Drank a good-sized glass over about 45 minutes. This champagne is so lively, crisp and fresh. There is bread dough, lemon, and some apple. Overall, the liveliness and intensity are impressive.

This wine is quite red fruited. There is evident pinot noir that offer cherry, raspberry and some orange peel. This wine is rich and earthy. I would love to try this in 5+ years. I wish I'd bought some on release.

I got a fair amount of oak on this initially, and then it blew off. You are then left with the spice and slight vanilla from the oak, along with lemon oil, tangerine, a touch of butterscotch, and a briny mineral quality that balances is out. I'm not familiar with this producer, but this bottle made me stand up and take notice.

Yet another example of why I love Aubert. There is flint, sulfur, married with golden raisin and tropical fruits. the intensity is profound. This is another example where an Aubert had me initially score it 93, then raise to 94, and finally landed at 95. And I wouldn't argue if you felt it merited a 96.

This was a pop and pour. On the nose, I got iodine, red fruit, plum, a tiny bit of funk, flowers, cassis, some leather and cigar box. The nose is just gangbusters. The palate started out hollow and austere. It managed to open up over an hour of glass time, but it never matched the nose.

This was the consensus red wine of the night, and a real treat.

As this was a "Cult wine" theme, we had discussion about what that meant. For this wine, we felt that it somewhat qualified due to James Bond et al having elevated this property to quasi-cult status. We also were all grateful to get to drink this, even if it didn't have cult status.

1 hour decant. For the 3 Napa wines tonight, this was the most integrated, with nice secondary characteristics. There also was a touch of bitterness that crept in later. I got lots of red to blue fruit, along with vanilla. It seemed slightly savory, with a feminine perfumed quality. I personally felt it was slightly behind the Schrader and the MacDonald.

Decanted 2 hours, I took a sip and got noticeable alcohol. So I let it sit in the glass for 30 minutes and the alcohol disappeared. I wrote "cocktail wine" for the Dana, the Schrader and the MacDonald. This wine was dense, jammy, with some brambly underbrush nuances that tried to keep it balanced. It also has a lot of "stuffing", the tannin is very present and I think a few more years will serve this wine well. There is also an extracted quality that makes this wine extraordinarily dense.
Blueberries, black currant, this was the classiest of the 3 Napa wines tonight.

Decanted for 8 hours. The dominating flavors are berries and a ton of vanilla. There is red fruit and dusty chocolate. The wine has an extracted, intense profile while still managing to be smooth. The term "slutty" comes to mind. There was no noticeable alcohol, and a whole lot of fruit. The 6 of us had a lengthy discussion about whether these wines will age gracefully, and we did not reach a consensus. Nonetheless, based on this wine, I will not open another MacDonald until it is at least 10 years old, preferably 15 or 20.

Keep in mind that this wine was the 10th of the night for the 6 of us, so I may be spitballing here. The expectation was high for this wine, and it had that Yquem quality in spades. I just don't know that it surpassed many of the other experiences I've had with this producer from less heralded vintages. In fact, a 2009 seemed much more compelling a few years ago. I'm going to chaulk this up to a crazy high expectation and already being underserved. (If you're keeping track, I'm explaining why I ONLY scored this a 97).

Onto the good stuff. Elegance on top of elegance, nothing out of place. What a glorious nose, it is singing to you. You have all the usual suspects from a Sauternes, orange peel, stone fruits, baking spice, brulee, burnt sugar, caramel. What is so fascinating about the best Sauternes producers (or those that got lucky in a good year) is how it is all seemlessly integrated that you have to work to hunt down a distinct flavor. Seemless... just not the best Sauternes I've ever had, which was my expectation.