12/18/2022 - Richard123 Likes this wine:

Amazing with lamb and duck

3/18/2023 - Richard123 Likes this wine:

Good burgundy, nice balanced profile. Will buy more...

3/6/2023 - seekingbalance Likes this wine:

March 2023: this wine is still young. Tannins still have a bunch of grip (although they are not green) and the flavors and nose still have a lot of opening to do. I don't want to call it one dimensional, but it feels tastes and smells like it could be so much more. I would hold until ~2024-25 minimum, and i expect this wine can last, well cellared, for two decades ++.

Dark , almost purple color, yet somewhat translucent. "Hot" nose, not surprising for a young wine with 14.5% alcohol. The nose, oddly, reminds me of port - possibly a slight sweetness to it? Maybe from the wood?

In any event, the nose is primarily a balance of red and dark fruits, with some herbs or almost forest notes. When the alcohol recedes, flowers -- violets and ??? become more apparent - and really nice. Bring on more with age.

Taste more or less matches the nose. Good acidity and some earthy notes, not much true minerality evident (overpowered).

Went fantastically with a freshly grilled burger. The fat eliminated the hotness and any roughness, and the wine brought out meatiness.

I have high hopes, but wont really know for at least two more years.

9/5/2022 - Richard123 Likes this wine:

Lovely champagne, with interesting toast notes, light apple, and fine mousse. I do feel that there are better options at the price point, but nothing at all wrong with this.

6/4/2022 - Richard123 Likes this wine:

Excellent as always. The 2020 seems a tad more crisp and acidic than 2019, but still very drinkable... Remains a staple white under $20...

11/28/2018 - Richard123 Likes this wine:

Nice enough, but a little jammy and manufactured. Nowhere near as good as the 2014 vintage...

6/25/2020 - Richard123 Does not like this wine:

Maybe I got a bad bottle, but it was strongly leather... Pretty much undrinkable... Went down the sink.

[UPDATE 8/8/2020]
Given that this comment has garnered more comments than any other post I've ever seen on CT, I thought I would respond here.

1) Just because I threw it away doesn't mean it is flawed. I think I threw away my last battle of 2-buck Chuck, but I'm pretty sure it was representative of the entire production. I've known people to throw away perfectly good champagne (Dom, even), because they didn't like it.

2) Most times, flawed wines contain a discernible fault. I have the Nez du Vin faults collection https://www.lenez.com/en/kits/wine/faults. I didn't detect any of these faults in this bottle of wine.

3) It's possible some kind of issue rendered this bottle of wine to be different from some/many/most/all others. This is impossible for me to tell after 1 bottle, and I can't factor that into my rating here. However, compared to my expectations, it was quite far from an enjoyable wine. In addition, if some proportion of the inventory is at variance from the rest, doesn't that become a valid negative for buyers of the wine?

4) My 60 rating is "avoid" on the CT scale. That's my advice at this point.

Therefore, based on a statistically insignificant single bottle, I stand by my rating. Perhaps someone in the Zingari fan club would like to ship me a second bottle to taste? I would be happy to give it a fair review and post comments here.

11/19/2019 - Richard123 Does not like this wine:

Not bad, but was quite smoky and leathery, very unusual for CdR. Otherwise well made, but didn't really work for me. Maybe it needed a food pairing more like Bordeaux or something.

2/20/2014 - Richard123 wrote:

There's some confusion here.

For reference, the picture with the white background is the publicity shot, and the two pictures (front and back) with the dark background are my specific bottle.

1) Most places, including Garagiste, are calling this "Reserva Especial". However, the label designation is clearly "Seleccion". Admittedly toroalbala.com lists Seleccions under the title "Reserva Especial".

2) The label on the bottle from Garagiste is not like the one used elsewhere. In particular, my bottle has a typo on the label at the top under the image. It says, "To. Alblala" with three "l"s, not "To. Albala".

3) There is a shiny sticker on the back that might suggest authenticity, but not the "seal" on the front seen on the publicity shots.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, but wanted to document what I got vs. what the various labels people are using.

11/17/2015 - Richard123 wrote:

Opened three bottles last night, all were flawed and undrinkable. Obviously at or beyond its end-of-life.

11/11/2013 - Richard123 Likes this wine:

Great pinot noir; a little closed perhaps, even after air, but still a nice tart cherry pop with a little dark fruit mixed in and some minerality to boot. No tannin, of course. Really good QPR -- drinkable pinot noir under $20 is very hard to find...

11/13/2012 - Employee500 wrote:

I've discovered the discrepancy in the bottles can be tied to the importer. The bottles from Domaine Select Wine Estates are the good ones (consistently 91-92 points for my taste) and the others (importer unnamed, but has the word "Palm" in the name) are not so good--maybe heat damaged, or maybe just got some lesser bottles. For some reason the same retailer (Costco) had loads of bottles from both of these importers. I returned all my non-DSWE bottles and exchanged them for DSWE bottles.