4/13/2024 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

A pale second to the 2016 Ma Belle Fille, if I may cross-compare wines and years? Probably a not really valid process.

3/8/2024 - oncocyte wrote:

Its race is run. Some fruit, but all in all, I would favor drinking it five years ago.

2/29/2024 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

Very different from two years ago. More Bordeaux-like, structured. More of a fine but pedestrian high quality Cali wine. Too much pyrazine. Still, a nice drink. See ya again in 2025.

2/29/2024 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

Behemoth. Leviathan. Megalodon. One of the densest grape products I have ever consumed. Intense concentration of berry flavors with spices. Held back presently by tannins with perceptible astringency. Give it 10 to 20 years, it will be a 100 point wine on people's short list of 100 point wines. I can't even say it's opened any further overnight. Maybe 48H of aeration next time?

2/18/2024 - oncocyte wrote:

More menthol on the nose than I expected….. dark in character… where is the fruit…..HOLD IT……that’s not menthol!! It is Brettanomyces, the horror, the horror. Too bad, so sad.

1/28/2024 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

Really elegant smooth pinot. Working on my pinot vocabulary, that's what I can do for now. What a lovely product.

11/16/2023 - oncocyte wrote:

Did not compare well to a side by side with Warre's 1994.

11/1/2023 - oncocyte wrote:

too young to score,

9/26/2023 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

Aroma of wood and cassis, Later a little pepper. Fairly dense wine, dark cherry flavor, a little monolithic now, minimal heat on the finish. A fine drink that will improve over 5-10 years imho.

8/5/2023 - oncocyte wrote:

Open three hours. Will definitely wish to revisit in 10 years. Some fruit, but basically in a very shut-down phase.

6/11/2023 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

Amazing juice. Smooth. Great nose, some wood, some pepper, some fruit. Loaded with dark flavors. Easy tannins. Will live 15 more years. I suspect 4 years till peak. Yum yum yum.

6/2/2023 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

I’m getting on the nose a vegetal green pepper thing. Takes me out of France for sure despite its efforts to imitate. . The palate, wow, blows up with no excess sweetness but enough, herbs, forest floor,licorice, (sorry i read a review first and can’t escape that) and just perfect harmony. Soft tannin finish. This is a monster wine. Could be peak or could get more nuanced. Will live for years. I love it. I will be interested in other descriptions of the flavors. Bravo!!

4/24/2023 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

Last time I was this moved by a wine was 86 Gruaud. Pop and pour. Minor evolution over 2-3 hours, devolving as we approached the sediment. Flawless from the gate. A degree of saddle leather, pencil shavings, and cedar on the nose. The palate was cassis, appropriate sweetness, dusty soft tannins, leading to a harmonious finish with muted alcohol. Mostly it was the perfect harmony of the elements that so moved me. So, so elegant. Could this be the last of the old style Bordeaux?

1/13/2023 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

this is mature, couldn't do notes with guests for dinner, but gave it 94. Heck, make it 95. Sumptuous, not unctuous.

12/16/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

A pleasant drink, an excellent value for perhaps $35. I’m just not getting any concentration, depth or integration of tannins which frankly, I’m not detecting enough of. Removed from original wood case, not a hint of brett, well stored, consider me disapointed. Open 5 hours now.

12/1/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Too bretty for my comfort.

11/27/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

I had such high hopes…. There does seem to be some red fruit on the nose, mixed in with oak. Palate wise however, he gets very oaky, very fast. I think it needs 10 years, but I don’t know what will be left of it, or me, for that matter, by that time. Addendum. Had been open for six hours. Wife said “This would be good with barbecue.”

11/23/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Nice berry/woodsy nose, but on the palate, the astringent tannins overwhelm the fruit. I don't think there is enough fruit to ever change this disappointing balance.

10/7/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Lutum, you saved the best for last (bottle). My pinot vocabulary is inadequate, won't comment on the nose, but the taste was really great, the flavor was lots of barnyard, balanced with fruit, fully expressed w/o awkwardness or excess. Served with wild salmon, worked well.
Edit; yea, I see i kind of ripped on it in 2019. Not the same wine now!

9/25/2022 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

My first reaction was a 100 points stunner. It was an unctuous, mouth coating, dynamic experience, but it was really cold. As it warmed up to an appropriate temperature, it seems to me the acid came forward. The fruit revealed itself as tropical. I find the acid in excess of the fruit to a degree. But that unctuous mouth feel is over the top. I will still drink it any day of the week.

8/16/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Clearly has travelled through Brett City and consorted with the inhabitants.

6/7/2022 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

Strange experience with this bottle. I opened it and tasted it and was blown away by the intense concentration, depth and long finish. I was expecting a massive wine. 60-90 minutes later, it was a tasty little thing, but the power was gone.

5/24/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Pas de joie ici. The nose offers a a promise of fruit, not delivered subsequently. The palate is forest floor, wood, mushroom. The finish is softer tannins with shoe polish. Which can be a nice accent in the right position and right quantity. Fails here on both tests.

5/8/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Garrigue and tannins in balance. Well constructed, serious, but pas de joie.

4/24/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Magnificent, elegant wine. Two huge fans at this table. A little cigar box and slight peppery nose, then ethereal fruit, then soft road tar-like tannins on the backside, with a long finish. Can't wait to see how this evolves, but I guess I have to.

4/19/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Much, much more reserved that the 2013 which was astonishing. Lets give it years and years. Will not assign points presently.

4/18/2022 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

Petrol nose. Maybe that’s a flaw, but I love it. Silky mouthfeel, abundant flavors I can’t well characterize, but all in all, a marvelous companion to lamb curry.

4/16/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Haven’t seen this failure pattern before. The bottle was full of innumerable fine suspended particles. Tartaric acid? The wine itself, which I just had to taste, was a little astringent, fairly fruitless, but not discolored or obviously cooked. If I had paid 10.99 for the bottle, I would I would say yeah, got what I paid for.
Wow, reading other notes now. the sediment is a recurrent theme.

4/14/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Interesting bottle. Declared a Bdx in the third stage of life by almost the entire tasting group--not a typical error--and one of some pedigree at that. One perspicacious taster found it disapointing and low in fruit and called it a too-old Cali.

4/4/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

5+ ppm brett. Like dirty socks stored in wet cardboard in a musty basement

4/3/2022 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

Classic PM juice, all those elegant fruits, smooth backbone, balanced acid, um hum.

4/3/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

This bottle is just neutral. Not declaring itself as a premiere wine. Not bretty, not flawed, just in a dumb phase or flawed w/o being unpleasant. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing to celebrate either.

3/4/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Wow, if a heat-treated, inferior grade, excessively aged Amarone is your thrill, stop right now. Otherwise, move along folks. Now that said, maybe a bad bottle? My storage is near impeccable.
OK, I've read the other notes. Bad bottle.

3/2/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

It's too late baby, it's too late......
Maybe just the bottle, but this one was too aged to be enjoyable.
Losing the fruit, some varnish, acidic finish, Nah.

2/27/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Judging by the review here, and a professional one, our bottle was flawed. Brett it would seem. Not a happy thing.

2/26/2022 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

I am embarrassed by how much I like this wine. Opened yesterday and sampled, tasted today. If you could or would convert fine cherry candy into wine, you would be here. Nose, to me somewhat reticent, but oaky and fruity. The palate, wow. Comes in with megafruit, then fires all the sweetness detectors into emergency alarm. But in a happy, syrupy way.
The fruit is, I think, cherry. Exits smoothly, dominated still by fruit rather than tannin or EtOH.
This is not what I learned on. But as a Bdx drinker, I have to say that if this is wrong, I don't ever want to be right again.

1/16/2022 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

Adolescent wine, bursting with flavor, tannin, and energy. Working hard on coordination, mannerly behavior and tannin control. Give it eight+ years. Will be 95 pts then.

1/14/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Stunning. Oak, green pepper, cassis, a little cigar box on the nose. Fruit forward, then gentle tannins, contributing to a seamless integrity. Had I done it blindly, I would’ve defended the second growth Pauillac or Saint Emilion hypothesis to the death. I love this bottle. It may evolve, but I’m not sure it could improve.

1/12/2022 - oncocyte wrote:

Nice amber color. Sugar-4+ Fruit-2-3+, botrytis, 2+, acid 1+. In my impression a drinkable but not elegantly balanced Sauterne.

12/28/2021 - oncocyte wrote:

I spent three minutes trying to squeeze this angular product into the round hole of a smooth product. Were they trying for darker notes here? Whow, what acid. Surely these notes harmonize but how?
Had this barrel just been shellacked on purpose? DING DING DING!!
this bottle was oxidized/cooked! Not by me!

12/8/2021 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

This blew the tasting group away. I called it red fruit on the attack--some pomegranate ? followed by tongue coating but supple, dark but gentle tannins, forest floor kind of thing, and a 2+ minute finish. Tres concentrated. Will live for years and years.

12/8/2021 - oncocyte Does not like this wine:

Phenolic in nose and flavor. Those of you old enough to have had your grandmother apply Campho-Phenique to your chigger bites will understand what I am saying here. Scored it 82 but 30 of those are holiday season mercy points.

12/7/2021 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

A profound and unctuous drink. Densely rich, cassis type nose, dark fruit, soft balanced tannin, long finish. Massive wine with years to go. Just perfect now though.

7/11/2021 - oncocyte Does not like this wine:

I'd loved to have loved it. But nothing to love . Kind of just not there for me. Insipid, no joie, no zest, no puissance. Not a storage issue. Shipping?

7/11/2021 - oncocyte wrote:

Daughter: "Dunnoh, getting port and raisins here."
Me, just having opened a cellar treasure, "Get outta here. Oh, darn."
Hopefully an atypical bottle. But devoid of fruit, and seems heat treated.
Tragically, opened along side a 2012 Ma Belle Fille. Which was also insipid. Shipping issue? We are in mid-flyover area.

6/27/2021 - oncocyte wrote:

Inky purple. Nose of wood shop sweepings, black cherry, green pepper.
Palate is thick with fruit, seems black cherry to me, tannins mesh well. Unctuous. But very adolescent. And early at that. I can give it only 93 now due to a certain lack of complexity but I think it is going places.
My reaction a few year ago was, Darn, how much did I pay for this. Now, it's, darn, how little did I pay for this!
Oh yea, impressive sediment

3/31/2020 - oncocyte wrote:

this bottle was getting the darkening color and sherry notes that signify excess age. Would not be fair to score, but if forced I would go 86 based on what it is in this glass.

3/5/2020 - oncocyte wrote:

Seemed heavy with bourbon notes. May be a flawed bottle?

11/9/2019 - oncocyte wrote:

Dunnoh. Had 6 years to begin to express its potential. But more earth than fruit. i just don't see the harmonic convergence yet. I'll keep that one bottle for 2023 to teach me a powerful and humiliating lesson. I hope. Can't say I'm not prejudiced towards it, my name being Ryan.

11/4/2019 - oncocyte Likes this wine:

Tightly wound brooding giant, slouching towards Bethlehem. My children will enjoy the early development of its secondary characteristics in the 2040's, when it will garner the 98-99 point scores it will richly deserve. I seriously need to consider switching to pinot. Can you do that on a 2nd-5th growth Bordeaux budget?