Browse Tag

red

Ridge lyin’

[geyserville]Ridge 2001 Geyserville (Sonoma County) — Unraveling a bit, but the yarn is still beautiful. Mixed berries, their acid more on display than usual, and a fraying oak/tannin structure. Drink soonish. (10/16)

Hot Todd(y)

Dashe 2012 Zinfandel Todd Brothers Ranch “Old Vines” (Alexander Valley) — Everything flawlessly in place, just awaiting age. As always, there’s a tightly coiled structure beneath slightly less generous fruit than Dashe’s other zins. Meant for the cellar. (11/16)

No-tell Potel

Potel 2001 Monthélie “Vieilles Vignes” (Burgundy) — Clinging bravely and attractively, if not exactly beautifully. All grace notes, but the melody’s growing faint. (10/16)

Golden flea

La Pousse d’Or 2005 Pommard 1er Cru Les Jarollières (Burgundy) — A polished wall of fruit, but the insistence that this is unapproachable is misguided; it’s nothing magnificent at the moment, for sure, but it’s eminently drinkable. I had fears regarding storage for this bottle, hence the infanticide. (10/16)

Fewer Coynes in the fountain

[coyne]Thomas Coyne 1999 Syrah Detjens Farms (Livermore Valley) — Pepper, herbs, liquid smoke, a lot of humid airspace. Whatever maturation was going to happen has, I think, happened, and now it’s a process of thinning. Drink up. (10/16)

Let’s stay together

[fontenil & ahlgren]Ahlgren 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon Bates’ Ranch (Santa Cruz Mountains) — For the first twelve hours, this is soupy and off-putting. Left open (but not decanted) at room temperature, I take a little sip the next morning (pre-coffee) and it’s extraordinarily good. Big, yes, and there’s a looming scowl of booze that’s barely restrained by the softened fruit, but everything else is showy and delicious. Raisins, plums, slightly overripe berries, fully resolved structure. Explosive. And since the side-by-side was intriguing: right now, this is a better wine than the Thunder Mountain from the same vintage and site. I don’t think either is going to improve, but neither is in danger of cliff-diving either. (9/17)

Zero font

[fontenil & ahlgren]Château Fontenil 1994 Fronsac (Bordeaux) — I expected tired, tannic, and woody. It’s certainly not in the prime of its life, and there’s some woodsmoke (more with a half-dozen hours’ air), but otherwise this — even with Rolland’s name scribbled all over the label — tastes reasonably traditional, leaning heavily on tar and decayed leaves. Drink up, though. (9/16)

Thor’s hammer

[thunder mountain cabernet sauvignon]Thunder Mountain 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon Bates Ranch (Santa Cruz Mountains) — 14.5%. This wine was too big for me back in the day, and in some ways it still is, but when I recall the arguments I sometimes had with the winemaker, it turns out we were both right: it did age nicely, and it’s out of balance. The booziness is even more apparent now that everything else has receded, and there’s a vinyl character to the tannin/fruit interchange, but the leafy complexity and texture one expects from properly aged cabernet sauvignon are also here, albeit buttressed by a fair dollop of dark jam. For my tastes, I wouldn’t hold it any longer, for I don’t think those structural imbalances are going to improve while pursuing greater delicacy. (8/16)

Pascole’s law

[rectorie coume pascole]Parcé Frères “Domaine de la Rectorie” 2003 Collioure Coume Pascole (Roussillon) — Dead soy out of the gate, but with air and time it blossoms. Tannin still overwhelms (2003 effect), but the wine’s hefty enough that it’s less deformative than in cooler regions. Eventually, it’s all about smoke on sunburnt soil and shriveled, desiccated grapes. Not as “elegant” as the wines can be in the context of their appellation, but then that’s still the year. Drink now, but give it a good decant first. (8/16)