Pleasantly surprised by this wine. Some other notes had me concerned it would be an overly-concentrated fruit bomb, but it was quite nice and certainly a bargain at the $20 I paid. Decanted for quite a while: I opened at 10 am to drink at 5pm. Dark cherries with a woody, earthy undertone and a hint of alder smoke. Plenty of acid to keep it alive a while longer. It hadn’t started to develop the clay brick character I associate with older pinot. My only gripe is there was more alcohol burn than I’d expect from the 13.5% stated on the bottle. But it paired nicely with some leftover duck breast I had from lunch.
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A fun bottle to open on July 4th weekend. Nice, round, briochey bubbles. Not as interesting as some of the other special club bottlings from 2004, but the magnum format is fun to open with a crowd.
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2013 Shaky Bridge Pinot Noir Pioneer Series
10/21/2022 - JohnTheBastard wrote: 93 Points
Pleasantly surprised by this wine. Some other notes had me concerned it would be an overly-concentrated fruit bomb, but it was quite nice and certainly a bargain at the $20 I paid. Decanted for quite a while: I opened at 10 am to drink at 5pm. Dark cherries with a woody, earthy undertone and a hint of alder smoke. Plenty of acid to keep it alive a while longer. It hadn’t started to develop the clay brick character I associate with older pinot. My only gripe is there was more alcohol burn than I’d expect from the 13.5% stated on the bottle. But it paired nicely with some leftover duck breast I had from lunch.
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2007 San Giusto a Rentennano La Ricolma Toscana IGT
7/3/2022 - JohnTheBastard wrote: 91 Points
Interesting. Maybe a little young? Black cherry, coffee, licorice and mint. More tannin than I expected. Tastes like a little cab in the blend?
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2004 Launois Pere et Fils Champagne Grand Cru Special Club Blanc de Blancs
7/2/2022 - JohnTheBastard Likes this wine: 93 Points
A fun bottle to open on July 4th weekend. Nice, round, briochey bubbles. Not as interesting as some of the other special club bottlings from 2004, but the magnum format is fun to open with a crowd.
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