2/3/2017 - John McCabe wrote:

I really liked this. Full-bodied, quite sumptuous. There is a saltiness and darkness to the profile. Less flamboyance than cabs from Napa, this is darker, more minerality, more direct and brooding but really captivating.

Held up very well on the 2nd day - just even more extended and deeper, with a slightly oily saline texture - lovely stuff.

9/3/2016 - MarkWhite Likes this wine:

Complex, layered, bold and built to improve with age this Moon Mountain Cabernet is a stunner. Medium garnet with a complex array of aromas including cherry, spice, plum, minerals and smoke, it invites one to drink. On the front palate, the fruit is in your face with cherry, dark spice, and hints of oak and smoke, it peels away nicely on the back palate letting some earthiness and minerality take hold. The fruit is so dominant and forward at this point, with only a hint of sweetness, that it overwhelms the acids. After some time in the glass, the fruit softens and the acids seem to find balance with some really thorough tannins. Sensational structure, built to age, the wine is simply too young at this point and needs time in the bottle. Hold until 2020 to let the fruit settle down. Reminds me of Branaire-Ducru circa 2009.

11/16/2016 - MarkWhite Likes this wine:

A very nice Freisa with classic strawberry aromas. Easy on the palate with the strawberry carrying through with herbal and cherry cola notes. Refreshing medium finish with stiff tannins and bright acidity. Very good QPR.

11/16/2016 - MarkWhite wrote:

This was highly recommended by a sommelier in Napa as a new producer to keep an eye on. Given that one of the founders is Andy Erickson, a former winemaker at Screaming Eagle, I was highly anticipating the wine which was consumed with dinner. Many of the pieces are in place beginning with a beguiling aroma of blackberry with a hint of chocolate, a bit sublime. On the palate, the wine is silky smooth and packed with fruit flavor. Blackberry, raspberry and some notes of currant make it a joy on the palate, but with some essential element missing.

The wine is missing complexity, even accounting for its youth. Though the flavors and texture were seductive, they are not rich in variety. On the relatively short finish, the overly rounded tannins and mild acidity left me wanting a more structured wine with a higher variety of flavors, particularly at this price point. There is evidence of fine winemaking here as well as indications of too much manipulation. All of which left me wondering whether the shortcomings were in the fruit or too heavy of a hand that constrains nature with nurture and neuters the wine. I have no idea of a proper drinking window for this. It is possible that the structure and acids, as in many Burgundies, are wrapped up in the fruit waiting for the magic of time. It is also possible that the wine simply doesn't have much to give and all we can hope for is a softening of the fruit and a drying out of the wine like a mediocre Bordeaux. Time will tell. I will give it a 91 due to the attractive mouthfeel and evidence of talented winemaking, whether overdone or not.

I would like to try Favia's product again, either once it has some age on it or a different vintage/vineyard, to see if there is evolution, but not on my dime.

8/22/2016 - MarkWhite Likes this wine:

A nice rubyesque rim on a deep violet wine that has pleasant, but not particularly forward, aromas of dark Cherry, plum and boysenberry. On the palate, it has a smooth transition from front to back with a mild structure and imminent drink-ability. Given its moderate price, it is a fair QPR, nothing spectacular, nothing notable, which is a victory at this price point.

8/18/2015 - Keith Levenberg wrote:

The morbid curiosity was killing me. I finally got a chance to taste the famous, the much-adored, the much-despised, the Yellow Tail of the millennial generation, Meiomi pinot noir! It is actually not as bad as I thought it would be. It's way better than Yellow Tail, anyway. It's a commercial, mass-produced taste, obviously, but it is still tastes more or less like pinot noir, moreso than many pinot noirs that get 97 points from James Laube, that's for sure. It has a sweetness to it but not in a jammy fashion, more like it just had a syrup of itself stirred in to gloss it up. It's got an unharmonized track of cedary woodiness to add something non-fruit to the mix and juuuust enough tannin to give it that cuddly fabric-softener bear texture.