Community Tasting Notes 14

• BigBoy_Sonoma Likes this wine: 98 points

  December 26, 2023 - Black fruit, cedar, spice, chocolate, cassis, currant, finishes smoky oak. A+

  Comment

• sfwinelover1 Likes this wine:

  May 28, 2023 - Best of the World Wine Night (ex-Italy) (The csimm_M Estate): As anyone who has even scanned my TNs or cellar knows, I’m a huge Larkmead/Petroski fan, or perhaps I should say, in the context of so many TNs, including for this wine, of his in the 20teens, defender. I find his wines to be, or perhaps have been, since the LM-Petroski connection ended a couple of years ago, consistently challenging, complex, and, in the best sense of the word, intellectual without ever being less than enjoyable. Although I have 2 ‘16 Larks in my collection (and per all the caviling about price, I paid $180@), this was my first time tasting this cuvee. All of this said, and subject to the proviso of the J. Daniel and others, I had this late in the tasting, and just the one taste. There were lots of black currants and some hard to pin down black berries and a lot of the usual notes, so well identified by CT friend msu, often found in knotted cabs of mocha, bitter chocolate, asphalt, scorched earth, etc. My warm and cuddly feelings about Messr. Petroski aside, I’ll pilfer the descriptor of CT friend, and host, csimm, about my higher priced bring to the last get together (an ‘18 Montrose; yeah, I know: what was I thinking?), that, on this night, this wine seemed kinda angry. It’s really hard to score now—and it’s interesting in writing this TN to read msu’s note of a couple-few years ago when he gave it a 97-98–because the potential seems massive, and more obvious than that Montrose’s, but the fact that this was once awesome and now isn’t that wine makes future prognostication all the more uncertain. Anyway, the potential makes me say I like this wine now, but the impenetrability makes me withhold a score (may I add, that this is all the more ironic from this super accessible vintage, which is generally drinking in a stellar way now?) and tell those holding to put their bottles with the full set of Remembrance of Things Past, in the original French, and tell this not to come out until such volumes have been thoroughly read and reported upon. Some of the wines that were really good on this night struggled relatively just because the competition was so great, but this wine, or at least this bottle, on this night, was struggling against itself, IMO.

  Comment

• WineBurrowingWombat Likes this wine: 93 points

  May 28, 2023 - Memorial Day Weekend, Day 2: The Great Gatsby: On the nose was a strong heat with dark red fruits with heavy, dark earth. I liked the earth scents here.
  
  Flavors of intense black and red fruits, similar dark earth from the nose, still some heat though and black graphite.
  
  Very rough but somewhat pleasurable. I might have problems..

  Comment

• msuwine wrote: 94 points

  September 12, 2022 - This wine is rich and pungent - not in a fruity, boozy, juicy sense, but in an intense, tannic, briar-patch kind of way that makes me think this 100% Cabernet is just a little pissed off at the moment (or, perhaps, forevermore). Although my hunch is that this is a phase, there's no doubt this wine currently lacks the integration and polish of five years ago (10/17 - 97 points). This wine is not fading away, but where exactly it's slouching (and on what timetable) - I dunno. Adolescence has its own timetable.
  
  Dark purple in color and full in body, the wine offers aromas of cocoa powder, boysenberry seeds, graphite, and oregano. The flavors soften with a few hours of air, but they still seem prickly, with notes of blackberry, Turkish coffee, cocoa beans, and gravel, with a tannic and dense finish. 14.7% alcohol. In the soft and agreeable 2012 vintage, this is the smart a-- in the back of the class - I'm betting he'll turn out OK, but it won't be until 2025 or later. Decant three hours if drinking now. 94 at the moment.

  1 person found this helpful Comment

• Millennial Drinkers wrote: 92 points

  January 22, 2022 - NFN - need some time to get those deeper layers.

  1 person found this helpful Comment

Pro Reviews 2

Wine Definition

• Vintage 2012
• Type Red
• Producer Larkmead Vineyards
• Varietal Red Bordeaux Blend
• Designation The Lark
• Vineyard n/a
• Country USA
• Region California
• SubRegion Napa Valley
• Appellation Napa Valley

Community Holdings

• Pending Delivery 0 (0%)
• In Cellars 416 (67%)
• Consumed 202 (33%)

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