On a night that included some really great wines, this ended up being my favorite. It's over half cab franc, so that also made it very different from the other offerings. The franc really comes through on the nose, with wonderful florally perfumed aromatics of white flowers and rose petals. This is full bodied, and initially the oak was a bit much for me. However, after a little swirling the dark cherry fruit started to peak out and melded perfectly with the cedar to make for an exceptional pallet profile. The tannins are nearly perfect - strong but unbelievably refined. It's tremendously fresh and has great energy to it, with new layers unfolding seemingly with each sip. Great balance, and I think this only gets better with time. The finish is very long. Really well done, and significantly better than the Cabernet.

This turned out to be my least favorite wine of the night, but it is certainly still a very good wine. Notes of plums, white flowers, blackberries, forest floor and a bit of smoked meat. Very firm on the pallet, and a bit more medium than fulled bodied. It doesn't quite seem to have the energetic and layered qualities of the Proprietary Red, but still pumps out a nice blend of blue/red fruit and mineral driven flavors. Lots of spicy elements show up here, with the acid cutting a bit more than I would ideally like. Nice 30 sec finish.

Tremendous nose on this wine. Lush valley floor notes of creme de cassis, black cherry, blackberries, spice box and some herbal earthy elements. Powerfully structured and fairly firm and linear, this is a nicely balanced wine without the super concentrated power you might expect from the Tench vineyard source. It is classic Melka, showing great elegance and has a terrific mouthfeel, with grainy but nicely refined tannins. A very long finish that is a bit clipped by acid at the moment. Lots of promise for this wine, but doesn't quite reach the upper echelon of the vintage for me. The QPR is also challenging at $375. That said, what a sweet looking bottle!

The Stones 2 is easily the most mineral driven and structurally robust of the stones wines; owing to it's Pritchard Hill roots. The nose here mixes blackberries and dark cherries with loamy earth and deeply mineral driven notes. This is full bodied and very firm, with tannins and structure for days. It presents strong black fruit with exotic spices and plenty of purity. Finishes very long, but needs some time to resolve and come together. This is an ager rather than an immediate gratification wine. Very nice effort.

As with the Stones 2, this wine is from elevation and it shows with lots of earth driven notes on the nose, combining with tobacco, spices and a bit of red cherry fruit. This is pretty killer stuff, with firm but approachable tannins, nicely layered red and blue fruit, lots of spice box and serious freshness and purity. Of the Fairchild wines I tasted, this was the longest on the finish. A real solid effort and relative to the price of Stones, a much better value.

Very similar to my last experience with this wine (note on 4/1/18). It was definitely the least "serious" of the group, but continued to get better and better as the night went on. It has that lovely black currant and wild berry nose, complemented by beautiful floral aromatics. It's more red than black/blue fruited, with well integrated, soft tannins and wonderful freshness. The finish isn't as long as the other Fairchild wines, but it is more resolved at the moment. This is the early drinker in the lineup.

This project is interesting. Hidden Ridge was purchased and they changed the name to Immortal. While I'm sure there will be investment, this vintage is essentially just the Hidden Ridge Impassable Mtn wine, with over a 100% markup. That makes it hard to stomach for me right off the bat. Going from $125 to $300 a bottle without any other changes seems like quite a gamble.

Tasted this wine next to great wines from Fairchild and Brand. You can immediately tell it's from the Sonoma side, just because it shows a much earthier profile. The nose hits you with deep mineral driven flavors and loamy soil, nicely combining with tobacco leaf and a hint of charcoal. This was the only 2014 in the group, and not surprisingly it was more up front and had a bit less stuffing than the others. It's nicely complex and has excellent quality of fruit, with great layering. The finish is long, but not nearly as long as the 2013 vintage. You can drink this now with a short decant.