February 10, 2024 - Three hour slow ox decant. Big notes of dark fruit with tobacco , cedar pencil shavings, graphite, with significant silky tannins. Really continues to evolve in the glass. Drinking well now but needs serious cellar time to develop more complexity and smooth out those tannins.
January 24, 2024 - This wine took 45 minutes to finally open up. Nose was earthy with leather and cedar and a hint of dark fruit. Flavors followed with black raspberry and some ripe plum. Finish was perfect and long with nice layered tannins with some dark fruit and a good acid balance.
January 18, 2024 - Showing some nice age right now, not sure how much it will improve. Having tried older vintages of Insignia I think this 09’ is in a sweet spot for my preference.
August 17, 2023 - With Flannery Bone in NY….
Luscious but not too much. Very linear with overflowing
Cassis, Dark Berries and Plums. Tannins resolved but still giving a bit of texture. Outstanding.
Revisit in 2029 for some more development .
Drink easily into 2035.
August 6, 2023 - Insignia.
It's just good juice.
Really good juice.
Even as a 2009, this wine is still rather young. A knife and fork blackberry cassis and blueberry cake donut with a hint of molasses and tar. But still had noticeable roasted tannin that was just still covering the finish of this wine rather substantially but has a heart amount of black pepper. I always seem to love these when they are open. The younger vintages of this can be very unilateral, and undoubtedly this one needs another 5 years in bottle to be at optimal drinking. A delicious wine in its young adulthood! I last had this bottle 10 years ago when it was just released and was really disappointed at that time but I know it was certain it was too young to drink back then. As expected, this one has done well with 10yrs in the cellar! At this point, drink with a healthy decant, or better yet, hold!
July 19, 2023 - 3 hour slow ox. Much better on Day 2. Drink with plenty of air or hold.
January 21, 2023 - Similar to prior note after a 2.5 hour double decant, except that it is now at peak; outstanding, drink or hold, no rush
September 10, 2022 - Very nice wine! Plums, cassis, blackberry a floral scent. The tannins were super well integrated l, soft yet firm.
June 22, 2022 - Clear deep Garnet with clean and powerful noise with aromas of vanilla, nutmeg, charred wood, mushrooms, dried cherry, liquorice. Wine is fully developed. Palate: dry with medium acidity, well integrated tannins, high alcohol, medium pus body with pronounced flavors of leather, mushrooms, dried black fruit. Finish is long and very satisfying. Very good wine to enjoy now and can be aged for 10 more years
May 22, 2022 - Jan's in town (Kevin and Vicki's house): Decanted a couple hours. For me, this was just too young. I feel Insignia's are quite big, fruity and dense in their youth, and they need 25+ years to lean out. I was curious where this wine would be, and regrettably its quite burly at this time in its life. Hold.