July 15th, 2010

Gladly Taken Prisoner

2008 The Prisoner

Orin Swift Cellars is new.

I don’t mean “new” like they were just formed yesterday, or this is their first vintage, or even that you probably haven’t heard of them. They weren’t, the first release of The Prisoner was the 2003 vintage, and it’s entirely likely that you have.

What I mean is that they’re nouveau. They’re young, and vibrant, and current, and modern. Exciting and interesting, doing things and saying things.

Winery honcho/winemaker/jefe Dave Phinney likes him some zinfandel. The first wine he released under the Orin Swift Cellars name was the 2003 Prisoner, a zinfandel-based blend of some incredible Napa juice. The latest vintage is no different.

The 2008 Prisoner is 46% zinfandel, 26% cabernet sauvignon, 15% syrah, 10% petite sirah, 2% charbono, and 1% grenache. The main players, in my opinion, are the first three, and before you read on you should probably try to think, for a second, what a zinfandel/cab sauv/syrah blend might be like.

Ready?

If your first thought was “big,” you get a gold friggin’ star.

Luckily for me, and everyone else who’s had the fortune of drinking the 2008 Prisoner, “big” is not the only appropriate descriptor here. Fruit-forward, balanced, acidic, earthy all work as well. So, the notes, then?

The wine is dark as night in the core of the glass, and lightens to a bright ruby red at the edges. The nose is lush with sweet cherries and darker, richer blackberries, plus a hint of tobacco or cigar box aromas. It smells rich. It smells like it’s not about to fuck around.

The Prisoner is a full-bodied wine that really coats your mouth. Here is an actual note I wrote in my notebook:

Tannin structure out the ass

This, I assure you, should be translated as “lots of structure.” The tannins aren’t rough or overpowering, though. Raspberry and cherry do a little dance, make a little love, and get down with a nicely-balanced earthiness and acidity that just makes itself known on the mid-palate. The lingering finish of cherries keeps you coming back for more.

I say god damn, this is some tasty wine.

The Prisoner has gained a cult following, and it is deserved. This latest vintage is a great example of California red blends done well, and for around $30 a bottle it won’t take your pocketbook captive.

Verdict: A

2008 The Prisoner

2008 The Prisoner

Tags: 2008, A, cabernet sauvignon, charbono, grenache, Napa Valley, Orin Swift Cellars, petite sirah, syrah, zinfandel

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June 7th, 2010

Masterful Merlot Makes Me Melt

2006 B Legacy Reserve Merlot

2006 B Legacy Reserve Merlot

I’ve reviewed a few merlots, though most have been in meritage blends or as part of what is officially a cabernet sauvignon. Of the wines that are 100% (or, at least, predominantly) merlot that I have reviewed, the verdicts ranged from D to B+.

I’m not the biggest merlot fan on the planet, this is something I’ve said numerous times. However, I loathe no variety, and am always looking for the merlot to turn me back to the grape.1 I say “back” because the first red wine I drank with any regularity2 was merlot. I drank a lot of it, though not with much discretion.

But I digress. The fact of the matter is, I think I found that merlot. I think I found a wine made of 100% merlot grapes, from Napa, no less,3 that has gotten me truly excited about merlot in general again.

Classique des Classiques

This may end up meaning I’m disappointed a lot as I drink merlots that don’t stand up to this one, but c’est la vie.

So what can you expect from the 2006 B Legacy Reserve Merlot from Bolen Family Estates? A lot. In the glass, the juice is gorgeous, shimmering slightly from ruby red at the core, to an only-slightly-lighter cardinal red on the edges.

The nose is subtle, and although the alcohol content is relatively high,4 there is no residual heat on the nose to get in the way. In the way of what? Exceptional notes of stewed raspberry, dark cherries, and a hint of allspice. Very inviting, very nuanced.

The B Legacy doesn’t disappoint when you actually go to drink it. It’s medium bodied, with great structure and balance. At first, the majority of the experience is rich, lush, fleshy fruit, a lot of plum and cranberry. Eventually, this wine tastes like Christmas. The cranberry is joined by hints of nutmeg and peppermint that just top off the experience.

It’s delicious wine, and very surprising for me.5 Only 120 cases of the 2006 were made, and as you ought to expect given that’s the case, it’s not cheap at $60 per bottle. It is, however, worth it.

Verdict: A

(photo: surreptitiously, and with all apologies, stolen from Bolen Family Estates’ website.)

Footnotes

  1. I’m sure Chateau Petrus would do it, but I don’t happen to have $400 on me… ↩
  2. In my—ahem—”early” 20s ↩
  3. The Oak Knoll District, a personal favorite, to be exact ↩
  4. Forgive me, everyone, for going off memory only here, but I believe it was above 14% ↩
  5. Being, as I am, no great lover of merlot ↩
Tags: 2006, A, Bolen Family Estates, Classique des Classiques, merlot, Napa Valley, Oak Knoll District

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May 21st, 2010

Color Me Converted

2007 Leviathan

Statue of Bacchus

Ah, the “Napa Cult Wine.” The perennially-overpriced subject of scorn and ridicule the internet over. Everyone’s tired of Napa fruit and paying the Napa markup. There’s nothing new under the sun, everyone out there is overrated anyway, so forth and so on and et cetera ad nauseum.

Anyone from Napa still reading? I think all that’s horsehockey, by the way. Just wanted to get everyone on the same page.

Still, of the Napa Cult Wines I’ve had, the 2007 Leviathan is the first one to truly live up to all the hype. And what hype there is for this wine!

Some background: Leviathan is a garage wine project from husband-and-wife duo, winemaker Andy Erickson (Screaming Eagle, Staglin, Hartwell, Favia, Ovid, Dancing Hares, Jonata, Dalla Valle, Arietta) and viticulturalist Anie Favia (Screaming Eagle, Favia, and Abreu). Erickson has an MS in Enology from UC Davis, and cut his teeth in the 1990s at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.

The Napa pedigree on these two is second-to-none. So what about the wine?

40% cabernet franc, 30% cabernet sauvignon, 16% syrah, and 14% merlot, all Napa juice. It’s maybe the best red blend I’ve had. Ever.

In the glass, the wine is gorgeous, with a brilliant garnet core and only slightly lighter ruby edges. On the nose is some really awesome fruit, like blackcurrant, raspberry, and ripe red cherry, but it’s all muted and held in check by a bit of nutmeg and allspice.

This is as full-bodied as wine gets, without getting sickly sweet and syrupy like dessert wine. The tannins are soft and lush, and everything here is in such balance, that I didn’t notice any of the heat. And at 14.5%, I was expecting it. Blackberry and raspberry are the main notes on the palate, and the wine does remain fantasically fruity.

If you’re an anti-flavor fascist, you won’t care for this wine. But if you still love juice for being juice (even if only sometimes) then you need to try this. It isn’t even that expensive, available for $40–$50 from numerous online retailers. Sure, that’s no drop in the bucket, but this isn’t an “everyday” drinker. The tannins and balance lead me to believe you could easily get 5+ years of aging out of it if you wanted, but it tastes so fucking good right now, I wouldn’t bother.

I’m a convert to the cult of Leviathan. This is crazy, silly good juice.

Verdict: A

(photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mamjodh/ / CC BY 2.0)

Tags: 2007, A, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon, Leviathan, merlot, Napa Valley, syrah

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May 14th, 2010

Wine That Will Make You See God

2005 Uccelliera Brunello di Montalcino

I’m not even being all that facetious with the title. Nor am I saying this will make you “see God” in the way that spinning around really fast over and over and over again and tripping over the railing at the Grand Canyon and smacking your head on the way down, or overdosing on heroin, will make you “see God.” That’s too literal.

But there is a reason that wine is made on this planet. There is a purpose, there is a source of inspiration for it. I don’t know if that is “God” or what one person, or another person calls “God,” or if it’s just in some people’s blood, and in some terroir‘s dirt and clay, to make really goddamn good wine.

Whatever it is, this is it. This is the kind of wine, exactly the kind of wine, that makes people into winedrinkers.

Some people ask those of us in the wine blog whateversphere what wine “turned us” really on to wine. I still think for me it was a 2002 Saintsbury Carneros Pinot Noir I had on Valentine’s Day with my new-at-the-time girlfriend, later-to-be wife shortly after my 25th birthday, but it would have been this wine if I’d gotten to it a half decade earlier.

It’s good.

The ’05 Uccelliera is ruby red throughout the glass, with little to no change towards the edges. I think this is supposed to tell me something, perhaps even something specific, about the wine (newbie alert!!). On the nose is the slightest hint of heat, but only at first, a bit more vigorous swirling and it left and didn’t come back. Two major, major notes run roughshod over the nose: black cherry truffle, and espresso.

It’s so good.

Soft, lush tannins abound in this medium-bodied wine. Notes from the nose are present, but translated: more of a stewed cherry with the espresso, plus the introduction of an unmistakable—and, frankly, eminently elegant—cigar tobacco note. This wine, in part, tastes like the very best cigars smell.

Yum.

Oh, it also pairs orgasmically (ah, wait, no way, you’re kidding… he didn’t just say what I think he did, did he?) with oxtail—which, by the way, I was tricked into eating. It’s the greatest trick anyone ever played on me, ever, but still, a trick regardless.

Verdict: A

2005 Uccelliera Brunello di Montalcino

2005 Uccelliera Brunello di Montalcino

Tags: 2005, A, Brunello di Montalcino, sangiovese, Uccelliera

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April 27th, 2010

Another Amazing Value From The Rhone Valley

2008 Vidal-Fleury Cotes-du-Rhone Blanc

People often ask me, when they find out I spend some manner of time writing about wine, what my favorite “value” wine is. And this has different meanings for different people. To one, spending $20 on a bottle of wine may seem like a splurge, reserved only for special occasions; to another, a good wine for $20 may seem like the steal of the century. Neither of these hypothetical people is wrong.

For me, I consider a wine a “value wine” if it clocks in at under $15 and tastes like it costs at least twice that. One of my all-time favorite value wines is the Perrin et Fils Cotes-du-Rhone, to which I gave an A-, and for which you need only slap down between $8-$10. Not too shabby.

Here’s a white, from the same part of the world, with similar results. The 2008 Vidal-Fleury Cotes-du-Rhone Blanc is 100% viognier, which I have been enjoying tremendously for a few years. We have a thing, viognier and I.

The ’08 Vidal-Fleury is a bright, almost glowing, golden in the glass. Very pretty. The nose is sweet in a pleasant way, and the notes that dance around your nostrils will delight you: honey and apricot mingle with fresh flower beds along a mountain stream. On the prettiest damn April day you ever saw.

On the palate, the experience continues, and the wine doesn’t disappoint. Light-bodied, crisp and bright, the honey and apricot notes continue to show themselves, and there is a summery grassiness to the mid-palate that I found absolutely divine. Of course, I like stinky barnyard sauvignon blanc (and this is not anything like that, I’m just saying) so a little grassiness is great for me. Others may not love it, but it is right up my alley.

So, I said this is a value wine… what’ll it run you? About $11 for the bottle. None too shabby, that. A fantastic wine, at any price.

Verdict: A

2008 Vidal-Fleury Cotes-du-Rhone Blanc

2008 Vidal-Fleury Cotes-du-Rhone Blanc

Tags: 2008, A, Cotes-du-Rhone, Vidal-Fleury, viognier

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