Still very drinkable. Fruit still there. Enjoyable with food. Way past it’s prime drinking window but still enjoyable. Duarte has always been my favorite Turley. This is nothing like a young Duarte.
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This is ostensibly a bit old for this wine, but we were surprised. Still fully structured and without obvious flaws. Even decanted, it started out hot and maybe underwhelming in length, but it opened up nicely with a half hour at about 20°C. It had plenty of the spice and a bit of the richly sweet nose of a young Turley. Very full in the mouth, and no longer hot (after sitting and swirling). Finish is medium short and clear. Definitely more on the balsamic or round oldness end than the bright lemonade end. This might be a sipping wine more than a between bites accompaniment. Our meal (house porchetta, heavy on fennel) was the sort of thing that zinfandel suits, but I liked this wine better after the plates were clean. A good example of a concentrated table wine that tapers gently into old age.
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This was a beautiful, mature Zin that has reached a balance of all of its components. Still enough acid to stand up to a grilled New York steak but with enough richness and finesse to add to the experience rather than just cut the richness of the meat. Dark cherries, licorice, pepper and an earthy note rounded out the palate. Excellent wine probably at its peak.
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Drank as part of a 15 vineyard, 15 person, non-blind horizontal of 2007 Turley Zinfandels. Wines were opened but remained in the bottle for 1.5 hours; only Hayne was decanted. Wines were grouped by appellation. People did not taste wines in the same order. Hayne and Ubberroth were the clear winners.
A participant/statistician ran some interesting analyses:
• People got more lenient as they went on, with the 15th wine consumed rating on average a little over 1 point higher than the first. This trend became noticeable beginning about the 8-9th wine tasted. (Were the wines opening up more? Or, were people less discerning as BAC rose?)
• Four people (including me!!) rated wines significantly more in line with group opinion. Three other people were clearly contrarian; their deviations from the averages were much greater than the others.
• There was greater consistency in some wines than others; Mead, Moore, and Uberroth had the greatest consistency in ratings. Oddly, Hayne did not, even though most people probably surmised that Hayne was a most expensive wine.
In order, with average score (pretty tough graders!!):
Big, over ripe and hot. Raisin and prune. All the things that can be bad about a well made California zin are present here. Some people may like this style, but not me.
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This isn't my preferred style of wine anymore but I enjoyed this big ripe wine while sitting around the fire pit on a chilly night. This was my last bottle but there is enough structure in this wine to allow it to go a few more years.
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A very nice, restrained wine. I kind of expected a bigger, bolder expression, but this wine turned out to be one of the most refined expressions of zinfandel that I have tried. A little more red fruit than I am used to tasting in a zin but still anchored by purple grape flavors. A really nice finish and a great value for $49 on a restaurant wine list.
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Tasted with Joe and Deb. Decanted only 30 minutes. Beautiful in the glass. Deep, dark red. Gorgeous legs (yah, I know they don't mean a lot, but the were noteworthy!). Voluptuos nose, promising great things - red and dark berries, mocha and spice - even some plummy, Raisiny aromas as sat in glass a while. Great mouthfeel and delicious, balanced flavors. Joe, usually a Rosenblum devotee, pronounced it one of his favorite Zins we'd tasted yet (that includes Rosenblums, Seghesios and, dare I say, Carlisles!). While I relished it, this yummy wine did not imperil Mike Officer's wines' perch in my opinion!
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Tasted as a counterpoint to the '07 Turley Dusi Vineyard during a dinner at home with Hannah and Matt. Lovely, with a similar elegance, except this one had a bit more acidity and slightly different finish. Same crushed black and red berries as the Dusi, but with more of a cedar note in the finish. Gained some weight in the glass but stayed remarkably light for a Zin whose grapes came from such a hot-climate vineyard like Duarte, which is located pretty far inland in California's Contra Costa County. I'm convinced that somewhere in the '05-'06 timeframe Ehren Jordon fine-tuned his winemaking to a more elegant style, toning down the bass notes of huge fruit and bringing up the treble of acidity, making the Turley offerings in '06 and after more food friendly and elegant. I add this bottle as evidence.
A P.S. after talking to Ehren Jordon at an event at the winery: He indicates that he hasn't purposefully shifted winemaking style, as I thought. He feels that any difference in style is more likely due to better vineyard management after now having worked with so many of these vineyards for a decade or more. He indicates that they've reworked many of the vineyards and brought some of them back to health. He and the vineyard crews also have a better sense of how each vineyard should be managed and when to harvest. He feels the grapes they're bringing in have improved each year, and that might be what I'm detecting in the wines.
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Drank over 2 days. Rather restrained for a Turley Zin -- more than usual acidity and less than usual ripe fruit. Still, some nice Turley Zin flavors and spice just with a little tart acidic kick to it. Not my favorite from Turley, but a nice change of pace.
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Deep ruby, violet color. This wine had a pretty delicate nose for a Zinfandel which I liked. Dark spicy fruits as you would expect. The true strength of this wine came in the finish which was very long and layered with well balanced tannins. There was a zesty acidity that peaked through late that was not typical of a Zinfandel and a pleasant surprise. This was my favorite of an all-Turley flight this evening.
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smooth and rich, alcohol totally hidden under layers of rich darkness, interesting, round in the middle and just a hint of tartness at the back. well done.
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16% alcohol (undetectable). I have a real fondness for this historic Contra Costa County Vineyard, planted in 1899. In April of that year, students at the University of California, Berkeley steal the Stanford Axe from Stanford University yell leaders following a baseball game, thus establishing the Axe as a symbol of the rivalry between the schools. In another violent conflict, a war between the United Kingdom and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State erupts in South Africa.
Opened the night before. Medium dark ruby red. Heady red and black fruit aromas. Boysenberry, chocolate and forrest spice on a wonderfully well balanced palate impression. Great focus and fruit concentration with a little acid bite. Great now and will continue to improve over the next year or two.
Ehren Jordan has a deft touch with these immaculately cared for historic vineyards.
Go Cardinal!
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Very nice Turley--much more in Turley character than the previous couple of vintages. Brambly fruits, huckleberry pie, some nice acidity that I don't normally find in Turleys. Also an inky note that provided interest. Good stuff. (PE: 90)
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Swell bottle of Turley, which at 16% (and probably higher) shows no heat. Lots of oak spice, chocolate and some sous bois aromas make for some good high-octane drinking.
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8/7/2018 - Birorganic Likes this wine: 90 Points
Still very drinkable. Fruit still there. Enjoyable with food. Way past it’s prime drinking window but still enjoyable. Duarte has always been my favorite Turley. This is nothing like a young Duarte.
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1/16/2017 - sloo Likes this wine: 89 Points
This is ostensibly a bit old for this wine, but we were surprised. Still fully structured and without obvious flaws. Even decanted, it started out hot and maybe underwhelming in length, but it opened up nicely with a half hour at about 20°C. It had plenty of the spice and a bit of the richly sweet nose of a young Turley. Very full in the mouth, and no longer hot (after sitting and swirling). Finish is medium short and clear. Definitely more on the balsamic or round oldness end than the bright lemonade end. This might be a sipping wine more than a between bites accompaniment. Our meal (house porchetta, heavy on fennel) was the sort of thing that zinfandel suits, but I liked this wine better after the plates were clean. A good example of a concentrated table wine that tapers gently into old age.
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7/19/2015 - Minnesota wrote: 78 Points
Flawed or never destined for pleasurable drinking? Funky, raisiny, bitter tannins, zero finesse on the nose. Another Turley cooking wine at best.
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8/7/2014 - jsioris Likes this wine: 90 Points
Soft for a Zin. I liked the feel of the wine and it was over-powering. Turley makes great stuff.
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6/9/2014 - D.Callahan Likes this wine: 91 Points
This was a beautiful, mature Zin that has reached a balance of all of its components. Still enough acid to stand up to a grilled New York steak but with enough richness and finesse to add to the experience rather than just cut the richness of the meat. Dark cherries, licorice, pepper and an earthy note rounded out the palate. Excellent wine probably at its peak.
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12/16/2013 - jfkwines wrote: 90 Points
07's are killing it right now
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11/29/2013 - NickP wrote: flawed
Alas, I think I waited too long to open this. It was 'madeirized' and not drinkable. No rating for that
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9/21/2013 - johnh1001 wrote: 90 Points
Very pretty and soft (for Turley) nose of red fruit, spice and alcohol. Very ripe but mellow palate. Nice balance and smooth finish.
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8/29/2013 - guitarguy wrote: 86 Points
Perfumey nose but too much baked notes and volatile acidity in the wine. I'm with Karpos on this.
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7/31/2013 - Ed B wrote: 89 Points
Drank as part of a 15 vineyard, 15 person, non-blind horizontal of 2007 Turley Zinfandels. Wines were opened but remained in the bottle for 1.5 hours; only Hayne was decanted. Wines were grouped by appellation. People did not taste wines in the same order. Hayne and Ubberroth were the clear winners.
A participant/statistician ran some interesting analyses:
• People got more lenient as they went on, with the 15th wine consumed rating on average a little over 1 point higher than the first. This trend became noticeable beginning about the 8-9th wine tasted. (Were the wines opening up more? Or, were people less discerning as BAC rose?)
• Four people (including me!!) rated wines significantly more in line with group opinion. Three other people were clearly contrarian; their deviations from the averages were much greater than the others.
• There was greater consistency in some wines than others; Mead, Moore, and Uberroth had the greatest consistency in ratings. Oddly, Hayne did not, even though most people probably surmised that Hayne was a most expensive wine.
In order, with average score (pretty tough graders!!):
Uberrroth Vineyard (Paso Robles) – 91.9
Hayne Vineyard (Napa, St. Helena)– 91.3
Tofanelli Vineyard (Napa) – 90.2
Salvador Vineyard (Contra Costa County) – 90.1
Moore “Earthquake” Vineyard (Napa)– 90.0
Dusi Vineyard (Paso Robles) – 89.9
Pesenti Vineyard (Paso Robles) – 89.9
Dogtown Vineyard (Central Valley, Lodi) – 89.7
Mead Ranch (Napa, Atlas Peak) – 89.4
Fredricks Vineyard (Sonoma, Sonoma Valley) – 89.3
Dragon Vineyard (Napa, Howell Mountain) – 89.2
Rattlesnake Ridge (Napa, Howell Mountain) – 89.2
Grist Vineyard (Sonoma, Dry Creek Valley) – 88.9
Duarte Vineyard (Contra Costa County) – 88.5
Cedarman (Napa, Howell Mountain) – 88.4
Surprisingly, Howell Mountain, where Outpost makes its great zin, did not fare well as an appellation. Not surprisingly, Paso Robles did very well.
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6/1/2013 - karpos wrote: 84 Points
Big, over ripe and hot. Raisin and prune. All the things that can be bad about a well made California zin are present here. Some people may like this style, but not me.
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2/13/2013 - wetlandwino wrote: 91 Points
Cedar nose up front, but seemed to lose this with time. Great jammy mouth feel. Wonderful match with steak.
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1/30/2013 - markellen.foodies@gmail.com Likes this wine: 91 Points
Much better than the Juvenile we had recently. This was a balanced Zin without overwhelming alcohol. Very enjoyable.
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9/23/2012 - Outplaying wrote:
This isn't my preferred style of wine anymore but I enjoyed this big ripe wine while sitting around the fire pit on a chilly night. This was my last bottle but there is enough structure in this wine to allow it to go a few more years.
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10/30/2011 - Rsaufley wrote: 63 Points
Apparently turn bad. No evidence of leakage at cork. Dissapointed
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6/21/2011 - jtt300 wrote: 90 Points
Smooth big jammy Turley Zin. Needed 1/2 hour to open.
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6/3/2011 - mkmast wrote: 91 Points
A very nice, restrained wine. I kind of expected a bigger, bolder expression, but this wine turned out to be one of the most refined expressions of zinfandel that I have tried. A little more red fruit than I am used to tasting in a zin but still anchored by purple grape flavors. A really nice finish and a great value for $49 on a restaurant wine list.
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5/14/2011 - kgincap wrote: 92 Points
Tasted with Joe and Deb. Decanted only 30 minutes. Beautiful in the glass. Deep, dark red. Gorgeous legs (yah, I know they don't mean a lot, but the were noteworthy!). Voluptuos nose, promising great things - red and dark berries, mocha and spice - even some plummy, Raisiny aromas as sat in glass a while. Great mouthfeel and delicious, balanced flavors. Joe, usually a Rosenblum devotee, pronounced it one of his favorite Zins we'd tasted yet (that includes Rosenblums, Seghesios and, dare I say, Carlisles!). While I relished it, this yummy wine did not imperil Mike Officer's wines' perch in my opinion!
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5/12/2011 - ogres3 wrote:
had with ribs and burger in LA
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3/26/2011 - jonahfactor wrote: 90 Points
Tasted as a counterpoint to the '07 Turley Dusi Vineyard during a dinner at home with Hannah and Matt. Lovely, with a similar elegance, except this one had a bit more acidity and slightly different finish. Same crushed black and red berries as the Dusi, but with more of a cedar note in the finish. Gained some weight in the glass but stayed remarkably light for a Zin whose grapes came from such a hot-climate vineyard like Duarte, which is located pretty far inland in California's Contra Costa County. I'm convinced that somewhere in the '05-'06 timeframe Ehren Jordon fine-tuned his winemaking to a more elegant style, toning down the bass notes of huge fruit and bringing up the treble of acidity, making the Turley offerings in '06 and after more food friendly and elegant. I add this bottle as evidence.
A P.S. after talking to Ehren Jordon at an event at the winery: He indicates that he hasn't purposefully shifted winemaking style, as I thought. He feels that any difference in style is more likely due to better vineyard management after now having worked with so many of these vineyards for a decade or more. He indicates that they've reworked many of the vineyards and brought some of them back to health. He and the vineyard crews also have a better sense of how each vineyard should be managed and when to harvest. He feels the grapes they're bringing in have improved each year, and that might be what I'm detecting in the wines.
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3/21/2011 - ewasowicz wrote: 91 Points
Nose: strawberries, honey
Taste: tar strawberries, cherries, a little tart but that makes it interesting
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3/4/2011 - PIntag wrote: 88 Points
Drank over 2 days. Rather restrained for a Turley Zin -- more than usual acidity and less than usual ripe fruit. Still, some nice Turley Zin flavors and spice just with a little tart acidic kick to it. Not my favorite from Turley, but a nice change of pace.
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2/3/2011 - Jack Cranley wrote: 92 Points
Deep ruby, violet color. This wine had a pretty delicate nose for a Zinfandel which I liked. Dark spicy fruits as you would expect. The true strength of this wine came in the finish which was very long and layered with well balanced tannins. There was a zesty acidity that peaked through late that was not typical of a Zinfandel and a pleasant surprise. This was my favorite of an all-Turley flight this evening.
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1/23/2011 - kaahnman wrote: 90 Points
smooth and rich, alcohol totally hidden under layers of rich darkness, interesting, round in the middle and just a hint of tartness at the back. well done.
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12/18/2010 - Mike Dildine wrote: 92 Points
16% alcohol (undetectable). I have a real fondness for this historic Contra Costa County Vineyard, planted in 1899. In April of that year, students at the University of California, Berkeley steal the Stanford Axe from Stanford University yell leaders following a baseball game, thus establishing the Axe as a symbol of the rivalry between the schools. In another violent conflict, a war between the United Kingdom and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State erupts in South Africa.
Opened the night before. Medium dark ruby red. Heady red and black fruit aromas. Boysenberry, chocolate and forrest spice on a wonderfully well balanced palate impression. Great focus and fruit concentration with a little acid bite. Great now and will continue to improve over the next year or two.
Ehren Jordan has a deft touch with these immaculately cared for historic vineyards.
Go Cardinal!
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11/20/2010 - LeechDogg wrote: 95 Points
Great opulent nose, fruity, youthful, blueberry syrup, rich, soy sauce, beautiful, viscous, vegemite
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9/11/2010 - mjf@ulkner wrote: 90 Points
Big and ripe but not over the top- would not have guessed 16% EtOH. Nice brambly herbal note on finish.
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5/12/2010 - MarkC Likes this wine: 90 Points
Very nice Turley--much more in Turley character than the previous couple of vintages. Brambly fruits, huckleberry pie, some nice acidity that I don't normally find in Turleys. Also an inky note that provided interest. Good stuff. (PE: 90)
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12/21/2009 - Gunner11 wrote: 91 Points
POWERFUL!!!
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11/29/2009 - sweeedfish wrote: 90 Points
Solid bottle.
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7/21/2009 - spacewrangler wrote:
Swell bottle of Turley, which at 16% (and probably higher) shows no heat. Lots of oak spice, chocolate and some sous bois aromas make for some good high-octane drinking.
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