4/14/24, 9:53 AM - Thanks for the note! I too paid $22, and have a lone bottle left that I plan to drink between 2023 and 2026 per my thoughts in my prior note from 2018. Right in that window now and your bottle gives confidence I'm within a sweet spot :)
4/14/24, 9:48 AM - Glad to hear it's holding steady! And a good reminder I am about due to open another bottle.
4/7/24, 10:29 AM - Regarding smoke taint, indeed Santa Barbara County fared very well in 2020. There were a few smaller fires that were hyper-local affecting basically no more than several adjacent vineyards. If I remember correctly, certain blocks in Sebastiano (SRH) and Bien Nacido (SMV) were exposed, that's it. Smoke from the north was basically a non-factor.
2/21/24, 12:14 PM - Glad I am not crazy, though it's thoroughly irritating the bottle variation is so severe. I am working down the case buy from the later in 2023, knowing that it mostly sucked, and will see how the earlier purchases fare.Heat damage is a growing suspicion. It doesn't taste obviously cooked, but heat damage can just totally strip a wine sometimes rather than make it taste like baked/oxidized fruit. It's something like that, or they slapped a 365 label on shiners of a much crappier wine.
2/3/24, 4:18 PM - Hi Larry, no day 2, it was more than enjoyable enough for two to share in one evening. I am fairly sure it would have made it without much issue.
1/27/24, 4:27 PM - Yeah, thinking that’s the case, or the wine was heat damaged at some stage. Though it was shipped in good weather, so I doubt it was on the last leg.
1/28/24, 5:51 PM - The below average bottles were not in a "dumb phase". That would be the case when the structure comes forward and the fruit recedes, while bottle bouquet and tertiary flavors haven't emerged.This is a case where there are undesirable flavors, contrasting against prior experiences. Maybe off flavors developed in bottle due to microbial issues, but that would be odd for wine that is sterile filtered pre-bottling.
1/13/24, 4:22 PM - Your note is curious. You call the wine crap, yet score it an 85, which is a good wine in standard scoring interpretation. Though certainly better is expected from Barolo, of course, but an 85 is decent and more than drinkable. And then your friends from Italy had to apologize for all of Italy due to one bottle of subpar wine? So bizarre!
12/24/23, 8:31 AM - Yes, all the 'variations' are from the case sale so far--I have these stored in a separate location to keep track.Usually wine bottled from a single lot is very consistent--it's blended in a single tank and homogenized. Maybe there was a second 'sub-lot' here? Or the provenance was not as good for bottles shipped out later?
10/17/23, 8:01 AM - Good question. Maybe more on the briny, olively side of the spectrum than pure bacon fat or smoked meat. But that was the thing, it was not an obvious component, but a flavor or impression, kind of like in a good dish where its integrated rather than tasting of specific ingredients.
10/17/23, 12:18 AM - I see from your tasting notes you have tasted some Sine Qua Non . . . . calling this the best American Syrah you have had is high praise. Though of course the style is quite different.Anyways, this is excellent wine, and the vintners are great people, too :)
10/17/23, 7:58 AM - Indeed, the wine is excellent independent of the vintners' character. That wasn't consideration when we started purchasing their wine, but is a real plus as regular customers.I don't have much context with N. Rhone Syrah, though from an objective standpoint I do think their wines are world class. So it becomes hard for me to pay 2x to 4x the price in my market for a Syrah that I may or may not like as much. And probably needs 5-10 years of age to peak.
9/25/23, 9:16 PM - Hmmm, seems like maybe this was a bad/flawed bottle? Usually a score 52 is for cynically bad or amateur wine. Hard to see a proper bottle of this dropping that low.
9/4/23, 10:16 AM - I also saw your note on the Block M, with a similar impression. The 2021 Melville Pinots have been very structured/brawny from what I have tasted. It was a generally cool, even vintage, so it wasn't an issue of a heat wave making the grapes more ripe and desiccated around harvest. It certainly feels like even though they are still using 100% neutral oak and high % whole cluster, something changed in 2021--the PN feels more extracted. Certainly it's not ready to drink at release. I have also found the Estate PN to be less of a complete wine in recent vintages--they have a Rancho Nuevo SV and the Buscemi side project that may be diverting some fruit.In any case, I suspect Chad is making the wine he wants to make, and the critics dig it, all the same. I will sit on my 2021s, though they could just as easily dry out as resolve/unwind. Like you, I do plan to shift my club shipments to Syrah--I have always preferred the Syrah anyway and it's a no brainer for me at this point. Their Syrah is so distinctive, moreso than the PN, IMO.
6/10/23, 3:11 PM - Thanks for capturing the stem inclusion %! I thought I heard 100% from Christiano at the tasting I attended, but then the distributor rep said something different. I am a huge fan of stem inclusion in Pinot Noir and Syrah, this was my first encounter with Nebbiolo and stem inclusion. Burlotto Monvigliero--a wine so expensive and rare I doubt I will ever taste it--is the only other example that comes immediately to mind. When discussing stem inclusion with Christiano, he mentioned Burlotto as a 'friend', and it seems pretty likely where his inspiration originated.
5/25/23, 8:03 AM - I commented in the WB discussion--judging from other producers, the vineyards contributing to this bottling should drink well fairly young, but I suspect this one will be similarly 'shocky' for a year or so before settling into its brilliant youth.
5/7/23, 4:56 PM - Excited to see this note--I started ordering from Bedrock because this wine piqued my interest. Definitely want to hold a year or so for bottle #1 (of 3). Given the vineyards contributing to the blend (mostly White Hawk and Presqu'ile), your note definitely describes what I am anticipating.
3/31/23, 6:56 PM - Interesting you had this experience. My bottle was corked--TCA was obvious. And the cork also broke on the way out--I noticed the TCA at that point, actually. Makes me wonder if there was a bad group of corks.
1/30/23, 7:30 AM - Yeah, this vintage for Donna's stood out, almost as if it's like the Estate Syrah on steroids, rather than the more perfumed style of other recent vintages. It reminds me of a young Loire red--angular and brimming with non-fruit complexity, but also savory and fresh. And those take until age 10+ to really knit together.
10/29/22, 10:26 AM - Mildly corked or heat damage, perhaps?
9/22/22, 9:27 PM - WC = whole cluster
8/21/22, 9:18 AM - I saved the bottle in the fridge for the last two weeks after immediately re-corking. I won't say that it transformed, but I liked it better than on the pop'n'pour. Still comes across as sort of muddled, rather than the pure strawberry-raspberry profile I prefer, but it wasn't off-putting like initially. Kind of promising it held that long, most wines have a major dropoff after that long.
4/5/22, 9:22 PM - Yes, Melville does get Syrah. So much going on at a young age, yet so much material that may evolve in fascinating ways. Great wine.
2/20/22, 9:14 PM - I wasn't quite as down on this one as you were when I tasted last week, but I also noticed that the 2020 Estate was fuller and more open. I have a strong suspicion this will gain weight and open up in several years, whereas the Estate will hold steady.
2/21/22, 8:07 PM - Good to hear on the Rancho Neuvo--I received it in a recent quarterly shipment. I recall it having very concentrated fruit when tasting, but it was also incredibly young at the time, within a year of harvest date. I'll be interested to see where are all of these go, though for sure I'll have favorites when I open them in several years.
11/25/21, 8:03 AM - 'Liked' this tasting note in solidarity with those who chose not to score or don't always score. The description is more important than the score, though points have their place.
11/15/21, 9:46 PM - Halcon gets a lot of love, but I haven't been wowed by the several bottles I've tried. I like the wines, don't get me wrong, they just don't stand out for particular finesse or complexity to my taste as young wines.
10/24/21, 5:56 PM - Sounds like it's sure captured the spirit of Burgundy with seeming bottle variation from taster to taster ;)That said, Pinot Noir from the sandy terroirs in western Santa Maria, especially when fermented whole cluster, tends to have an overt 'stemmy' quality. Especially when young. I love it, but then again I also love Loire Cab Franc. It comes across as a panoply of thyme, basil, bay leaf, etc. for me. The Bien Nacido Estate Pinot from this producer is much more in the vein of strawberry, spice and everything nice.
10/25/21, 8:36 AM - I totally get it. I'm definitely not suggesting you should like it more or less than you do. Pinot Noir from that area has some potentially polarizing characteristics. If your palate doesn't dig the green WC profile, definitely there are options that are a better fit for the profile you like.The question is then whether it us reductive or reduced--the latter would be bad news. I suspect it is the former, but that's like claiming a wine is shut down to give it a pass. Who knows, it's always a mystery. I'm holding my other bottles for a few years, so I'll find out in 2024 to 2026.
9/19/21, 10:48 AM - Arg, so frustrating to have received a six pack of only the 14.5% ABV version, as the 14.0% ABV version seems to be legit.
7/28/21, 12:23 PM - I've only had a small taste of this bottling, but dark fruits are definitely not the primary aspect with Holus Bolus/Joy Fantastic Syrahs. The SRH bottling is a bit more towards center of the distribution, but their Presquile, Franc de Pied and Joy Fantastic are major outliers. You definitely need to be ready for something that tastes more like a tea made from olives and lavender than a standard red wine.
7/22/21, 8:24 AM - I agree that Produttori Torre is a wine to either drink on release in a forward vintage like 2015, or to hold at least 8-10 years from vintage. Of course, there is no guarantee it will emerge better with age. But the period several years after release where the exuberant fruit has settled but the structure hasn't yet evolved is riskiest. Definitely that is one of drawbacks of Nebbiolo--most vintages it doesn't stay open & the structure is too great for most to enjoy in those stages.
7/18/21, 9:22 AM - While I've liked my last couple of bottles of 10.161, I suspect you are correct that the tannins may not resolve until the wine has gone fully tertiary in another couple of decades, if ever. The cognoscenti will say this is a feature, not a limitation, but 15 years from vintage is a decent enough lapse in time for mere mortals to get a glimpse of a wine in its mature window.
7/16/21, 6:36 PM - "For those of you preferring liquid minerals." I love it, great description! Kind of makes me want to crack one of these open.
7/10/21, 10:17 PM - Yep, I think it's quite good for the price, but won't be confused with more complex, finessed terroir-driven Pinot Noir.
6/11/21, 10:48 PM - Totally agree with your impression--this is a lot of wine, needs time, and is not really in the supple, elegant frame of cool climate Syrah, yet has a lot of cool climate character at the same time. There are no guarantees with aging, though I'd say a wine like this needs a chance to evolve.
6/9/21, 9:53 PM - How interesting, seems like some potential bottle variation here. My wife and I both reached a common conclusion last weekend--good, but not exciting or deep. Your bottle sounds like it was much more concentrated and structured.
6/6/21, 12:37 PM - The 'no tannins' observation makes this sound like a totally different wine than others have tasted. This was about as far from a Pinot Noir as could be when I tasted it.
6/6/21, 3:52 PM - Yes, I have a bit of healthy skepticism as well. The OG n.70 A/B/C/D blend Pinot Noirs I ordered, after the initial sell-through, all have an identical 14.2% ABV, in contrast with a lower ABV that varied by each sub-bottling in the marketing blurb. Perhaps the initial tranche of orders also have this feature, but I found it a bit odd. I haven't tried any of these yet, since most say they need more time.
6/6/21, 10:17 PM - Same here, I was fairly strategic in what I bought from dN, though that still resulted in 4.5 cases. n.82 was my last full cases buy, though. With the opportunity on 2018s closed, I'd like to see how the wines I already have do before going in for more from 2019 onward.
5/9/21, 11:12 PM - I'm not convinced you'll find Fratelli Alessandria at retail with age. Sure, you can sometimes find older Barolo at retail, but (a) how has it been stored and (b) how does the producer compare in style/quality to Alessandria? I largely agree with your impression on this bottling--I'm putting the rest of mine to sleep for a while under temperature control. That's the only way to have some confidence in the eventual outcome.
5/12/21, 8:39 AM - FredericoWines, my plan is to 'embargo' until at least 2025, then try a bottle since I have multiples. I don't have a huge amount of experience with aged Nebbiolo, but have generally found good results 8-12 years from vintage. Some Baroli are still dominated by tannin at that point, others have integrated structure and entered an early, balanced drinking window. Very rarely has a bottle been past prime. The wines that remain over-structured become hopeful--will the fruit outlive the tannins, will tertiary development occur? Given the pedigreed structure, elegant style, and raw material of the Alessandria, I do think the ~10 year mark is a good time to check in on this wine. Then you can judge whether you like more age or want to drink up in the next few years.
5/1/21, 8:10 AM - Yeah, I also opened a bottle a few months back, the long note is mine. 2024 feels about right for this to hit its early window. I have a decent foundation of cellar defenders, young drinkers, and wines with age, so I can defer on dN Cab-based reds a bit. But these will really be great to have in rotation (1-2 bottles/year) in a few years.
3/27/21, 2:23 PM - @DeLuz, I have tried the 2018 at the tasting room, it is also excellent, buy with confidence in my opinion. I've already picked up several bottles of the 2018, despite still working through a 'bulk buy' of the 2017s. The 2018 Donna's Syrah is also special, though it's quite different and seems more likely to benefit from extended age.Like you, Holus Bolus is my other go-to Syrah, dare I say we both have excellent taste in cool climate Syrah? Holus Bolus (Peter & Amy) really seems to be on a roll the last several years. I dropped the wine club for a year, then realized it was a mistake after opening a 2017 Presq'uile Syrah we had in the cellar for a year or two. So now I am back in & replenishing stocks.
3/28/21, 9:34 AM - @DeLuz, the new Holus Bolus tasting room in Los Olivos is definitely different, but very nice. Peter and/or Amy have been there when I've visited--discussion with the vintners is great. They are off of Grand Ave, thus are a bit sheltered from the bustle, though I've visited earlier in the day to bypass the late afternoon 'bar hopping' folks. I totally agree they are primed to take off and will likely become more scarce/expensive soon.
3/13/21, 10:51 AM - Totally with you on this! I picked up a handful of the 2015s based on the stylistic description from critics, which turned out to be accurate based on picking off a bottle early. And now I've grabbed a bunch of the base 2016 normale as well, given that the producer and vintage combo should be a dynamite combo.
3/12/21, 8:12 PM - Totally in line with my experience. The dissolved CO2 blew off after decanting. I'll be letting my other 2019s sleep, per Paul's recommendation.
2/21/21, 5:43 PM - Definitely if the wine of the tasting/flight was Michael David Earthquake PS (per your blog), then it makes sense the Vajra Albe didn't show well in comparison. It's not a chewy, bold wine--rather elegant for a young Barolo, somewhat subtle, more about the layering than intensity. Whereas Michael David is generally about turning it up to 11 in a monochromatic fashion. Generally there is not much overlap in palate preference--it's almost orthogonal styles.
1/30/21, 1:50 PM - I laughed when I read this, though I'm curious how to interpret. Is it because it is built for earlier drinking and more accessible/modern in its approach? Vajra doesn't have a reputation to glossy oak, for example, but my understanding is that nonetheless this isn't a traditional Barolo requiring 15+ years to reach drinkability.
10/5/20, 8:10 AM - Very descriptive note! I don't drink Bordeaux regularly and thus don't have that frame of reference. But certainly warm vintage Chinon ('05, '09, '10) is a different beast than what is produced in a typical years. The wines are concentrated, complex, and often powerfully structured. Most of my questions at this point concern tannin management--the producers in this region were less accustomed to ripe vintages until recently. Some of these vintages may actually be somewhat over-extracted in terms of tannic structure and won't really open up before 20 years (!). That's a feature, not a bug, for many, but it's something to keep in mind--treat top flight Chinon from ripe vintages like Bordeaux or Barolo, not as country wines.
5/30/20, 8:25 AM - I had just gone on a trip to Paso earlier in 2009, probably I was extrapolating from some of those tastings or perhaps comments from a winemaker or tasting room staff. 2007 was a good 'central coast' vintage, as I recall. It's not ideal to generalize vintages over wide areas, but if it's a wet year or a hot year, both Paso and SBC are subjected to the same climate patterns. I'd only expect major differences when there are serious frosts or the wet/dry line in a rainy season ends up on the SB-SLO county line.
5/30/20, 2:00 PM - That makes good sense in terms of specific varieties faring better in certain vintages, especially in younger vineyards where the best varieties are not fully identified. Certainly it's hard to imagine a great vintage for hearty reds being equally as good for fresh whites. Though I think this is true to some extent in Old World regions as well, where a great Red Bordeaux vintage and a great Sauternes vintage don't always overlap.I do think the one thing California has going for it is the range of microclimates over small geographic areas, e.g. Santa Rita Hills vs Happy Canyon or the western edge of the Templeton Gap vs East Side Paso. In that context, a good vintage allows for even ripening, so each variety can be picked to the winemaker's taste without heat or rain forcing decisions. Still, you're right, some varieties prefer more or less peak heat or sun, and will under or over perform the mean in a given vintage.
11/23/19, 10:19 AM - I didn't read your note before posting mine--totally agree on the Etna Rosso similarity!
8/21/19, 8:28 AM - Darn, I was borderline on going to the pickup, but didn't leave work on-time.
6/1/19, 5:10 PM - Matt, you nailed it, totally is the Wine+Beer shipment!
4/28/18, 5:14 PM - Tecolote = Owl. Maria = Stolpman operations manager, who is from a town where the locals are known as Tecolotes.
2/5/16, 7:33 AM - Either you're unfamiliar with bottle variation, or you should stick to The Prisoner, Silver Oak and Caymus. A bad cork (poor seal or TCA) or poor storage could have caused what you observed.
1/16/16, 9:25 AM - Definitely should last quite a while in large format given this bottle tasted fairly young. It's just a question of whether it ever evolves or continues down the current trajectory. If the fruit fades, the tobacco characteristics will take center stage.
12/2/12, 11:03 PM - Muffin top?
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