Browse Tag

cedarville

Clarine my throat

La Clarine Farm 2010 Mourvèdre (Cedarville) – I don’t think that any number of blind guesses as to this wine’s varietal identity would ever have brought me to mourvèdre. Is that a good or bad thing? Well, it’s at best a long musing, at worst an unmitigated rant, so I’ll leave that aside for a moment and get to the wine itself. The unidentifiableness of the wine comes from the bright, freshly-pressed strawberries and light, tactile faux-electricity that leap from the glass. Only a dense atmosphere of somewhat-penetrable tannin gives this wine a varietal signature. Otherwise, it’s capital-N Natural, whether it is by practice or not (perusal of what information I have suggests that it is): fizzy funfruit, some brett, some VA (neither damaging or really even intrusive, but they’re there and perceptible), and so forth. If you’ve had southern French natural wines, and add some mental tannin, you already know what this tastes like.

If it sounds like I’m struggling between organoleptics and philosophy in this note, unable to take a position due to the tension between the two in my mind, the sound you hear is a true one. In the context of California wines, Sierra Foothills wines, whichever open peer group one chooses, this is a bold statement. And I do like the way it tastes (mostly). But in the context of natural wines, worldwide, it’s…another one. (1/12)

Chesterville

Cedarville 2000 Zinfandel (El Dorado) – 15.7%. I’ve never had a Cedarville wine that I didn’t think was too oaky for its own good, and this caused me to give up on the winery – despite palates I trusted trying to convince me otherwise – years ago. Based on this bottle, I kinda wish I’d listened. The oak, once lavish, has integrated; it’s not gone by any means, but it is now just a partner to the vibrant, spicy, mountain-pine and fields-of-berries fruit. That fruit, however, is still fairly primary, and there are no disjointed elements to the structure, so I can’t say that I think this is any danger of needing consumption. In fact, it might not even be ready yet. (3/10)