3/18/2011 - dan_hess wrote:

The price tag wasn’t small so I was hoping Hewitt’s Cabernet Sauvignon was something special. It was. At the first sip it was special. It was tight and required an hour before the tannins relaxed enough to let the fruit come through…but it was still very structured and had a strong tannin on the palate, even after two hours.
The color was gorgeous garnet. While this wine had plenty of body, I thought for a cabernet it was light to medium. The nose was black pepper as the primary aroma, which gave way to equal parts blackberry and lead pencil. The Hewitt Cabernet Sauvignon was an easy wine to think about since it stayed on your palette for a long time. It is a beautiful balance of fruit, tannin, and earth flavors. Hewitt showed great restraint, patience, and class in this beautiful and elegant wine.

12/17/2010 - dan_hess Likes this wine:

The most prominent thing about this wine was its massive nose. Elegant fruit that lingered into tobacco and leather. It is a stylized wine done with a great deal of art. The tannins were smooth and the drinking experience was easy and comfortable. The 04 runs about $60 but I thought the QPR was excellent. This has a similar experience of Napa royalty without the ridiculous price tag. Beautiful.

11/24/2010 - dan_hess Likes this wine:

The Havens 2006 Merlot is a very popular wine due to the close out and subsequent blowout by most discount retailers. It retailed for about $25 as I recall but picked this up for $7, like a lot of others did. Was it worth it? Here is the scoop:
My first impression was that it was stiff with tannins and hard to drink. I waited 4 hours and while it improved I decided to put the cork back in and wait 24 hours. What a difference! Let’s start there.
Ruby colored, quick legs and after a day of opening it still has a nose of dried fruits, black pepper, and pine. The red cherry is nicely balanced with a lot of cocoa, sage and the tannins, which now were pleasant and brought structure. The finish is short on the back tongue but the front tongue has a revival you don’t expect, making the finish much longer than you thought at first. The mouthfeel has gotten more lush but not syrupy. Its fine balance made it perfect for chicken (currently on the menu) but would stand up to beef if you wished. At $25 this is an excellent wine. At $7, it’s a steal. Buy as much as you can. Based on my experience with the tannins, I could cellar it for at least 5 years.

11/22/2010 - dan_hess Does not like this wine:

I had to sit down and write this since I have both liked and disliked this wine a few times. Willamette Valley has produced some really interesting Pinot Noir and this is one of them. The 2006 Lumos Pinot Noir Temperance Hill isn’t what one would expect from the heartbreak grape. It is big and heavy with tannins. A pop and pour had the nose with some swamp and rotten fruit…which aired out within the hour. It is Ruby colored, almost brooding, compared to some of the softer CA wines. The nose is dust, a bit of strawberry (I was expecting much more) and a punch in the nose black pepper. The strawberry comes out more on the palate but the black pepper translates into an almost medicinal/ethanol on the front of the tongue and after an hour still had stiff tannins across the mid-palate. I would still call it medium body with a long finish despite its bigness. But the more interesting question is “Was it good?” For the $30 paid I would say put your money elsewhere…Stoller, Cristom, Domain Drouhin, and many others make wine in this region that are better for the dollar. It might be better behaved after some time in bottle or a day of breathing, but it is a burly contestant in a beauty contest.

10/2/2010 - dan_hess wrote:

This is a beautiful wine that presents light garnet with fast legs. It has a heavy strawberry, rasberry, and prune nose and it is a promise kept when it goes to tasting the same, leaning more on strawberry jam. With a nice medium body and finish, this is an elegant effort from the normal Oregon Pinot. For those who love Oregon Pinot beware...this drinks much more like a Santa Lucia Pinot, and in my opinion that is a compliment. More feminine than muscular, this is a graceful effort.
I just wrote a review that was damning of Jon Rimmerman, and it was deserved. However, this Mystery 7 wine was every bit worth his praise. Nice job, Jon.

10/2/2010 - dan_hess wrote:

I will get the data part going for day 1: Its deep, deep purple and smells like blackberries, alcohol, and black pepper. A mistake you only make once is sticking your nose in finely ground black pepper canister. After an hour it still feels like that. The taste is pretty much like the nose…blackberry, alcohol, and black pepper. Its big. Its course. Its long. And god help me, it is angry! I will write more on day 2, but my first experience says this needs a loooong time-out in a dark and lonely room with no one else to talk to for at least 5 years and probably 10.

Day 2: Nasty. This didn’t improve and even got worse. This is a sad wine. I am stunned that Jon Rimmerman recommended without reservation…The King of Hyperbole might have met a waterloo here. I know his reputation has taken a bruising from this wine and perhaps it is deserved. There is no way he could have tasted this and still loved it.

9/27/2010 - dan_hess Likes this wine:

This is a complex and intellectually stimulating wine, though not my favorite. It is deep garnet in the glass with slow, sexy legs. The nose was at first was so tannic I could hardly drink it. It took a full day to open, but when it did the tannins made way for a much more interesting black pepper and cinnamon with some big espresso on a deep inhale. The first fruit you taste is blackberry, though it is far from fruity and had much more of a black coffee finish than a typical cab blend. It was almost a leathery mouth-feel and a long finish. It is obviously a well-built wine with a lot of thought and art behind it...but if you didn't just love the conversation with your wine nerds, this won't be your favorite. High marks for the wine maker and average marks for the value.

8/7/2010 - dan_hess Likes this wine:

Strong tannins, deep ruby color and thin legs. Tabacco and berry on the nose. After a decant of about 45 minutes the wine started opening and the blackberry got much more pronounced. I ate with a coffee rubbed steak and it was a perfect match. Big and bold flavor with a blend of some earth (probably that tobacco, but that was much less obvious at the 1/2 hour mark). Very nice wine.

7/31/2010 - dan_hess Likes this wine:

Extremely green. I decanted for 2 hours and it was still stiff with tannins, green pepper, and almost an olive flavor. The stylized quality imforms the drinker that it is a well crafted bottle of wine but it needs a few more years before I would consider this ready. The 2006 is much more approachable right now. Though the 07s are relatively cheap compared to the 06, the shelf time alone makes the 06 a better value.

5/30/2010 - dan_hess Likes this wine:

I have drunk this wine many times and it has been consistently lovely, though apparently not to everyone's taste. It is thick, with slow legs that are deep ruby, classic to most Shiraz, but this one is inky even compared to its brothers. While it isn't an Oak-monster, the nose is almost completely Oak and black pepper with a hint of the fruit bomb that it will be. It takes about an hour for it to open fully, but at that point it is huge...blackberry and strawberry jam dominate the palate, with a hint of red current. It is a thick, satin texture with a long finish that is precisely what you expected when you were staring at the legs. If you want a monster to enjoy a smoldering piece of flesh, this will be a friend you want invite to that party.

5/27/2010 - dan_hess wrote:

I opened this bottle at 9:30am for a 4pm party and it still needed more time. It was finally showing some blackberry and softer tannins. I came to like this wine but it was a long process. It is obviously a well made wine but it is shy and hard to love at first. The finish was short but growing. The next day it remained as a good potential that never really came out. I would think it was a good effort for a $20 wine, but at $70, Stags Leap should be embarassed. There is a long list of much finer wines at literally half the price.

5/22/2010 - dan_hess wrote:

While I decanted this for 4 hours before consumption, the grapefruit overwhelmed the experience. It remained bitter for at least another couple of hours before the fruit finally became larger than the distracting, unpleasant flavors. I re-bottled the 2nd half of the wine and expect it to show much better tomorrow. I don't understand the fuss about this wine.

4/25/2010 - dan_hess wrote:

This was an impressive wine. Full of blackberry with a nice structure of tannins. Good balance. Atlas Peak is becoming a favorite appellation! I was pleased with the $40 spent.

4/17/2010 - dan_hess Does not like this wine:

This never became likeable for me. It was thin and bitter, heavy with tannins and green pepper but no fruit. It reminded me of the pith of a citrus more than a berry you would expect from a competent Napa Cab. There was very little to like about this wine. This would ruin anything you paired with it. Steak would overpower this but chicken would highlight its bitter quality. Yikes.

4/17/2010 - dan_hess Likes this wine:

This wine is remarkable in its bigness and its thick, rich, mouthfeel. Some might think it is a fruit bomb, but I believe they missing the balance of the tannins and the deep notes of earthy flavors. Even steak might be dwarfed by this wine and requires a ribeye to combat its bigness.

4/13/2010 - dan_hess wrote:

Needed about 45 minutes to open at all. Very heavy tannins for a Pinot. Excellent bright red cherries on the mid pallate. Got significantly smoother over the next hour and half.

3/2/2010 - dan_hess wrote:

I have had many of these now. The Mount Veeder (they have a less attractive "Spring Valley") is a well balanced classic Napa Cabernet with smooth but pronounced tannins and a bit fruit forward. Even a 2004 required a decanted hour to fully come into its own. The fruit is a brighter cherry first, then goes to blackberry. Tannins remained firm and supple throughout the couple hours of drinking. This is a fantastic bottle for the money. A napa cab this well crafted for less than $70 is a steal.

2/15/2010 - dan_hess wrote:

This was a ripe and full bodied wine with the most dramatic "sweet-tart" experience I have ever had in wine. It was unusual but extremely pleasant. The tannins were smooth and easy to drink. Fruit forward, soft tannins, and even front tongue/back tongue tastes