Decanted one hour, drank half the bottle over 2 hours. This is an odd wine that didn't fit into any defined category for me, and also wasn't particularly interesting. It reminded me of all the wines I drank from unusual varietals (Century club). This is mostly a larger somewhat brutish wine and there is also something that keeps it from being jammy or in-your-face. I wish I hadn't drank this so soon and will hold my 2021 longer. Unscored.
First time with Zweigelt and man this is really interesting. Exceeding my expectations. What were my expectations anyway? The wine is like the love child of a Morgon and a super restrained Zin (think Nalle). There’s extraction here, but it’s fundamentally a medium bodied wine where earth and spice sit at the forefront, with nice acidity and fruit to balance things. Then, the back end is full of black tea that lingers on the palette for 30 seconds+
Lovely stuff. Wow.
UPDATE: Day 2, and wow again. Even better, taking score up another two points. This wine is making me question a lot of assumptions about value! Day two brings even more Syrah like notes, but still very much in that cru beajolais/Morgon camp that I’m loving. Adam has such a hit with this wine, it’s ridiculous.
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Syrah like on appearance. Orange and dark chocolate on the nose. An herbal flair. Tastes like Bordeaux crossed with California cool climate Syrah. Very intriguing. Dark chocolate, red apple, baking spice. M+ body is astounding with 12% abv. Like whaaaaat. Relatively nice balance with definite aging potential. It does skew towards acid. Very chocolatey then the fruit comes out on the back end. Like a chocolate covered apple at the fair. Texture is relatively coarse. Perhaps this smooths out with time. Some of the other notes alluded to this being fairly light and summery. I do not agree. Some complexity. Unfortunately the persistence is quite truncated. Overall a very nice wine.
Night 2 - lost some of the coarseness as well as the exotic back end. It is now more neighborly but lost some of the interesting factor. There is modest sediment but I did not decant and didn't find it to be needed.
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An odd one - huge amounts of sediment - a bit course on day one after not preparing for it; after standing up for 48 hours to settle the sediment it tasted exactly like Welch’s gape juice
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Opaque purple, raspberry tart, medium body, no oak, slight tannins and slight earthiness. Served at cellar temp and was really refreshing in peak summer. Excellent wine and vs expectations +++
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This was outstanding! It made me remember why I enjoy wine so much. (Which is why it gets a 94, based on CT's rating chart.)
Like others, I'd never be able to identify this variety. To me, it tasted like a cool climate Syrah crossed with a slightly earthy Beaujolais from Morgon. For my palate, it was medium+ to full bodied, not overly extracted, no oak (or very well hidden) and yet only 12% abv!
I actually pulled this bottle because we were having sushi and I wanted red that could be served chilled, around 50 degrees. The pairing was SUPERB.
Once the weather cools down, this will certainly pair well with the usual Syrah/Beaujolais suspects - roast chicken, cassoulet, pork shoulder. But for now, decant it in the fridge for 30 minutes while you go pick up a dragon roll.
I thoroughly enjoyed every sip.
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Wonderful house style rendition of to me a relatively unknown grape for CA. Nice and rich, with just a touch of sweetness, but not overblown at all. After opening, gave it a bit too much chill (it was 103 degrees) and the wine was really good after the first glass. Yum!
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Delicious. Five hour decant. Allspice, white pepper, and ripe raspberries on the nose. Dry, spicy and tart on the palate with berries, green pepper, licorice, clay, and tobacco on the palate. Lovely.
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Well... there goes that Adam Sabelli-Frisch fellow again, confounding all expectations. Agree with Mootsie that there's no way that I could identify this as Zweigelt blind... but that's where the similarity in our assessments ends! Would be a great one to try on Forceberry, that Finn with the wonder palate.
On the nose, my mind went immediately to St. Emilion - rich black cherry, minerally clay, dark chocolate, a bit of smoke. Palate shows more of the same - rich, plummy, textural, evocative of merlot/cab franc grown on high-quality terroir and made with a lighter touch, good acid, no obvious oak and moderate tannins (the last two are perhaps the biggest tells that this is not young St Em). But the clay-mineral, licorice, and plum-cherry profile - jeez, Adam managed some serious wizardry here. The density of flavor and textural weight makes it very difficult to believe that this wine is just 12% alcohol. Only thing that doesn't carry fully through is the finish, which is rather humble compared to the rest of the profile. Still, this is a seriously wine; I'd really like to try age a bottle for 10 years to see what happens; if it develops secondary complexity or not. Sadly, my only bottle. May have to add some to my next order.
Day 2, this is all bright cherry-berry fruit, and rustic earth. Zingy. Somewhere between a mountain Zinfandel and a CCR. Definitely need more.
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Not decanted, consumed at cool room temp over ~2 hours. Dark purple in the glass, with dense, high-toned dark cherry/berry fruit on the nose. The fruit is pretty prominent and youthfully juicy, but it's not out of balance - there's a great acidity and some noticeable tannin. Following tjbsmf's note, I agree that there's something in the structure and weight that feels like a CA (Cru) Beaujolais, even if the flavor profile is pretty different. Really good stuff, and just getting out of the blocks - no rush at all to drink this.
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4/27/2024 - galewskj wrote:
Decanted one hour, drank half the bottle over 2 hours. This is an odd wine that didn't fit into any defined category for me, and also wasn't particularly interesting. It reminded me of all the wines I drank from unusual varietals (Century club). This is mostly a larger somewhat brutish wine and there is also something that keeps it from being jammy or in-your-face. I wish I hadn't drank this so soon and will hold my 2021 longer. Unscored.
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2/12/2024 - Brain Capers Likes this wine:
Lovely wine on pizza mundo. Yum
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12/11/2023 - CaptainBert Likes this wine:
Dark Cherry, raspberry, cocoa & spice on the nose.
Sour cherry, blueberries, plum, dark chocolate on the palate. Inky and rustic. Drinks super fresh, lovely acidity. Teensy dry finish.
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11/1/2023 - Bjweiss Likes this wine: 93 Points
First time with Zweigelt and man this is really interesting. Exceeding my expectations. What were my expectations anyway? The wine is like the love child of a Morgon and a super restrained Zin (think Nalle). There’s extraction here, but it’s fundamentally a medium bodied wine where earth and spice sit at the forefront, with nice acidity and fruit to balance things. Then, the back end is full of black tea that lingers on the palette for 30 seconds+
Lovely stuff. Wow.
UPDATE: Day 2, and wow again. Even better, taking score up another two points. This wine is making me question a lot of assumptions about value! Day two brings even more Syrah like notes, but still very much in that cru beajolais/Morgon camp that I’m loving. Adam has such a hit with this wine, it’s ridiculous.
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9/11/2023 - mtaczak wrote: 89 Points
inky black, but also very bright on the palate.
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9/6/2023 - Discobiscuits42 wrote: 91 Points
Syrah like on appearance. Orange and dark chocolate on the nose. An herbal flair. Tastes like Bordeaux crossed with California cool climate Syrah. Very intriguing. Dark chocolate, red apple, baking spice. M+ body is astounding with 12% abv. Like whaaaaat. Relatively nice balance with definite aging potential. It does skew towards acid. Very chocolatey then the fruit comes out on the back end. Like a chocolate covered apple at the fair. Texture is relatively coarse. Perhaps this smooths out with time. Some of the other notes alluded to this being fairly light and summery. I do not agree. Some complexity. Unfortunately the persistence is quite truncated. Overall a very nice wine.
Night 2 - lost some of the coarseness as well as the exotic back end. It is now more neighborly but lost some of the interesting factor. There is modest sediment but I did not decant and didn't find it to be needed.
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8/27/2023 - EMichels wrote:
An odd one - huge amounts of sediment - a bit course on day one after not preparing for it; after standing up for 48 hours to settle the sediment it tasted exactly like Welch’s gape juice
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8/25/2023 - cmaximus02 wrote:
Opaque purple, raspberry tart, medium body, no oak, slight tannins and slight earthiness. Served at cellar temp and was really refreshing in peak summer. Excellent wine and vs expectations +++
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8/1/2023 - ptaylor2112 Likes this wine: 94 Points
This was outstanding! It made me remember why I enjoy wine so much. (Which is why it gets a 94, based on CT's rating chart.)
Like others, I'd never be able to identify this variety. To me, it tasted like a cool climate Syrah crossed with a slightly earthy Beaujolais from Morgon. For my palate, it was medium+ to full bodied, not overly extracted, no oak (or very well hidden) and yet only 12% abv!
I actually pulled this bottle because we were having sushi and I wanted red that could be served chilled, around 50 degrees. The pairing was SUPERB.
Once the weather cools down, this will certainly pair well with the usual Syrah/Beaujolais suspects - roast chicken, cassoulet, pork shoulder. But for now, decant it in the fridge for 30 minutes while you go pick up a dragon roll.
I thoroughly enjoyed every sip.
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6/28/2023 - Brain Capers Likes this wine:
Wonderful house style rendition of to me a relatively unknown grape for CA. Nice and rich, with just a touch of sweetness, but not overblown at all. After opening, gave it a bit too much chill (it was 103 degrees) and the wine was really good after the first glass. Yum!
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3/3/2023 - rbrater Likes this wine: 92 Points
Delicious. Five hour decant. Allspice, white pepper, and ripe raspberries on the nose. Dry, spicy and tart on the palate with berries, green pepper, licorice, clay, and tobacco on the palate. Lovely.
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8/7/2022 - ohne_musik wrote: 92 Points
Well... there goes that Adam Sabelli-Frisch fellow again, confounding all expectations. Agree with Mootsie that there's no way that I could identify this as Zweigelt blind... but that's where the similarity in our assessments ends! Would be a great one to try on Forceberry, that Finn with the wonder palate.
On the nose, my mind went immediately to St. Emilion - rich black cherry, minerally clay, dark chocolate, a bit of smoke. Palate shows more of the same - rich, plummy, textural, evocative of merlot/cab franc grown on high-quality terroir and made with a lighter touch, good acid, no obvious oak and moderate tannins (the last two are perhaps the biggest tells that this is not young St Em). But the clay-mineral, licorice, and plum-cherry profile - jeez, Adam managed some serious wizardry here. The density of flavor and textural weight makes it very difficult to believe that this wine is just 12% alcohol. Only thing that doesn't carry fully through is the finish, which is rather humble compared to the rest of the profile. Still, this is a seriously wine; I'd really like to try age a bottle for 10 years to see what happens; if it develops secondary complexity or not. Sadly, my only bottle. May have to add some to my next order.
Day 2, this is all bright cherry-berry fruit, and rustic earth. Zingy. Somewhere between a mountain Zinfandel and a CCR. Definitely need more.
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6/18/2022 - Mootsie wrote: 86 Points
Very different than its Euro cousin. Bigger, ripe fruit and less spice. Blind I would not be able to identify the grape.
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3/12/2022 - bretrooks wrote:
Not decanted, consumed at cool room temp over ~2 hours. Dark purple in the glass, with dense, high-toned dark cherry/berry fruit on the nose. The fruit is pretty prominent and youthfully juicy, but it's not out of balance - there's a great acidity and some noticeable tannin. Following tjbsmf's note, I agree that there's something in the structure and weight that feels like a CA (Cru) Beaujolais, even if the flavor profile is pretty different. Really good stuff, and just getting out of the blocks - no rush at all to drink this.
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3/11/2022 - tjbsmf Likes this wine:
No formal note but this was great! Easy drinking, bright red fruits, rich, spicy. California beaujo. I wish I had more. Awesome Friday night wine.
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