12/26/2023 - patrick h Likes this wine:

cellared undisturbed for 21 yrs. color a medium ruby. light violet and herbaceous notes on the nose. palate delivers more pronounced violets, licorice, still strong wood notes. absence of fruit. tannins mostly but not all gone despite significant sediment fallout in the bottle. served after resting several hours following slow decant. very interesting parts but no symphony. drink now but but it may be too late.

3/3/2023 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Pick from Angus Barn cellar. Dark ruby color with nice color gradation but slight bricking under inspection. Nose has surprising amount of perfume, big violet, some mushroom, big barnyard. Palate of cassis, more perfume, good balance, still some tannins remaining. Mouthfeel is fine to medium grain. Pleasantly surprising. This wine is still drinkable but this is the year. Nice value if you find one stored properly.

2/26/2023 - patrick h wrote:

Medium to dark purple, watery meniscus. Nose of fleeting violet, dark cherry, spices, herbal, earthy/mushroom. Palate of sharp acidity, sgnificant level of medium grain tannin, very herbal, screaming its whole cluster old vine flavors. This is simply too young to drink and a bit unbalanced but this is a gamay worth laying down another 3-8 years. Not enough concentrated fruit to go much longer. 88+ potential; drink 2026-30. Potentially a great value at ~30 USD imported to US.

2/15/2023 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Pour to almost brick hue with typical and pleasurable burgundy characteristics, namely violet and mushroom. Nose feels warm, subdued fruit notes (almost gone?), more violet and mushroom. Alcohol hits fairly hot and early on the palate, giving way to decent acidity and more mushroom and violet, some cassis. Tannins seem absent and the mouthfeel is less balanced than what I’d want from a bourgogne. No velvet mouthfeel. However overall while not complex it is quite pleasurable and quaffable with that wonderful burgundy aroma and taste. Scoring this a burgundy pinot 88 (much higher than a CA cab 88). At under $35 with tax in 2023 USD it is a great though not unbeatable value. Drink now.

2/11/2023 - patrick h wrote:

Vanilla apricot nose with a touch of allspice. Mildly promising but weak nose leads to a flat and smooth and viscous tasting. Alcohol is high compared to the acidity and it results in one of those "buttery" flabby wines. Not particularly dry, no carbonation. Cellar kept so should have been fine even if opened a little later than recommended. Overall just too much young oak on top of chardonnay grapes characteristic of the 2018 vintage: too sweet, too high alcohol, difficult to balance.

12/17/2022 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Very good/very good +. Somewhere between the violet delight of one of Collotte's Fixins and just a French pinot. Jammy, cherry pie, tannic with above average mouthfeel, a bit acidic and maybe a tiny bit unbalanced. Hints of earth and violet.

11/24/2022 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Outstanding. Great acidity with viscosity as well. Splendid velvet mouthfeel. Wonderfully complex with long finish. Quince and mushroom notes. Earthy. Wonderful with an opulent roasted turkey feast. Nothing austere which, given the complexity, made everyone happy. Chassagne-Montrachet is the origin of some of world’s best chardonnay grapes and this wine demonstrated what ranks those grapes among the best.

12/9/2022 - patrick h Does not like this wine:

Utterly bizarre and awful. A simulacrum of wine. I had a glass of this wine about three years ago from an earlier vintage and it was just fine. As I recall, not bad for what seemed like large scale production. This was not that wine. This was from some sort of industrial Frankenstein juice experiment: part commodity grapes of the worst order, part engineering. It was weirdly sweet for one, with a flat coca cola mouthfeel. Weird indeed. The taste was some sort of weird wood serum injection from a new jersey flavor lab. Tons of artificial color too. The wine equivalent of Donatello Versace’s face. Easily the worst non-spoiled wine I have ever tasted.

11/1/2022 - patrick h wrote:

Cork intact & removed cleanly with minimal permeation. Faint whiff of TCA. On first nosing, some plum and strawberry leaf and other ambiguous vegetal/herbal notes, tiny hint of tomato. Pour shows no bricking despite age with dark color and some meniscus remaining. Upon tasting more plum, small amount of TCA, blackberry and black cherry. Strong acidity and alcohol sensation though the alcohol amount is not objectively high. Structured, moderately tannic still, with medium grain. Grateful for the absence of wood notes. TCA not at high enough level to call this bottle corked as it remains drinkable. 82 here means it's mid-good. Vigorous decanting got rid of the tomato note but otherwise not much change. I think this wine is serviceable. There are better valpolicello blends but there are far worse ones and at higher prices too. Decent value.

Update: bottle has been open for a few days. Second tasting got rid of all the tomato and TCA. Overall this became more balanced with time. Not a ton of personality but a solid bargain. Lifting this from 82 to 88.

10/14/2022 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Previous note stands, with the exception that this bottle was more balanced than the last. Superb: just eclectic enough, just complex enough, just refined enough.

11/1/2022 - patrick h Does not like this wine:

Overaged and bricked. Mellowed down to tea-like juice.

10/10/2022 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Wonderfully balanced. Subtle statement. Second bottle more enjoyable than the first. My perfect cellar defender.

10/2/2022 - patrick h wrote:

Feels out of balance, with too much mouthfeel, too much wood, and even too much fruit. There's good acidity but it seems to be swallowed up by the wine's other aspects, even the lemony aspect. Too much vanilla (oak). It's not bad or offensive. There's just no austerity or complexity.

9/3/2022 - patrick h Does not like this wine:

Even with the understanding and appreciation that the yeast is not filtered out the palette is nonetheless overwhelmed by a somewhat foul bready note. The small amount of sweetness is nice. I was able to mask the yeastiness serving with spicy indian food but still no one wants to finish it.

9/6/2022 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Coravin sample. “Bouquet” is literal here: giant nose redolent of roses and violets followed by bing cherry, raspberry and petrichor. Palette adds a significant dash of peoper, significant acidity and quite a bit of structure. This still needs a few more years of rest to mellow the tannins and hopefully bring better balance. Great potential. The cork is staying in.

9/2/2022 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Dark ruby color. Opened at first to so2 notes which lifted away after a decant and 20 minutes of breathing. Raspberry, wood, vanilla, leather, animalic note, hint of violet. Outstanding mouthfeel: fine-grained moderate tannins with good acidity. Another great Fixin value from this underrated producer.

8/20/2022 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Delicate armoatics and tastes of violet, barnyard, smoke, leather, pepper, cedar. The little bit of fruit left is baked quince. Outstanding mouthfeel. Torn about this wine owing to the wide divide between flavor and texture. Ready to drink now. This wine has the ineffable characteristic of interestingness as do many Fixin pinots. First quaff had me firmly at 85. Score has crept up. A double decant and a couple of hours inflates the floral aromatics, especially lavender.

8/20/2022 - patrick h wrote:

Corked. That or the sourced grapes had significant powdery mildew. My gut says it's the latter. First wine from this producer largely distributed in US by Wegman's. I was skeptical to begin with.

8/20/2022 - patrick h wrote:

Second tasting (coravin as before) revealed significant reduction. Tomato, rubber, struck match. Flawed. Disappointing. I picked up a tomato note on first tasting but it wasn’t right up front. I did not rate it as flawed. Now it is.

8/11/2022 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Coravin’ed a taste. Surprised to discover a beaujolais that is too young to drink. Radiant almost neon purple color. Fruit is there and robust but it is a bit overpowered by tannins, acidity and strong notes of cedar. Yes it is a gamay. Impressive. It just needs another five years of aging minimum to balance itself but it is not there yet.

8/11/2022 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Outstanding. Like a young Echezeaux du Dessus in its fruit and a Savingy les Beaune 1er in its more delicate upper olfactory notes. Fruit forward but tight; fruit balanced by a pleasant medium acidity, just enough minerality, and a tannin backbone enough to keep this laid down another few years. Oddly wonderful note of buttered popcorn upon first whiff which remained after first taste, and then as it opens it makes a shift to softer Cote de Beaune-type notes: black cherry, little bit of strawberry, white pepper, violets, hint of oak and vanilla. Looks like it has spent its shelf life standing up at room temperature but it is fine. Showing some aging with some color differentiation at meniscus. Still bright jammy color despite. Long finish is oak and vanilla and moderate pleasant astringency. Really well balanced. I may have found my cellar defender. My first taste of a wine from this producer that I know nothing about other than it is OR not FR. I’m intrigued to say the least. It could stand to lay down another few years but fun now.

7/28/2022 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Color is a soft dark ruby red. Acidity and tannins are mild. Not quite velvety. Moderate alcohol and softness. As for the nose and palate: this is a funky barnyard wine when first opened. It needs time to breathe to blow off very strong urea notes. (Was this fertilized using urea at budbreak? They say they only use manure.) Giant notes of manure and urea engulf violet perfume and gentle soft fruit notes of plum, quince at opening. After some breathing the wine opens up to spice, pepper, even some cedar. Continuing to open more to quite a bit of cedar. Definitely not vanilla-oaky; nice work on cask selection, Must be given time to open. This is in some ways classic masculin-feminin Fixin. Ultimately this wine offers a lot of complexity, especially for a Fixin pinot that's a little bit out of balance, with the barnyard and spice and tannin and acid hiding fruit. Overall I'm enjoying it. This has gone from an 80 to a 90+ over the course of 30 minutes. This bottle may have reached the end of its racking time as the meniscus shows signifiant color variegation and the fruit on the palate has largely dissipated. Maybe two more years maximum. Definitely not 2038 as one reviewer has claimed.

7/25/2022 - patrick h wrote:

The slightest whiff of yuzu, quince, butter. Fleeting if not altogether imaginary nose. Body is medium-light. Palate is almost all mineral and salt, maybe a hint of citrus, some honey aromatics appear only after tasting. This is a great wine for food but there's really not much to it on its own. I am a big fan of robust minerality and acidity but there's not much in this wine to balance that. No complexity or duration either. Nothing offensive or off either. Might make the absolute perfect wine for a battered fried cod. High alcohol (14%).

7/23/2022 - patrick h wrote:

Huckleberry/gooseberry/blackberry. A little grassy note. Dark color. Good acidity but not a lot of body. A bit hot. Nothing incredible or bad. Some tannin remains with very little to keep it in balance. Might be good with a charred meat.

7/23/2022 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Bargain surprise. Balanced wine with tight dark fruit, black cherry, cassis, hint of watermelon, a little oak, some damp earth on the nose. Moderate complexity a pleasant surprise at this price. Very pleasant, Moderate structure has mellowed. Decent acidity. Crowd pleaser. Ready to drink now.

12/24/2013 - patrick h Likes this wine:

Light to medium bodied, rose-colored, with notes of vanilla and raspberry on the palate. Some fruit as well but definitely not fruity/jammy. Not austere but just enough bite and the slightest tone of leather to make a fine pairing for a rib roast.

3/13/2012 - patrick h wrote:

Not very good. Tasted out of balance. Hot alcohol, some unpleasant tones, nothing particularly pleasant.

6/11/2012 - patrick h wrote:

Reminiscent of a claret de bordeaux: light but of a full flavor, mild tannins. Pours to deep color but no gradient. A tiny bit of cinnamon on the nose along with mild fruit, grape, cherry, nothing unusual or interesting but nothing bad either. I thankfully detected very little wood in the palette. I expected a medium body but it was so light but without much complexity. It's a pleasure to drink but it isn't going to make you introspective. This bottle was a gift so I don't know the value but if it's under $20 a bottle it's a great wine for the dinner table for many different meals. Very good.

3/6/2012 - patrick h wrote:

If you have a bottle of the 2009 drink it now; it may be too late anyway. Bad nose at first but once it opened up with some agitation it has a decent nose and very mild palate. Whatever was there in other bottles a year ago is..tannins, tobacco, decent acid, terroir, all seems gone. Not much in the way of mouthfeel. Just some dried fruit like raisin and blackberry on the nose, blackberry itself in the taste, and more than a dash of black pepper in the taste remain. Drinkable, decent, but nothing special.

6/18/2011 - patrick h wrote:

Always a pleasure. Excellent acidity and minerality with almost no sweetness. This is always a guaranteed summertime crowd pleaser.

6/18/2011 - patrick h wrote:

A distinguished riesling trocken with nice mineral, earth notes, slight mildew and some petrol. Super-long finish.

6/2/2011 - patrick h wrote:

Nice notes of berries and some minerality in there. For the price this is the summer crowd pleaser, cellar defender, all-purpose food-pairing wine.

4/20/2011 - patrick h wrote:

Tolerable to slightly pleasurable. I'm not sure where people are tasting the minerality but it is crisp with light apple and a combination of lawn and honeysuckle on the nose. At $3.99 nothing is lost by drinking it. Great by the case for a large party.

12/10/2010 - patrick h wrote:

Simple uncomplicated sancerre. Nice minerality and acidity to go with seafood and other light dishes. But nothing enduring or developing or expansive about its palette.

12/25/2010 - patrick h wrote:

Forgettable

12/31/2010 - patrick h wrote:

Slight notes of toffee and caramel that probably replaced the typical sweetness from this nonvintage widely distributed inexpensive wine. A pleasant surprise considering I expected it to be a lost cause.

11/24/2010 - patrick h wrote:

Consumed with a homemade pumpkin roll dessert as well as a pecan pie made from local pecan trees. Contrary to other opinions this is not a dessert appropriate for chocolate, not quite. But for a dessert in the figgy-apricot-pumpkin-orange-pecan range I've personally not had much better. Definite notes of caramel and fig and light fruit and vanilla. Definitely sweet but not syrupy at all; mouthfeel is just right for a semisweet dessert with rich nut tones. Beautiful color gradient. Outstanding.

12/25/2010 - patrick h wrote:

Pepper & tobacco, mostly pepper, run over the brief opening cherry note. Could not find the terroir. Also quite flat. Overwhelmed completely by a chateaubriand. Nothing off. Entirely pleasant. But this wine was either past its prime or never really had a prime at all. One of the least inspiring Savigny-les-Beaune wines I've had. Nothing you really wanted to sit in your mouth and roll around with.

9/14/2010 - patrick h wrote:

Big hot and fruity. Exemplary of the things that don't excite me about American reds. Not bad but certainly not exactly very good either. Maybe good with an overcooked flame burned steak from the grill? They might cancel each other out.

8/8/2010 - patrick h wrote:

Just enough tannins left to enjoy with a steak. Hint of peppermint on the nose with warm leather raspbberries and blackcurrant on the palate. Very gentle almost too timid mouthfeel. Two years too late on this bottle but very enjoyable nonetheless.

6/8/2010 - patrick h wrote:

The wine was served with some fresh wild venison tenderloin sauteed with market-style bacon and wild mushrooms. This pinot may hev been a little too weak with an aged beef but after decanting and a vigorous pour the wine made the food perfect and the food made the wine perfect as well. Too bad the elements were too rare for us to repeat! Very agreeable wine. Light berry and tannins with decent acidity. The bottle was supposedly past its time but I suspect it could have lasted another year. If you have the fortune of some venison tenderloin, bacon, and mushroom, and you have a small budget for wine, this is your pick. Funny, I know... I had a 2005 in 2007 and it was terrible. This bottle grew up a little.

6/2/2010 - patrick h wrote:

I can't seem to get enough of Albariño and this bottle is a fine example of why it is such a good wine. Old world minerality and zing, with a nose redolent of wet rock, violets, lemon, wet leather, peat, and melon. A little tight but the acidity paired well with a meal of spicy indian fair.

5/31/2010 - patrick h wrote:

Simple light pinot. Small fruit and decent acidity though not much in the way of structure or finish. Went very nicely with a pasta and fresh tomato sauce after allowing it to open up and cool down.

6/1/2010 - patrick h wrote:

When allowed to rest on my palette I found that when I got past the acid and bubbles all I found was some sort of petrochemical aromatic.

5/22/2010 - patrick h wrote:

Slightly better than hot summertime manhattan garbage.

1/7/2010 - patrick h wrote:

I let this bottle go too long or so I thought. Served it after a hearty dinner of sushi on a special occasion. Velvety caramel vanilla and orange.

11/25/2009 - patrick h wrote:

surprising range and depth for such an inexpensive wine. light-med body, nicely acidic, cranberry, cherry.

10/22/2008 - patrick h wrote:

Lovely color characteristic of other 20 yr tawnys. The mouthfeel is creamy and smooth. Flavors through the heart of the taste are full of caramel and slight currant and dried apricot and big butterscotch which was quite nice. Some harsh aromatics on the nose and the finish (which I suspect come from the wood) kept this from being an excellent 20 year tawny. Merely good to very good, and a little bit of a disappointment given the hype.

12/20/2008 - patrick h wrote:

Uninteresting but nothing offensive with nice fruit. Jammy with a gentle body.

12/20/2008 - patrick h wrote:

Clobbers you with an unusual amount of grapefruit up front which ends up better than it sounds. This is a good wine with spicy asian fare; perfect complement to vietnamese food. Some off notes in the finish would keep me from serving it on its own. Good buy if you can find it under $10.