3/23/2024 - NutmegNative Likes this wine:

Medium bodied red wine delivering Montmorency and sour cherry flavors. A nicely balanced and now fully mature Washington state Cab. Time to drink this one up!

9/25/2021 - sfwinelover1 Likes this wine:

My greatest day of wine (over)consumption. Ever. (Aaron and Tiffany's pad): My contribution to the day/evening was a syrah flight, this, the Cornas and the Betz CotP, with this being the big kahuna. Aired out for 90 minutes then recorked, as it was totally good to go, for a couple of hours before arrival. On the nose and palate, dark berries, red currants, plums, lesser notes of figs and rhubarb, oak, dark florals, ground spice and a bit of pepper. Opaquely dark, medium to full bodied, thick legs. Powerful acidity, medium tannins, no heat. VG++ complexity, intensity and excellent persistence.

Ok, I'm going to riff a bit. I kind of enjoy being the dog in the manger, as readers of my TNs know, and this wine was my salvo for the day (you ask, why does he have to be the dog in the manger with his friends? Idk, but they were dog lovers.) Between the 3 CTers there other than me, they'd written almost 5k TN, monopolized by csimm, 2 of which were for Aussie wines, and dfc and A_M had so few wines in their cellars (csimm's is locked, with the key well hidden) that you could count the Aussie wines with fingers left over. Although I've had some borderline excellent Shirazes (a digression in my digression: Why the hell do the Aussies refer to syrah by the name of a place in Iran, the driest place on earth this side of the Gobi dessert (oops, a different kind of dry?)), particularly several vintages of Amon Ra, an eyedropperful of a Grange (a '09?) I barely remember at one of those best-of-the-world tastings, and the '01 Dead Arm, for those of us of a certain age, it's too easy to remember Yellow Tail (as yet another aside, I toyed with the idea of a blind tasting and seeing if anyone called this as a YT, which could be a comment on the wine, our collective level of wine sophistication or both) and think of all Aus shirazes as non-serious wines. But I protest too much. Syrah was ridiculously overplanted a couple of dozen years ago, it was reportedly narrowly bested by merlot (whether this is justifiable for merlot or not is a subject for another riff, another time) as the primary object of scorn (ok, I'm making this up) in Sideways, but truth, or at least my truth is, this is a fabulous varietal, from the relatively taut styles of the Northern Rhone to the giant ones of the Central Coast, some in Bordeaux bottles (the JLC Cornas, for one), others in the pinot-style bottles. While syrah is well behind CS in my pantheon, it's a close third behind Tuscan sangio (outside of Tuscany, sangio doesn't hit the top 1000) as an object of my affections, thriving in meat lockers and saunas, playing extraordinarily with everything--its Rhone kin, Bordeaux varietals, zins, petit sirahs (I know that might be a Rhone, blah, blah, blah), viognier, even when fortified, and succeeding, as opposed to said sangio, all over CA, WA, France, Italy (including the golden soils of you know where), the Iberian Peninsula, NZ, Chile, Argentina, and, um, Australia (again, save that syrah-shiraz argument for someone who cares), so, with superb pro reviews, very good if surprisingly third rail CT reviews and a price point which well cleared our hurdle, even if, surprise, surprise, I got a deal, it was more than fair game. Still, with knowledgeable, and equally important, deep-pocketed guests, the thought that I might embarrass myself was in mind, but I was surprised. Not "there's a discoloration on your wall that turned into a $75k water damage" fix-it bill, but there's a college friend you haven't seen in 20 years who shows up on your doorstep on your birthday with a '12 Harlan (ok, I exaggerate, a '09 LaViolette) with whom you pick things up as if you just graduated. This complex wine is fruit-driven to be sure, but the secret sauce is the acidity, IMO; it drives the wine right along with tremendous length, from its fruit notes to the secondary ones (sorry, but I never put a stopwatch on this, but it's loooong). The acidity also made it a superstar with the Bouef, for my tastes, the best food wine of the night, not that it was less than great on its own. Really, really fresh, I'd call this wine early to middle drinking window at most, with possibility of incremental improvement, and if decently stored, little chance of any cornices in sight. All that said, I'm not oblivious to other TNs, and while they're mostly excellent, there are some real clunkers. As CT friend msu points out, truth is a slippery thing when rating wines, so some of it may be personal tastes, to which I say, vive le diference, but I also wonder if there are some bad bottles floating around out there, since even the notes of some of the bad reviews hardly sound like the same bottle of wine we enjoyed. My source, and I suspect theirs, is uneven on older bottles, especially non-US ones, and this could be an issue here, seeming all the more likely to me since I had a lot of 3 CH cabs, at a much lower price point, of which one was outstanding, one was very good, and one went into, as opposed to with, a dinner. Anyway, all of that said, at the almost 3 spot price point I'm seeing on WS, albeit from only one source, I wouldn't be rushing out to buy it, but at anything with a non-crooked number in front, I'd pounce. At the risk of the whole apples and oranges thing, not at the level of the Dal Forno, yet preferred, against all odds, against the fabulous Tusk and excellent Insig. Astralis, indeed. Don't look for Aus to make a run at Napa or the Land of the Boot in my collection, but don't be too surprised if you see a few more creeping in here and there, either.

4/2/2019 - 3daywinereview.com wrote:

Day 1: I had to try this as Luca Maroni gave this 98 points. Well to no one's surprise this is not even close to 98 points nor did I think it would but if it is a solid 90 win for the price. Nice overall with cherry, spice, floral and dust. A bit sweet on the palate. Certainly drinkable and not bad. 88 points
Day 2: This always exposes these cheap wines. This wine is terrible on day 2. Sweet fruit, dust and some spice. Weak on the palate and finish. Really a wine that should be consumed on the young side. Again 98 points by Luca Maroni is an insult to the great Bordeaux wines from the Left Bank. 80 points
Day 3: Flat and undrinkable.
Recommendation: Drink these on the young side. No upside on this wine and great scam in terms of a 98 point wine. Had to try it just because someone who claims to be a critic gave this 98 points.

10/18/2020 - #1Winelover Likes this wine:

Still a baby and in need or more time and/or a longer decant but this is really good. It's really good as in the best Missouri Hopper that I have ever had. This is Benoit Touquette's 1st release of Beckstoffer's Oakville vineyard and of course, it is amazing.

Nice purple coloring with a little black and red around the rim. Strong smells, acid and tannins that are not yet integrated completely. It has the typical -- at this time -- primary 2018 profile which is just a young wine that needs more time. Vanilla notes are prominent to begin and mocha notes are prominent on the finish. Lot's of mineral and graphite swirling around in the glass. Although still not ready for prime time, it is very easy to drink while watching football on Sunday!

5/8/2020 - stet Likes this wine:

Color: light lime green
Nose: lemon and orange zest, grass, sour almond, wild strawberry, wet rock, limestone
Palate: medium-high acidity, medium body. Fresh, aromatic. Grass and sour almond plus peach and so much minerality
Finish: medium

I cannot believe that California can replicate so well Friuli. Here we have an inspired calc but with some surprise orange zest. Hard to not adore this: king salmon and asparagus or an aperitivo. Feels like a 11:30 taj in Gemona, Just a hint riper

3/22/2019 - timcan Does not like this wine:

PnP first impression extracted, second...lifeless. Not a lot of fruit, no acid very little tannins. Meh.

7/21/2019 - The Drunken Cyclist Likes this wine:

We had people over and I wanted to pull something that would make the collective think. I figured this would fit the bill. Dark. Really dark. Exceedingly dark. Dark like port kinda dark. So no one guessed it was a Riesling. A port-like nose of stewed raisins, but still incredible acidity and discernable fruit. Did we wait too long? Perhaps. But you always win when you bring out a nearly 30-year-old wine. thedrunkencyclist.com

6/16/2018 - yossarian.livez wrote:

Wrote for the wrong vintage, released 2/2019

2/22/2019 - Nojomoschwa Likes this wine:

Lovely younger-vine Cab Franc that was a steal at $16+ from Garagiste. Very classic.