ends with a rather short finish. Not sure how this was stored but to me this wine but this probably should have been drunk a few years ago in my opinion.

Decanted for 90 minutes. Another strong showing for this wine. Nose of cranberry, cherry, mint and a touch of earth. Flavors of cherry, cranberry, earth and raspberry. Ends with a 30 second finish with cherry notes.

This was my favorite Pinot Noir on the night. Nose of game, dried cherry, mushroom and soy sauce. This led to flavors of cherry, soy sauce, mushroom and earth. Ends with a 35 second finish. This had some uniqueness to it. Kind of tough to characterize this as either new world or old world. Whatever was, it was working for me.

This was a fabulous wine. Nose of tomato leaf, cherry, plum and currant. The palate reveals flavors of cherry, plum, blackberry and a touch of earth. Ends with a 45 second finish of plum and cherry. I could smell this all day. Just an outstanding Merlot. Perhaps the best I have ever had from Napa Valley.

Oldest wine of the night. Nose of mushroom, wet leaves and funk. Flavors of mushroom, iodine and some cherry hanging on. Ends with a 25 second finish. Like the Thomas, this has seen better days. Perhaps if I had these two without the context of the other wines I would have formed a better opinion but these were outclassed by the other Pinots at the dinner.