Community Tasting Note

Vinacull wrote:

Friday, June 10, 2011 - Perhaps a classic illustration of how great wine may suffer if it doesn't get proper air, or alternatively, I'm in the camp with the reviews of Jeff Leve and Jeff Nowak. The generous host of the party placed this out on the wine table to be opened, so I obliged. P&P, with no opportunity to decant, and no place to stash the bottle to let it get some air before it was quickly emptied by unwitting party-goers sucking down whatever was open. Color very dark, seemingly black, opaque, and what appears to be full-body coating the glass. Served in what I call a "globe" glass that doesn't allow swirling (unless you like wearing your Hillside Select), I was able to gently coax some beautiful and powerful aromas of black currants, black cherries, blueberries, graphite and chocolate, and bits of well done oak poking through. On the palate, so much power and layers of dark fruit, and yet it is not heavy at all, which was admirable in and of itself. Tremendously tasty flavors of black currants, cherries, chocolate (both dark and milk), flowers from somewhere, and fine silty graphite adding texture. Seems tight starting in the mid, and major league polished tannins clamping down somewhat on the back end. This had the Wonka "Everlasting Gobstopper" finish, where it just keeps going, somehow introducing new bursts of flavor to an already-saturated palate. Overall outstanding from perspectives of flavor, balance, and finish, but it felt like there were a number of components not showing or that had not come together in a complete package yet, and so the experience was neither 100-point-perfect nor mind-blowing, no matter how much I wanted it to be. Even by numbers, I can't rate it higher than the '92 Dominus we had a couple months ago, which was much more elegant and complex and had an incredible youthful energy more like an '02. But again, maybe it was just the tasting circumstances for the HS. No doubt it has great potential.

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