Community Tasting Notes 13

• GuanYu Likes this wine: 94 points

  March 2, 2024 - Medium dark ruby red with a mix of pink and orange rim. Black fruits, cassis, raspberry, strawberry, leather, tobacco, cedar, oak, fresh herbs, spices, black pepper, nuts and farmyard. Full bodied, medium-high acidity, medium-high tannin, medium-high structure, medium-high alcohol and long finish. Complex, layered, and refined. Velvety and viscous on the palate.
  
  Wine tasted youthful and fresh despite the tertiary aromas. After 22 years, the rim was 90% pink and 10% orange. Good acidity, tannin and fruits meant plenty of aging potential ahead of it.

  Comment

• Benj wrote:

  March 7, 2022 - My first bottle of these 2002s was too Bretty to get past. My experience so far has been that all of these mature Qupés have some Brett in them. Fine, I think, in an older Syrah, but not if it overwhelms everything else. Fortunately, this bottle was right on target. Tannins have completely resolved, most of the fruit is long gone, and there's plenty of spicy, savory, gamey, briny, slightly metallic, complex deliciousness to enjoy. Good acid still, and not yet tasting like thin juice. Blind, I might call this older than 20 years. Past its peak but still with plenty to offer, and a true bargain for $13 at auction.

  1 person found this helpful Comments (1)

• SBfunlover Likes this wine: 91 points

  September 23, 2021 - Dark baked fruit. Definitely past due but still decent. I got it yesterday and opened it today. The last glass was way better than the first. Tartaric crystals on cork and in bottle. Everything mellowed in subsequent hours and I really started to enjoy it.

  Comment

• PIntag wrote:

  December 30, 2020 - 2nd of 2 bottles from recent auction purchase.
  Again, some barnyard with this bottle, perhaps not quite as pronounced as the last bottle. Aside from that, there's some good stuff going on here, so it was drinkable though the experience was overall not great.

  1 person found this helpful Comment

• AB16 Likes this wine: 91 points

  December 21, 2020 - I like it because it’s 18 years old, domestic and still drinking nicely. A straight forward syrah with fleshy fruit that’s starting to mellow. I get some black pepper on the nose , but no Bret as previously mentioned. Unfiltered, luscious fruit that is moving into the next phase without picking up much secondary nuance I think this wine will continue to age nicely but not convinced it will improve. In any case, I am enjoying it on a cool winter night with soup, cabbage and sausage. 13.5% abv reminds me of a time before climate change took over enology.
  
  3 hours later, in decanter I like even better. It has integrated beautifully and is a wonderful food beverage

  1 person found this helpful Comment

Pro Reviews 2

Wine Definition

• Vintage 2002
• Type Red
• Producer Qupé
• Varietal Syrah
• Designation n/a
• Vineyard Bien Nacido Vineyard
• Country USA
• Region California
• SubRegion Central Coast
• Appellation Santa Maria Valley

Community Holdings

• Pending Delivery 4 (4%)
• In Cellars 28 (30%)
• Consumed 61 (66%)

Food Pairing

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