8/25/2023 - Red Sox Fan Likes this wine:

Really nice, probably at its peak. Opened the bottle 30 minutes before serving, but did not decant.

7/7/2023 - kend707 Likes this wine:

Elegant, voluptuous, romantic, all can be used to describe this terrific Insignia. Opened to celebrate my 75th birthday. Wanted something special and was not disappointed. Blackberry dominates on the palate, but dark cherry is a close second. Tannins impeccably Intergrated. Doubt that time will improve this much, but there are many years of peak enjoyment remaining.

2/4/2023 - bdisk1235 Likes this wine:

This is a fantastic wine. Explosive red fruit and mineral bouquet but distinctly Cabernet. On the palate loads of dark fruit are seemlessly integrated with the tannins. Secondary leather and cigar box flavors. The finish goes on forever. Decanted for 3.5 hours before drinking. You know it’s good when the wife leaves the room and says to make sure to leave her some.

7/5/2020 - jimyeni Likes this wine:

If I were to nitpick it was a bit closed even after a 1.5 hour decant and could use a bit more acidity. Aside from that it was quite nice.

9/18/2020 - AllRed wrote:

3rd Friday Group: Uptown Brown Bag (R&D's): Double blind. Earth, clay, black fruit and brown sugar aromas immediately remind me of wine C in the first flight. On the full side of medium-bodied and pretty well-balanced. Flavors of black fruit, currant and plum with a long finish. Adds an herbal element as it breathes. 94-95 pts. Guessed Kapcsandy given the similarities to the Kapcsandy in the first flight. (RP)

3/28/2020 - JustBreathe680 Likes this wine:

This is my first allocation from Maybach. I originally purchased 2 Materium 750s and 2x375. After reading MSUWRIGHT review, I purchased 2 more 375 and my intrigue increased even more when I read JGRECO review. In full disclosure, I have privately reviewed and rated many wines over the past couple of years but I have not officially written a public review. However, I felt that this bottle on this date was the perfect time to write my first official review. The Country is in essential shutdown from the Coronavirus Pandemic, this was the first official day of my County ordering Shelter in Place, and tonight was the night I was supposed to be seeing Pearl Jam in Baltimore. However, on the bright side, I was able to spend the night with my 19 month old son, my pregnant wife, Flannery Dry Aged New York Strips and a half bottle of the 2017 Maybach Materium. (All facts stated above are important to note, as they all in someway play into this tasting note)

On to the wine: opened a 375. I decanted the bottle for 2 hours prior to my first sip. As soon as I poured my glass, my wife, who currently has a hyper-sense of smell, asked if she could smell my wine. She knew nothing about the bottle and as soon as the glass got close enough to her nose, she immediately rattled off that she smells blackberry, pepper, anise and spices. My sense of smell, which is not as dialed in as hers, detected aromas of black pepper and spices.

The color is very dark purple.

During the first 2 hours of drinking (bottle opened 2-4 hours at this point), I rated the bottle 97-98 points. Wow, the initial nose and my first few sips left me thinking about this bottle for days. I agree 100% with TRB's description on the back of the bottle, which reads that the wine is "deeply concentrated, elegantly textured." It has a great, polished, mouthfeel with present but smooth tannins and a really long finish. The wine was mouthcoating. It has great flavors of black fruits and spices.

By the time I reached the halfway point to 2/3 of the bottle (approx. 4 hours of air), the taste started to change a bit. The alcohol appeared a little more present. There were hints of pencil lead and/or graphite. There was a little menthol present. My score adjusted down to 95-96 but it was still very enjoyable and I took a break to put my son to bed still thinking about this wine.

I returned to finish my last 4 ounces after the wine was exposed to approximately 5 hours of air. At this point, the wine totally changed. The mouthfeel was not nearly as coating. The nose dropped off a bit. It became more tannic, alcohol was more present, and the finish was not as long. It was still enjoyable but not as memorable as my experience I had in the first few hours. My score from my final few sips at hours 5+ was 94-95.

Why did the wine change so much at hour 5+: Does the wine show best when paired with a fatty steak, mellowing/smoothing out the tannins and releasing more of its fruit flavors? Did the wine start to shutdown? Is it a wine that is enjoyable very young and then it needs to be cellared for 2-3 years? Did I take to long to finish the bottle? Is this a signature of the 2017 vintage?

I don't know the answer as to why I noticed such a drastic change but I wanted to share my experience so others can make their own decisions as to when to pop the cork. My final overall rating for this tasting is 95.5+, with great upside (97+) if the wine is more like my initial impression when paired with a steak and the reason for the change after 5 hours is more due shutting down and the need to cellar or because I just exposed it to too much air. I plan on opening 1 more 375 within the next 6 months and then let the rest slumber for 2+ years.

Sorry for such a long review but I figured for my first one, I better make it count. I am hopeful to post a review a few times per month and I promise they will be shorter and not as long winded. Thank you to everyone who post reviews and have helped many others, like me, make well informed purchases!

4/27/2020 - Hi.its.Don.4.Wine Likes this wine:

It’s Only Quarantine If It’s From the Quarante Province of France, Otherwise It’s Sparkling Isolation

I didn’t invent the above phrase; I just saw it on a couple of occasions and thought it funny, especially from a wine world perspective. I’m not trying to make fun of, de-sensitize, or minimize the virus thingy going on (I use virus thingy as I don’t wish to cause even more panic). That’s one of the reasons I decided to write this post; not only to (hopefully) bring a little humor into the situation, but to also see another side to all this, at least from my perspective.

First off, when I awoke and took to my computer this morning (this morning being yesterday), I saw that several stores, principally grocery stores, were going to open an hour earlier for Seniors (I capitalized that to show the importance, at least to me). One of those was Whole Foods. It’s where I do most of my shopping, and where, just the other day as I went in to do my REGULAR (note, not panic) shopping I found a host of items; produce, fruits, basics like eggs all gone! Thankfully (and here’s a silver lining), I drink Lactose-Free milk and there were still cartons in the refrigerated section, (guess not as many lactose-intolerant people out there) and darned if it wasn’t on sale too!

Now when I learned of this Senior benefit, I got to thinking about my teenage years. Yes, I do remember THAT LONG AGO! I remembered how a number of my friends tried to get drivers licenses that would miraculously transport us into the future and claim our age to be OVER 21. For the record, I never got one; I was a good boy, still am. BUT, what if people would do the same thing and try and claim they were older to get some of these Senior (capitalized for the same reason as above) benefits. As I looked at others in the store, it appears they were doing pretty much the same thing. No 3 shopping carts full of whatever. I mention all this so others don’t have to worry about us Seniors grabbing everything in sight and leaving others with very little, as was done the last time to me on my previous visit.

Now while the benefit the store has provided was useful and I will continue to avail myself of it, there was a downside. It dawned on me (interestingly that was the name of my cashier – Dawn) that if I was in the store, people now had confirmation that I was a senior (not capitalized as now it’s less important). I had mixed feelings about that! I don’t hide from my age, and for the most part, I don’t think I look my age (all that Norwegian blood in me and gallons of oil in my facial pores keeping me well-lubed), but for some reason, this time, I FELT old at that moment.

Remembering the old saying about “When life gives you lemons” thing, I brush off the old-timer thing and sail on home, with a new found purpose of making this night special. Putting away my groceries and before anything else, thoroughly wash my hands as we’ve been instructed to do. Let’s hope that helps, the good thing is, it can’t hurt.

There’s another benefit to being a Senior (back to being important) and retired; unless I HAVE to do something, I pretty much stay at home, sort of a self-imposed quarantine that I’ve been doing for the better part of 3 years. Not looking for sympathy or ideas on what I can do, I’ve been through all that and rather like my life as is. Guess I was ahead of the curve on that one, or maybe I helped flatten the curve? Isn’t that what they’re using these days?

Time to get to the meat and potatoes of this post; luckily I had potatoes before all this and meat seemed to be one of the exceptions to hoarding. Moving on. Just as I am trying to bring a little (I admit to “little”) humor to the situation, and trying to make lemonade (see above), I found myself telling moi (French for me) that in amongst all this, why not splurge on dinner? Fix a nice meal and open a great bottle of wine. Get back on the wine train and go gangbusters. So I did.

All I needed now was the wine. Wanting to break out of any doldrums, I settled on a masterful piece of work:

Tor Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer To Kalon 2012

Sort of the Triple Crown of wine; A winemaking team that has been together since their inception, one of the most highly coveted vineyards in Napa Valley, and a vintage that produced some of the greatest wines. If this doesn’t float my boat, nothing will.

I’m not going to dally on the food, the picture will give you all you need, except the actual taste, and that was superb. Let’s get right to the wine. I usually try and make a wine of this caliber last at least over two dinners, not necessarily two consecutive nights, as I generally use my Coravin for a wine like this. Tonight was the “Splurge.” A couple of hours before dinner I opened the bottle and decanted, allowing it to develop more intensity and nuances.

Once dinner was plated and all was set, it was just a matter of what’s first; a taste of that succulent tenderloin finished with sweet bourbon Go-Chu-Jang spiced mushrooms or the wine. The wine won!

Time seemed to stand still upon that first sip. The cares and worries that prevailed were now gone and all I could focus on was the rich, lush black and red fruit wine that swirled around seemingly able to set off every sensory cell on my tongue. Mingling together with an oak presence that leaves you with an intensity yet softness of tannins that is satisfying till it disappears from your palate, no short time may I add.

While I generally don’t like to consume a complete bottle in one evening, this was a wine that I now know was best enjoyed in its entirety, allowing it not only to be a main feature for dinner but something that could be enjoyed into the evening. For the moment, taking me away from the world and all its extraneous matters, allowing me to enjoy life without interference for this brief time, or in this case, and since I’m not in France, to have my Sparkling Isolation.

Cheers

12/14/2019 - Markzittman wrote:

Didn’t love

11/16/2019 - KenK Likes this wine:

Iinitially this seemed a bit over the hill with a stewed brown leafy aroma and dried out flavors, but after giving it some air this really came a live and was quite classic for a bit of an older Napa can. Dark dusty black cherry fruits nice spice, depth, and textures. Suggest drinking up sooner vs later.

8/3/2019 - Quiet Lion Likes this wine:

This keeps needing a longer and longer decant to show its stuff as it evolves out of its primary window into the kaleidoscopic future. I double-decanted for three hours but it took two to three more to blossom into spectacular yumminess. Do not miss this! Once it gets there it's bold, thick, silky cassis and blackstrap molasses with a touch of herbed anise. So good! 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Petit Verdot, 10% Cabernet Franc. Bravo Russell!

7/21/2019 - davidandrose Likes this wine:

Although the base of the cork looked like the wine was just released, The cork snapped at the halfway point when pulling. No evidence of seepage, stored on its side since release.

Allowed to breathe from the bottle for an hour. Wine tasted a bit weak out of sommelier cabernet stems; retried out of std cab stems, but ultimately found the best flavor profile by concentrating the aroma and flavor in sommelier syrah stems.

Mature dark fruits, black plum, coffee and Leather on the nose, with a hint of raisin.

Three hours after opening this continues to add a little bit of weight. Was paired very well with tonight’s porcini-rubbbed Tuscan fillet mignon in a marsala wine porcini reduction. At this point I again retried the wine from a standard Cabernet glass, and the syrah stem continues to afford the wine greater depth and significantly longer finish.

A solid wine in a good place, but in our particular circumstances needed special handling to truly be enjoyed.

23 years ago today my wife and I were married with the 1992 or 1993 vintage of HSS, and this was the wine that really turned us on to cellaring and collecting. Happy anniversary Rose, it’s been a great ride so far.
David

5/27/2018 - Red Sox Fan Does not like this wine:

Red and blue fruits, some secondary flavors of tea, black pepper, and garrigue, and gripping tannins that have become more prominent and unpleasant 2 hours after opening (no decant). The first glass was a nice 92-93 point cabernet, but the bottle was almost undrinkable by the time it was half gone.