Community Tasting Note

JVG wrote:

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 - Color: Still very youthful and dark. Almost black at the center and purplish magenta at the rim.

Nose: Hugely ripe, with thick, dark aromas of blueberry, blackberry, and plum. Smells overripe. Quite a bit of oak as well, with lots of toasty wood, cinnamon spice, sharp dried flowers, and dill notes. Quite a bit of alcohol too, which combined with the character of the fruit makes this smell porty, or even medicinal or liqueur-like. Not getting much of anything in the way of secondary characteristics. Not an encouraging nose.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full bodied and coarse.

Palate: Way overoaked. The wood masks the fruit, and most of the palate experience becomes oak and wood-spice, along with a bitterness that I also associate with wood tannin. Combined with the apparent alcohol (14.9% on the label, meaning it might be damn near 16%), this just delivers an assault on the mouth. The finish is Big Red gum and wood chips. There's literally nothing here except alcohol, cinnamon, and wood.

I just cannot understand wine like this. It comes from what seems like a wonderful vineyard on Spring Mountain, meaning it should produce great grapes full of character and ruggedness and brambly fruit, but all I can smell or taste in this wine is alcohol and wood. Even though the nose and alcohol level indicate that it is super-extracted, I can't taste the fruit. That's how oaky and alcoholic it is. You spend $50+ ($75 from the winery) on this bottle, and you can't drink it with food, and you can't drink it on its own---what am I supposed to do with this? If I wanted something that tasted like biting an oak tree, I would buy an 18-year-old bourbon. It would taste better, last longer, and be a better value. If you gave this to me blind and then told me it was a $10 cab from South America or the Central Valley flavored with oak chips, I would believe you. It really pisses me off that I dropped $50 on this joke of a wine. Hopefully my score will help balance the incomprehensible 90+s here.

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