Community Tasting Notes 10

• Cailles wrote: 94 points

  February 5, 2023 - 30x California 1978: So many wines from this great Californian vintage at the age of 45 certainly qualifies as a “once in a lifetime” event. A few observations: 1) The quality was very high (almost all my ratings above 90pts). And only four faulty wines (2x corked, 2x over the hill/flawed, sadly those two were the Ridge Monte Bello and the Phelps Insignia). 2) The wines are ready to drink, the tannins have melted but the tension and freshness remain high - across the board. 3) There is still lots of fruit left and I was surprised how most wines didn’t show lots of tertiary aromas (find me the Bdx 1982 without tertiary aromas!). IMO, more than a handful of the wines could continue to improve for a few years. 4) Style wise, these are obviously quite different from today’s Napa wines with much less ripeness and more mineral accents. But hardly any wine we had would be mistaken for a Bordeaux in a blind tasting (unlike 80s/90s Dominus). 5) Best reds: Inglenook Limited Cask, Beaulieu GDL Reserve, Stags Leap Cask 23 4.5l (all 96pts), Heitz Bella Oaks, Simi Reserve, Stag’s Leap Cask 23 0.75l (all 95pts). The best wine overall, however, was the magical Late Harvest Riesling from Phelps (98pts).
  
  TN: Medium expressive nose displaying lots of herbal notes and a dark fruit component. Some camp fire. On the palate super fresh and full of tension. Dark fruits, earthy and rocky notes, some salty notes, herbs. Very pleasant, elegant, classic. Maybe time will soften the slightly hard edges here further but I suspect that the tannin quality was slightly subpar compared to many other wines in this vintage. Still, this was a great bottle.

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• G_H wrote: 90 points

  January 28, 2023 - 1978 California Cabernet Horizontal: Very ripe, medicinal, herbacious, slightly younger in the palate, quite artisanal and old school. For me this was better than the Monte Bello next to it, but I would drink up

  Comment

• sirpat00 wrote: 93 points

  January 28, 2023 - California 1978 (Zunfthaus zur Waag, Zurich): Grand tasting of 1978 California wines, mostly from Napa. Main takeaways: i/ surprisingly high quality on average for wines that were not intended for such long-term aging with plenty of primary fruit left, ii/ but within the detail nonetheless a broad range with the worst few suffering from clear signs of fatigue while the best showed hardly age, iii/ top wines were Phelps Cab Sauv (97), Firestone Cab Sauv (95), and Beaulieu George de Latour Private Reserve (95). Full list sorted by score included in the tasting story.
  
  Tasting note:
  This was Port-like and alcoholic with a distinctly dark character. Dark cherry, dried plum and fig, old leather, loads of tobacco and cold smoke. The palate was high octane with plenty of structure and adding even more tobacco flavors.

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• onboisduvin Likes this wine: 93 points

  December 29, 2017 - Mistaken this for younger Bordeaux wine of the 85'-95'. Like I always believe, good Napa cabernet lasts and drinks better when it's old.
  
  Alex.Lewis: thank you, now I know the difference geographically.

  Comments (1)

• BradKNYC wrote:

  October 11, 2011 - Mostly California Wines from the '70s at John Gilman's. (John Gilman's.): Bottle # 365 bites the dust, but does so in style. There's a strong ashtray aroma when first poured, but it blows off to reveal tempting aromas of black fruit, herb and cocoa powder. It's more evolved and integrated than the '78 Diamond Creek, with maybe a touch more complexity. The blackberry and black currant fruit is sweet and tasty and buttressed by a pleasant herbal note, dark chocolate and black licorice. With a little time in the glass a nice tobacco character started to show itself. Drinking really nicely. Solid A-.

  Comment

Pro Reviews 5

Wine Definition

• Vintage 1978
• Type Red
• Producer Mount Eden Vineyards
• Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon
• Designation n/a
• Vineyard n/a
• Country USA
• Region California
• SubRegion Santa Cruz Mountains
• Appellation Santa Cruz Mountains

Community Holdings

• Pending Delivery 0 (0%)
• In Cellars 40 (62%)
• Consumed 25 (38%)

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