Not quite my style, but a huge burly wine. Coffee beans, chocolate, rich berries, meaty characteristics, and notable streak of alcohol. Very new world.
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Christophe Baron produces infamous wines. Even people who like them speak of them as if they were defective. (“We love Christophe, but we’re more downwind in the Rocks style,” as someone from Rotie Cellars told me.) And Bionic Frog might be the most infamous of all. “You’ve got to be ready for a serious funk bomb,” said a rep from Full Pull Wines. “I don’t care for it myself.”
Even the label of the wine seems designed to invite skepticism. Christophe is likely the only vintner alive who would package his most prized yield (barring Hors Categorie) under a logo that resembles a lesser Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle villain. This is particularly bizarre when one considers the relative elegance of Cayuse’s other bottles. Bionic Frog reigns over the brand hierarchy as an idiosyncratic emperor.
In other words, it’s got a reputation.
When I finally found a bottle for sale, I dragged my feet. Why, I thought, should I shell out over $300 for a wine that some have likened to the taste of cow dung? I still have no good answer to that question, but curiosity got the best of me. (I am privileged to have the means to spend such an amount to satisfy a curiosity.)
Now that I’ve had the stuff myself, I wonder how much of the funk/manure/rot infamy is due to reputation alone. Yes, Bionic Frog and the rest of its kin certainly feature that flavor profile more than your typical Trader Joe’s or BevMo Syrah—for that matter, so does Cru Hermitage—so the polarization is to some degree warranted. These wines are not for everybody. (Then again, is any wine for everybody? What does it mean for a beverage to be “inclusive”? Is price important? Smell? Taste? Accessibility/availability? These big questions need systematic answers, ones that don’t birth a rubric advantaging, say, Yellowtail.)
But here’s the thing: a wine that flirts with an ostensible niche is not necessarily challenging.
Bionic Frog, to this tongue, is not challenging. It is, rather, one of the most expressive wines I have ever had the pleasure to drink. Pop it open and air it out. The wine will do all the heavy lifting of justifying itself to you and why it needs to taste the way it does. (Lord knows how Monsieur Baron is able to harvest and ferment Syrah grapes from Coccinelle vineyard that produce such juice, but the proof is in the pudding.) I drank this bottle rather young-ish but found that it still had plenty to say.
My tasting notes over 3 hours:
30 mins—Tasty but tight. Subtle fruit and strong cinnamon smoke. Tensely coiled.
1.5 hours—Sour cherry blooming out of a wild vegetal foundation. The funk and fruit seem to have ripened together. I taste moss, silage, wood ear mushroom, and maybe even peat! The funk is very grassy. (A thought: would it help make Bionic Frog more accessible if terms like this were used, rather than ones like “funk bomb” or “cow patty”?)
2.5 hours—Very dry now, with roasted plum and peppered olive brine leading notes of bacon fat, wet graphite, and peach pit.
At 3 hours I had one final sip that revealed a strong saltiness I had not noticed before. The back of my tongue tingled as it does when I eat dishes like ramen with pork belly.
How does Bionic Frog compare with other Cayuse Syrahs? It is weirder, in an enchanting way. It shape-shifts and insinuates where those other wines make clearer choices about their identities. (Though I would not begrudge them those choices!) It turns weirdness into not just a virtue but a kind of perfection.
Drank with a friend before and after dinner so tasted over course of about 4 hours. Really enjoyable. To me started savory with obvious meat, fat, oak, pepper, only some mild black fruit notes, salty with olive tapenade. Over time the oak and pepper seemed to come more forward with more black fruit, maybe a bit more floral, still large meat undertone, and olive notes more obvious.
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Poured into a decanter and consumed over 3 hours. Pronounced nose that was initially overwhelmed by vegetal notes, but that softened a bit with time, as black cherry, herbs, oak, toffee, sweet spice, and a hint of pepper emerged. Smooth on the palate, with medium acidity and medium+ tannins. The medium+ finish was savory, slightly bitter and leaves a drying sensation. Not worth the hype to me, but no doubt a nuanced and complex wine.
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Acker Pre-Auction September 2022 (Redbury Lounge): A monumentally polarizing wine but I am in the fan camp for sure. It’s all of what I love about the Rhone although a bit on steroids. Needs much more time and this of course was just a baby. But there’s a lot to like from the meaty side to the darker fruit to just the overall power but with freshness.
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Red fruits against a background of dusty minerals and savory stem notes. On the palate, sweet on entry and saline on the finish. The caressing tannins are so gentle and fine that there is no harm in opening a bottle now, but note that the fruit has started to shut down, and it is not clear that it was abundant enough to balance the very attractive savory and earthy elements in this wine to begin with. Only time will tell. 95+ potential.
Was it a bad bottle? Was it my tastebuds going on strike? Whatever the reason this bottle simply did not do it for me. Simple fruit with a sweet nose and palate. Dave
Another year of Bionic Frog and my thoughts remain the same. Some love this wine while others will hate it, like my wife. Initially as a PnP it is not very good, the nose is great with cherry, strawberry, smoked meats, bacon but the palate initially confirms the nose but ends in a load of iron and iodine that is bitter, off balance and off-putting. With some air the balance comes into play and more of the fruit shows itself, still maintaining the finish in a metallic iron riched minerality.
Oh boy, this is a crazy wine… It’s so insanely intense that I not really enjoyed much more than one glass of it. It’s not that it would be too sweet, too thick, too heavy, too tannic or acidic or too one-noted, it is the opposite of that. Hyper, hyper layered, hyper pure and precise, without excess weight but it’s just too much to digest. Today more an intellectual pleasure than a hedonistic one. The wine should settle down and become more palatable but I’m not yet sure if this will ever become a “drink 2 bottles over dinner with a friend” type of wine. 97+ for the complexity and precision. 90- for the pleasure.
TN: Fresh nose with intense black olives, bacon fat, pitch black fruit, herbs and lots of pepper. Same rainbow of aromas on the palate with a broader array of dark fruits and more minerality to complete the picture. Super intense and with delivered in HD. It’s not too ripe or cloying, it’s soft and silky with no hard edges and no excess weight. Still it is quite overwhelming despite all technical aspects being quite perfect.
Decanting: Double decanted 8 hours before consumption which helped the wine a lot.
Tasted blind and nailed it easily given the singularity and uniqueness of this artificially augmented squib. An iron-fisted nose of green olives, raw meat, almost bloody with iodine minerality, a pitch-black berry fruit core but spotted with some brighter, red fruit. Lots of green herb, green bellpepper too, white pepper and adding sweet spices over time. So unique, incredibly singular and dense, almost chewy palate with a long, herbaceous, wet tobacco leaves and peppery flavoured profile - my wife said a palate like a dirty martini. Very well integrated and harmonious given such a young age. Amazing how Chrs Baron can square the circle of a monster truck body with goldsmith-like precision and meticulous detail.
Caution Berry Scary review. Imagine walking down a dark hallway with a fan blowing towards the open end. About three feet in-look out-you bump into a large object. Your hands carefully explore the dark object that needs to be pushed to one side. Ok it is just a saddle that is worn down. Safely past this point you feel little slices of something falling from above. One lands on your lip and you smile-why it is chocolate. Not focusing on where you are your feet are landing on a bumpy surface. Squish-squish oh my what am I sliding around in. Hmm-your nose detects dark-why it is dark berries. You see light at the end of the tunnel however a knife flashes in the dim rays. You are relieved to know it is you local butcher cutting up slices of bacon. A breeze from the fan wafts past your nose. The combination of smells is most interesting. Wait-Whoa this is a dream during my afternoon nap. I look at the nightstand and smile a knowing smile. There is half a glass of Bionic Frog waiting to be consumed. Dave
Opened in the bottle for about 10 hours. Typical Bionic Frog with a viscous texture leading into leathery black fruit, iodide, green pepper, bacon, graphite, and smoke. The funk here is more dialed back with the fruit being much more clean/precise. Still a baby but easily the most enjoyable Cayuse I’ve had.
Deep, dark, inky, purple garnet- essentially opaque in color. Full, forward & fragrant nose of overripe & dense fruit aromas of dark cherries, blackberries & plums with overtones of earthy-dusty & spice notes, some pepper, floral notes of violets, dried herbs, spices, minerals & a funky smoky/rubber note in the background. Full bodied with a dense concentration of somewhat balanced but rough textured, intense, quite ripe dark fruit flavors of dark cherries, blackberries & plums with spices, bittersweet cocoa, herbs, minerals & oak/vanilla notes. Lingering finish. Drinks quite well with decanting but needs extended airing. It should benefit from much needed additional aging but it is an unique style of wine that for some is overripe, over-extracted & maybe over the top for some. A special "thanks" to SRH for the opportunity to sample this interesting wine.
Repeating what I wrote last Dec, "Dr. Tom, what CAN I say about your willingness to SHARE a bottling for which you'd been waiting 10 yrs to receive?!?" My only concern: Because of your generosity, perhaps you've none of these left to watch evolve? :(
N: Intense, RIPE berries with ALL sorts of RICH aromas which I can't even begin to parse. :( [Vinnut's TN of 8/4/19 (opened a good 90 mins > my feeble attempts) is *INFINITELY* better on CERTAINLY the aromatics of this)]
P: LM body; NICE, almost swtish frt met by an astringent pucker which, without even remotely losing contact with the init frt, seamlessly transitions into quite a LONG, BALANCED finish with POSS just a *hint* of very, VERY slight bitterness & subtle hints of swtness to the firming, very, VERY fine tannins. Approachable now with food, but DESERVES through '21 (guessing) for P to catch up to N, then EASILY making its '10th. SENSATIONAL stuff, though poss (probably?) NOT so for those expecting TRADITIONALLY "varietal" character from a Syrah™. My Exceptional-, full Exceptional (98-100/100 on that scale) likely down the line.
™Or, is in fact this BUT the "distinctive character" of The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater, from where ALL the Cayuse wines come?
Super dark and highly extracted. Very rich with dark black fruit, a little Szechuan pepper, big ripe velvety tannins. Finish lasts a couple of minutes and shows a bit of greeness, reminiscent of a funky eucalyptus.
Another fantastic vintage. I've had the Cailloux, Cerise, Chamberlin, and BF from this 2016 vintage, and while all are approachable and wonderful, the BF is clearly a step or two above the others. The '13 BF is still the best I've had, but this is close behind. The BF is slightly more feminine, with more expressive fruit and mineral characteristics. All of these will get better with time, of course.
Had at a family dinner, no formal notes due to being under the weather N was strong with dark berries, smoke leading the way P good mixed black berry, raspberry, smoked meat Finish was long in length, seemed like it was really tight and tannins were firm, but still couldn't get much past the initial push Initial thoughts 93-94
Dr. Tom, what CAN I say about your willingness to SHARE a bottling for which you'd been waiting 10 yrs to receive?!?
N: RIPE with berries, flowers, & smoke (not at all sure of the order); VERY intense, yet with even more to give?
P: LM body; RNDISH entry with NICE frt met by some astringent pucker which only somewhat resolves by the LONG finish with a bitter/swtness (60:40) to the dusty tannins. NEEDS into (poss through) '21 for P *hopefully* to catch up with N. Meanwhile, my EXC-/EXC, though a notch or even 3 higher would NOT be surprising... eventually. 13.6% ABV.
11/2/2023 - Satoshi Nakamoto wrote:
Not quite my style, but a huge burly wine. Coffee beans, chocolate, rich berries, meaty characteristics, and notable streak of alcohol. Very new world.
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1/1/2023 - jonnysandwich Likes this wine: 97 Points
Christophe Baron produces infamous wines. Even people who like them speak of them as if they were defective. (“We love Christophe, but we’re more downwind in the Rocks style,” as someone from Rotie Cellars told me.) And Bionic Frog might be the most infamous of all. “You’ve got to be ready for a serious funk bomb,” said a rep from Full Pull Wines. “I don’t care for it myself.”
Even the label of the wine seems designed to invite skepticism. Christophe is likely the only vintner alive who would package his most prized yield (barring Hors Categorie) under a logo that resembles a lesser Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle villain. This is particularly bizarre when one considers the relative elegance of Cayuse’s other bottles. Bionic Frog reigns over the brand hierarchy as an idiosyncratic emperor.
In other words, it’s got a reputation.
When I finally found a bottle for sale, I dragged my feet. Why, I thought, should I shell out over $300 for a wine that some have likened to the taste of cow dung? I still have no good answer to that question, but curiosity got the best of me. (I am privileged to have the means to spend such an amount to satisfy a curiosity.)
Now that I’ve had the stuff myself, I wonder how much of the funk/manure/rot infamy is due to reputation alone. Yes, Bionic Frog and the rest of its kin certainly feature that flavor profile more than your typical Trader Joe’s or BevMo Syrah—for that matter, so does Cru Hermitage—so the polarization is to some degree warranted. These wines are not for everybody. (Then again, is any wine for everybody? What does it mean for a beverage to be “inclusive”? Is price important? Smell? Taste? Accessibility/availability? These big questions need systematic answers, ones that don’t birth a rubric advantaging, say, Yellowtail.)
But here’s the thing: a wine that flirts with an ostensible niche is not necessarily challenging.
Bionic Frog, to this tongue, is not challenging. It is, rather, one of the most expressive wines I have ever had the pleasure to drink. Pop it open and air it out. The wine will do all the heavy lifting of justifying itself to you and why it needs to taste the way it does. (Lord knows how Monsieur Baron is able to harvest and ferment Syrah grapes from Coccinelle vineyard that produce such juice, but the proof is in the pudding.) I drank this bottle rather young-ish but found that it still had plenty to say.
My tasting notes over 3 hours:
30 mins—Tasty but tight. Subtle fruit and strong cinnamon smoke. Tensely coiled.
1.5 hours—Sour cherry blooming out of a wild vegetal foundation. The funk and fruit seem to have ripened together. I taste moss, silage, wood ear mushroom, and maybe even peat! The funk is very grassy. (A thought: would it help make Bionic Frog more accessible if terms like this were used, rather than ones like “funk bomb” or “cow patty”?)
2.5 hours—Very dry now, with roasted plum and peppered olive brine leading notes of bacon fat, wet graphite, and peach pit.
At 3 hours I had one final sip that revealed a strong saltiness I had not noticed before. The back of my tongue tingled as it does when I eat dishes like ramen with pork belly.
How does Bionic Frog compare with other Cayuse Syrahs? It is weirder, in an enchanting way. It shape-shifts and insinuates where those other wines make clearer choices about their identities. (Though I would not begrudge them those choices!) It turns weirdness into not just a virtue but a kind of perfection.
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12/1/2022 - Disgustaeer Likes this wine: 98 Points
Drank with a friend before and after dinner so tasted over course of about 4 hours. Really enjoyable. To me started savory with obvious meat, fat, oak, pepper, only some mild black fruit notes, salty with olive tapenade. Over time the oak and pepper seemed to come more forward with more black fruit, maybe a bit more floral, still large meat undertone, and olive notes more obvious.
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11/4/2022 - billyloveswine Likes this wine: 92 Points
Poured into a decanter and consumed over 3 hours. Pronounced nose that was initially overwhelmed by vegetal notes, but that softened a bit with time, as black cherry, herbs, oak, toffee, sweet spice, and a hint of pepper emerged. Smooth on the palate, with medium acidity and medium+ tannins. The medium+ finish was savory, slightly bitter and leaves a drying sensation. Not worth the hype to me, but no doubt a nuanced and complex wine.
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9/7/2022 - MC2 Wines Likes this wine:
Acker Pre-Auction September 2022 (Redbury Lounge): A monumentally polarizing wine but I am in the fan camp for sure. It’s all of what I love about the Rhone although a bit on steroids. Needs much more time and this of course was just a baby. But there’s a lot to like from the meaty side to the darker fruit to just the overall power but with freshness.
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9/7/2022 - hprphf wrote: 93 Points
Bold Syrah asserting its dominance. Oak, sweet, purple fruit. Good but not my cup of Syrah. 93
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7/2/2022 - BergerKing Likes this wine: 96 Points
Same experience as with 2009 exposure. Maybe a bit more earthy on the palate.
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6/7/2021 - blacktruffle Likes this wine: 94 Points
Red fruits against a background of dusty minerals and savory stem notes. On the palate, sweet on entry and saline on the finish. The caressing tannins are so gentle and fine that there is no harm in opening a bottle now, but note that the fruit has started to shut down, and it is not clear that it was abundant enough to balance the very attractive savory and earthy elements in this wine to begin with. Only time will tell. 95+ potential.
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4/10/2021 - vintage1949 wrote: 90 Points
Was it a bad bottle? Was it my tastebuds going on strike? Whatever the reason this bottle simply did not do it for me. Simple fruit with a sweet nose and palate. Dave
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9/27/2020 - pakabear Likes this wine: 94 Points
Another year of Bionic Frog and my thoughts remain the same. Some love this wine while others will hate it, like my wife. Initially as a PnP it is not very good, the nose is great with cherry, strawberry, smoked meats, bacon but the palate initially confirms the nose but ends in a load of iron and iodine that is bitter, off balance and off-putting. With some air the balance comes into play and more of the fruit shows itself, still maintaining the finish in a metallic iron riched minerality.
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9/11/2020 - Cailles wrote: 94 Points
Oh boy, this is a crazy wine… It’s so insanely intense that I not really enjoyed much more than one glass of it. It’s not that it would be too sweet, too thick, too heavy, too tannic or acidic or too one-noted, it is the opposite of that. Hyper, hyper layered, hyper pure and precise, without excess weight but it’s just too much to digest. Today more an intellectual pleasure than a hedonistic one. The wine should settle down and become more palatable but I’m not yet sure if this will ever become a “drink 2 bottles over dinner with a friend” type of wine. 97+ for the complexity and precision. 90- for the pleasure.
TN: Fresh nose with intense black olives, bacon fat, pitch black fruit, herbs and lots of pepper. Same rainbow of aromas on the palate with a broader array of dark fruits and more minerality to complete the picture. Super intense and with delivered in HD. It’s not too ripe or cloying, it’s soft and silky with no hard edges and no excess weight. Still it is quite overwhelming despite all technical aspects being quite perfect.
Decanting: Double decanted 8 hours before consumption which helped the wine a lot.
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8/16/2020 - LordOfGlencoe Likes this wine:
Blind im Le Cervin Grill in Zermatt
Nase: vegetabil, olivig, erdig
Mund: vegetabil, olivig, alpenkräuter, blaue frucht, toasty, gamey. Extreme green pepper.
Voll, gut integrierte Tannine.
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8/16/2020 - sirpat00 Likes this wine: 98 Points
Tasted blind and nailed it easily given the singularity and uniqueness of this artificially augmented squib. An iron-fisted nose of green olives, raw meat, almost bloody with iodine minerality, a pitch-black berry fruit core but spotted with some brighter, red fruit. Lots of green herb, green bellpepper too, white pepper and adding sweet spices over time. So unique, incredibly singular and dense, almost chewy palate with a long, herbaceous, wet tobacco leaves and peppery flavoured profile - my wife said a palate like a dirty martini. Very well integrated and harmonious given such a young age. Amazing how Chrs Baron can square the circle of a monster truck body with goldsmith-like precision and meticulous detail.
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4/11/2020 - bonedocnine Likes this wine: 95 Points
very frogish. :)
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10/8/2019 - vintage1949 wrote: 95 Points
Caution Berry Scary review. Imagine walking down a dark hallway with a fan blowing towards the open end. About three feet in-look out-you bump into a large object. Your hands carefully explore the dark object that needs to be pushed to one side. Ok it is just a saddle that is worn down. Safely past this point you feel little slices of something falling from above. One lands on your lip and you smile-why it is chocolate. Not focusing on where you are your feet are landing on a bumpy surface. Squish-squish oh my what am I sliding around in. Hmm-your nose detects dark-why it is dark berries. You see light at the end of the tunnel however a knife flashes in the dim rays. You are relieved to know it is you local butcher cutting up slices of bacon. A breeze from the fan wafts past your nose. The combination of smells is most interesting. Wait-Whoa this is a dream during my afternoon nap. I look at the nightstand and smile a knowing smile. There is half a glass of Bionic Frog waiting to be consumed. Dave
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8/17/2019 - MAXIMUM SATISFACTION wrote: 97 Points
Opened in the bottle for about 10 hours. Typical Bionic Frog with a viscous texture leading into leathery black fruit, iodide, green pepper, bacon, graphite, and smoke. The funk here is more dialed back with the fruit being much more clean/precise. Still a baby but easily the most enjoyable Cayuse I’ve had.
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8/4/2019 - Vinnut wrote:
Deep, dark, inky, purple garnet- essentially opaque in color. Full, forward & fragrant nose of overripe & dense fruit aromas of dark cherries, blackberries & plums with overtones of earthy-dusty & spice notes, some pepper, floral notes of violets, dried herbs, spices, minerals & a funky smoky/rubber note in the background. Full bodied with a dense concentration of somewhat balanced but rough textured, intense, quite ripe dark fruit flavors of dark cherries, blackberries & plums with spices, bittersweet cocoa, herbs, minerals & oak/vanilla notes. Lingering finish. Drinks quite well with decanting but needs extended airing. It should benefit from much needed additional aging but it is an unique style of wine that for some is overripe, over-extracted & maybe over the top for some. A special "thanks" to SRH for the opportunity to sample this interesting wine.
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8/3/2019 - srh Likes this wine:
Winebar [4 Whites, 8 Reds, & 4 *shared* bottles] from 08/02/19 (Vintage Wines Ltd., San Diego, CA): Cf. the CellarTracker Article link [lower lft] to get specific info for this vintage, including acclaim.
Repeating what I wrote last Dec, "Dr. Tom, what CAN I say about your willingness to SHARE a bottling for which you'd been waiting 10 yrs to receive?!?" My only concern: Because of your generosity, perhaps you've none of these left to watch evolve? :(
N: Intense, RIPE berries with ALL sorts of RICH aromas which I can't even begin to parse. :( [Vinnut's TN of 8/4/19 (opened a good 90 mins > my feeble attempts) is *INFINITELY* better on CERTAINLY the aromatics of this)]
P: LM body; NICE, almost swtish frt met by an astringent pucker which, without even remotely losing contact with the init frt, seamlessly transitions into quite a LONG, BALANCED finish with POSS just a *hint* of very, VERY slight bitterness & subtle hints of swtness to the firming, very, VERY fine tannins. Approachable now with food, but DESERVES through '21 (guessing) for P to catch up to N, then EASILY making its '10th. SENSATIONAL stuff, though poss (probably?) NOT so for those expecting TRADITIONALLY "varietal" character from a Syrah™. My Exceptional-, full Exceptional (98-100/100 on that scale) likely down the line.
™Or, is in fact this BUT the "distinctive character" of The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater, from where ALL the Cayuse wines come?
Note: 1st tasted 12/29/2018
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5/14/2019 - Roentgen Ray Likes this wine: 95 Points
Super dark and highly extracted.
Very rich with dark black fruit, a little Szechuan pepper, big ripe velvety tannins. Finish lasts a couple of minutes and shows a bit of greeness, reminiscent of a funky eucalyptus.
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3/12/2019 - jhieb Likes this wine: 96 Points
Another fantastic vintage. I've had the Cailloux, Cerise, Chamberlin, and BF from this 2016 vintage, and while all are approachable and wonderful, the BF is clearly a step or two above the others. The '13 BF is still the best I've had, but this is close behind. The BF is slightly more feminine, with more expressive fruit and mineral characteristics. All of these will get better with time, of course.
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1/21/2019 - manonthemoon wrote:
Had at a family dinner, no formal notes due to being under the weather
N was strong with dark berries, smoke leading the way
P good mixed black berry, raspberry, smoked meat
Finish was long in length, seemed like it was really tight and tannins were firm, but still couldn't get much past the initial push
Initial thoughts 93-94
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12/29/2018 - srh Likes this wine:
Winebar ("Mini") [6 Reds & 8 shared bottles] from 12/28/18 (Vintage Wines Ltd., San Diego, CA): Cf. the CellarTracker Article link [lower lft] to get specific info for this vintage, including acclaim.
Dr. Tom, what CAN I say about your willingness to SHARE a bottling for which you'd been waiting 10 yrs to receive?!?
N: RIPE with berries, flowers, & smoke (not at all sure of the order); VERY intense, yet with even more to give?
P: LM body; RNDISH entry with NICE frt met by some astringent pucker which only somewhat resolves by the LONG finish with a bitter/swtness (60:40) to the dusty tannins. NEEDS into (poss through) '21 for P *hopefully* to catch up with N. Meanwhile, my EXC-/EXC, though a notch or even 3 higher would NOT be surprising... eventually. 13.6% ABV.
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8/19/2018 - bajayngo wrote:
Quick release note - a mélange of fruit, savory notes and flowers.
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