2016 Checkerboard Vineyards Aurora Vineyard

Community Tasting Notes (3) Avg Score: 95.8 points

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  11/26/2023 - AGELVIS Likes this wine: 95 Points

  90-minute decant. Deep dark ruby color. Blackberry danish, black cherry, strawberry jelly, walnut, chocolate wafer, no. 2 pencil, and subtle mushroom. Dry, fine velvety palate, with pixelated, tongue coated acidity. Firm, full, medium intensity tannins on the longish finish.
  
  This kept improving over an hour of drinking. It’s more red fruited than I’d like. Even so, it’s rich, elegant, and integrated. Could be in an in-between stage and will rebound in another year.

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  10/10/2023 - RayT Likes this wine: 96 Points

  What a great night of drinking wine with a 2016 Checkerboard Aurora, 2017 Arrow & Branch Dr. Crane, and a 2012 Opus One! This was WOTN for me. I decanted this 3 hours and we drank this at the house before going to dinner.
  
  Upon opening this had a beautiful, sweet nose of violets, raspberry, and caramel. The palate was a bit more serious with blackberry, dark cherry, caramel, and tobacco on the finish. This is a powerful wine with great structure that is drinking really well right now with a decant. This is a great big fruit, powerful tannins wine. I do see this adding more complexity and more secondary flavors with another 2-3 years in bottle. This was neck and neck with the Dr. Crane but this wine was a bit more polished.
  
  On a side note we had a great tasting at Checkerboard when we went. We took a Polaris side by side up Diamond Mountain visiting the different vineyards, all the way to the top of Diamond Mountain which sits at 2,000 ft and provides spectacular views. Well worth a visit!

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  8/24/2022 - greg@newsomehh.com Likes this wine: 98 Points

  Decanted 1.5 hours, drank with Hunter discussing team play finals, it was spectacular

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