From magnum, but I forgot to take down the disgorgement. Brilliant showing, with tart citrus, chalkiness, and a good overall richness. Relatively brighter, and very well-integrated acids.

Really exotic nose, with a really pleasant juicy, floral tone, as well as some more wild spicy things. A fairly fresh palate with sufficiently bright acids to give this balance against some of the sweeter floral tones.

Probably the best edition of this since the monumental 2010. Very ripe and fleshy, but the sheer density and extract in this wine give this the needed counterweight to this otherwise rich and big-boned wine. As usual, the green notes of the grape have been mercifully obliterated here.

Pretty solid white Burgundy; not too reductive but a surprising peachiness here. Not too reductive nor stylized, seems to sit right in the middle of a lot of winemaking choices and ends up pretty enjoyable. Perhaps a little more extracted on the backend, where this shows a hint of bitterness.

#17-09, 8% abv. Corked.

Quite good, but next to a white Burgundy, the relatively riper California roots show here. This has a really nice breadth on the palate, but does come off a hint sweeter than I would have really liked. Nonetheless, there's good minerality and acidic drive.

For a few minutes, this was drinkable -- there was a note of those Taiwanese lychee jellies on the nose, followed by a high-toned spicy kick. Rich and heady, with lots of burn on the finish. But when I revisited this... perhaps the somm sitting next to me said it best: "I'd rather drink a glass of hair."

Sweet and sappy, with a surprisingly pleasant palate. This has definitely some of the lychee tones of the grape here, but it's not too sickly. The palate as expected has low acidity, but this is relatively balanced and still drinkable in small quantities.

Slightly cidery and sappy on the palate; there's a bit of a natty quality to this. Good minerality, but there's a bit of a hollowness on the midpalate that I don't love. The play with Ganevat, of course, is the domaine wines.

Beautiful, elegantly perfumed nebbiolo from the get-go. Lighter on the nose and palate, with a bit of a floral thing, and some pretty potent acids still. The one strike here is a bit of metallic tinniness on the finish, but it's forgivable in a wine this old; this has certainly held up better than most.

Definitely preferred this to the Napa version because this honestly tastes a lot less like the stereotypical sauvignon blanc. There's a gummy candy juiciness on the nose here, with a really happy, bubbly disposition. Not too green, and also good breadth on the palate.

This has a bit of that dichotomy of the riper fruit and green tones that I don't really like in Napa sauvignon blanc. There's a bit of leanness on the palate despite the ripeness in that maybe the acidity here doesn't seem to actually help balance the weight of the wine. This is still nonetheless a solid example, and at the end of the day, my issue is with the grape.

Not sure if this was flawed because I couldn't pick out anything really wrong with it, but this was just unpleasantly thin, tinny, and weedy.

#09-02, 8% abv. I think the consensus generally has been that Schaefer could have done a little better in 2001, but this bottle bucks that belief. There's a lightness and lift to the fruit that I quite enjoy here, and the 2001 acidity is actually quite prominent here. I've never thought of Schaefer's wines to possess that strong acidic streak, but here it is. Surprisingly resolved and ready to go now.

Barrel sample. I remember from tasting some white wine barrel samples in the Mosel a few years ago how astringently acidic some of the wines can be; this seems to be in that kind of phase right now. But on top of that, there is some definitely very fun and enjoyable fruit, as well as some herbal notes.

Have to say, not sure if this wine is as "fire" as one might expect. Honestly, kind of weird with some kombucha-like thing on the palate. Good acidity, but sort of lacking in flavour.

A taste that evokes a sweaty undershirt. Next.

Herbs and spice on the nose, with a good dose of VA. Still some dried red fruit on the palate, but this is mostly on its last legs. Coarse, somewhat unyielding tannins and thinning out.

Distinct, and unpleasant taste of Cool Ranch Doritos on the palate here. Volatile and spicy. This should have been killed off years ago.

Exuberantly fruity, but right after that surface, there's this dense core of earthy material, as well as some pretty backwards tannins. Honestly, seems a bit shut down, if that's really a thing for barbera. Sometimes I feel like barbera is just on the cusp of being a noble grape; this is one example of that.

I think this is technically before Benanti; my notes say "Tenuta di Castiglione". In any case, a really lovely wine with a dried herbal thing that is quite enjoyable. The fruit is still sweet, and there's a nice elegance to the acids here. I may well be deluding myself, but I feel like there's still some of that volcanic soil flavour undergirding this wine.

From magnum. I can see the somm who brought this saying to me, "you are not the target demographic." How right. The typical Washington blue fruit thing on the nose; it's just as ripe as the modernist Napas, but the blue tone is what makes it distinctly Washington. Heady, ripe, and sweet, and marred on the finish with bitter and astringent oak.

Serviceable, if uninteresting rose. A touch sweet, and the red fruit here feels almost forced.

This is probably sitting in a bit of a shut-down phase right now. Nowhere as exuberant and expressive as I remember it being, although for the flyover appellation this is impressively dense; many other producers wish they could make wines like this in St. Joseph itself. The black fruit and solar ripeness are here in spades, but there's also a potentially disconcerting hint of brett here.