February 16, 2024 - Opened this at the end of the night as a pop and pour. It was very good but for the next bottle I will definitely decant.
May 16, 2023 - Stewed cranberries and firm tannins. Severed a little warm which did not help it. Took some time to open up. Suggest decanting or better yet hold for several more years.
January 16, 2023 - A big style wine. Still showing lots of youth. Blackberry and white chocolate notes. Mid pallet shows Velvety tannins. With the acidity and alcohol coming through on the finish which keeps the wine from being cloying. Interested to see how this develops.
December 22, 2022 - Decanted for 2+ hours and drank without food before and after going out to dinner. Tasty big fruit and spices on the earlier glasses, more chocolate notes later. So smooth and balanced, still some grip from the tannins but alcohol went unnoticed. My last 750 of this (as I try to clear through my ‘17s). But I have a magnum which I will hold for 3-5.
November 5, 2022 - Magnificent! One of my Napa favs.
July 6, 2022 - Excellent wine. Encouraged by Dr Bad’s recent note I decided to open this one again. 2 hour decant, not much evolution, even on day 2. But drinking really nicely. Chocolately, berries, silky tannins. All in balance. You would not guess the vintage.
June 30, 2022 - Last of my '17 Elysisans, not sure why I haven't written any TNs. Excellent wine for the '17 vintage. Big, sexy, plush, silky with chocolate, dark cherry, cassis and vanilla.
May 30, 2022 - Decanted an hour and consumed half the bottle over a couple hours. Second half of the bottle drank on day 2.
Wonderfully aromatic and captivating on the nose. Palate is full of dark berries, bing cherry, some chocolate, and at times a vegetal/bell pepper note. There was a bit of an underlying harshness toward the finish on this bottle that I don’t recall from drinking this vintage previously.
More mellow on day 2, but the fruit was more jammy and a bit flatter compared to day 1 where the fruit was more lively and electric. Perhaps I caught this bottle at an awkward time or had an off bottle. 92pts if rating.
January 27, 2022 - 7 months since my last bottle and boy, did this one change its MO. Pnp into a decanter for 4 hours. Big juicy dark berry fruit and some alc upfront. Kept waiting for the green, stemmy phase to show up at 2 hours and it never did. A 96 then. Put it back in the bottle to slow ox another 30 min before taking it to our group. Tasted over 3+ hours from there. Still some tannins showing as the fruit started to descend. 95 then and lost another point with more air at the end to a 94 so I averaged my score out to a 95 for this bottle. The fruit is very good for a '17 but its best drinking window was hours 2 to 4 decanting. Amazing how 7 more months in bottle can change a wine.......maybe a reflection of these '17s? I'm of the belief that they won't improve from here, hence draining them from my cellar.
January 18, 2022 - Man, oh man. As Beau11 said, if you have concerns about this being a 2017, don't worry. This came out of the bottle as a P'n'p ready to rock. Went beautifully with a NY strip steak.
I've got one bottle left. Can't wait to see if another couple of years of age makes for any improvement.