Browse Tag

california

Nalle for one

Nalle 2003 Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley) – 13.8%. Elegant and supple (two words rarely used to describe a zin), with gently rolling berries and a grapey interior, plus some soft, earthy layers underneath. Very pretty. (8/07)

This Oro that

Montevina “Terra d’Oro” Zinfandel “Port” (Amador County) – The usual late-harvest zin problem with overwhelming volatile acidity has been mostly tamed here, though there is a remnant. Perhaps the zin wasn’t all that late-harvest to begin with; certainly it has softer, lusher, more red-berried aromas than one would expect from Amador. Somewhat lugubrious, but pleasant enough. (8/07)

No reply Etoile

[bottle]Domaine Chandon Brut Rosé “l’Etoile” (Mendocino/Napa/Sonoma) – Crown cap. Very fruity, with strawberries to the fore, and perhaps a little sweeter and more neon-intense than I’d like. But there’s yeasty complexity underneath, and the wine firms up a little bit on the finish…though eventually it turns every so slightly candied again. Still, not bad, though not worth the price either. (8/07)

Alma for the poor

[label]Alma Rosa 2005 Pinot Noir (Santa Rita Hills) – These days, my typical complaint about pinots from this region is that they taste like someone spilled a combination of cherry syrup and whiskey in the fermentation vessel. This wine reminds me of my complaints from the old days: that fruit cola wasn’t something I was interested in buying at pinot prices. This wine is all over the place, showing intense but candied strawberry and raspberry, then sticky soda, then a gritty, sandy texture, haphazard structure, and an overly child-friendly finish. I sorta want to like it given the backstory (it’s the new Sanford wine), but I just can’t. (8/07)

Ang gris

[label]Terre Rouge 2004 Vin Gris d’Amador (Sierra Foothills) – 51% mourvèdre, 34% grenache, 15% syrah. Unfocused and somewhat candied, this stumbles clumsily around its lazy fruit and finally passes out somewhere in a pool of alcohol. A rare misstep from this winery. (8/07)

TN: Chardonn-yay

[sheep]Navarro 2004 Chardonnay “Première Reserve” (Anderson Valley) – Balanced and clean. Bright melon and grapefruit are braced by fine acidity and a light, only mildly acrid butter tone shorn of its fat by a slight backpalate bitterness. This is no modernistic New World chardonnay, and in fact it tends a bit more towards the lean than it might. It should age for a short while, as well. (6/07)

TN: Stoner

[label]Medusa 2004 “Old Vine” Zinfandel Lover’s Lane (Mendocino) – This comes with a sporty black extruded synthetic cork, but the wine’s not nearly that ominous. It’s powerfully oaky for the first half-hour or so, but later it relaxes into something more approachable (and in fact, the oak mostly lurks in the deep background), showing juicy red-fruited acidity and freshly-crushed berries with a preserved maraschino topnote. It’s a little herky-jerky right now, and I don’t know if it’s got enough internal integrity to solve itself, but if it does it will always be a higher-acid zin, which isn’t unwelcome in these overheated times. (6/07)

TN: Te Matagrano

Edmunds St. John 1999 Sangiovese Matagrano (El Dorado) – Served blind (by me), and while some of the early guesses are in the realm of grenache, eventually a few people close in on it, though no one guesses it’s California sangiovese. Charred strawberry and banana leaves turn seedy and dark, with blueberries and olive pits and a lot of amorphous tannin hanging around in the foreground. This would appear to be suffering from travel shock (it had been on a short plane ride earlier in the day), especially given the fine particulate matter suffusing the wine. (6/07)

TN: Old faithful

Ridge 1994 Geyserville (Sonoma County) – Fully given over to the “Draper perfume” of refined yet lurid American oak, old zinfandel’s baked-briar-patch berries, and soft, tongue-caressing solids. The old berry, animal, wood and earth aromas here mingle in a misty autumnal haze, breathing and pulsing with polished authority. A beautiful old zin. This, unlike a previous (Ridge-sourced library selection) bottle, is completely ready to go. (6/07)