Wednesday, 12 December 2018
Tuesday, 11 December 2018
Bersano 2012 “Badarina” Barolo
Bersano 2012 “Badarina” Barolo
Bersano has the largest acreage of any private winery in the Italian Piedmont. Founded in the 19th Century, Bersano originally produced wine solely in the Asti province. Over the years, they now have 230HA of vineyards, including properties in both Barolo and Barbaresco.
The wines from Bersano come into the Chairman’s Selection program in the PA Wine & Spirits Stores on occasion, including another of their Barolo bottlings, which comes from their Nirvasco vineyard. This bottling does not come from one of their own vineyards, instead, it’s sourced from the famous Badarina vineyard in Barolo’s Serralunga province.
A beautifully structured Barolo, with a core of tannins pushing against perfumed aromas and elegant acidity. Cigar box and rich dark fruit on the palate give way to oak spices.
The post Bersano 2012 “Badarina” Barolo appeared first on Wine School of Philadelphia.
source https://www.vinology.com/bersano-2012-badarina-barolo/
Monday, 10 December 2018
Holiday Wine Guide 2018
Wine Guide 2018 I’ve included my holiday wine selections below. If you’re thinking of a wine-soaked holiday season, I’d also like to recommend a few of our wine classes, as well. I just released our Top Wines of 2018 class. I intentionally left it off the front page until now, so our newsletter readers could get a shot at registering. Also, I have some great Grand Cru and Monopole wines that I’ve reserved for our Burgundy & Beyond class. Finally, I’ve brought back our Bordeaux class, which is one of my personal favorites. If I don’t see you, have a great holiday season! Cheers, Keith Keith Wallace, Founder |
The post Holiday Wine Guide 2018 appeared first on Wine School of Philadelphia.
source https://www.vinology.com/holiday-wine-guide-2018/
Wine Reviews: Weekly Mini Round-Up For December 10, 2018
I taste a bunch-o-wine (technical term for more than most people). So each week, I share some of my wine reviews (mostly from samples) and tasting notes in a “mini-review” format.
They are meant to be quirky, fun, and (mostly) easily-digestible reviews of (mostly) currently available wines (click here for the skinny on how to read them), and are presented links to help you find them, so that you can try them out for yourself. Cheers!
- 2014 Lumos Temperance Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir (Eola-Amity Hills): Grippy, earthy, spicy, and clearly crafted by talented hands. $18 B+
- 2015 Reustle Prayer Rock Vineyards Winemaker’s Reserve Pinot Noir (Umpqua Valley): Pretty as a prayer book; pithy, long, and academically this one has textbook consistency. $42 A-
- 2016 Del Rio Vineyards Pinot Gris (Rogue Valley): Round without being flabby, pretty without being prissy, sharp without being biting, good without being pricey. $16 B+
- 2015 Del Rio Vineyards Syrah (Rogue Valley): This rogue is dashing, dark, handsome, and wearing a fair amount of designer leather clothing. $30 B+
- 2015 Wooldridge Creek Tempranillo (Applegate Valley): from a warm vintage comes warm tobacco spices and a warming sensation generally all over your body. $35 B+
- 2013 Cavit Altemasi Metodo Classico Brut Trento (Trentino-Alto Adige): Drawing fine border lines, mostly between citric verve and a sense of richness. $27 B+
- 2013 Enrico Serafino Brut (Alta Langa): Zesty apple and citrus neighbors getting along splendidly, but they definitely like their hedges abd fences just a bit round. $26 B+
- 2012 Alessandro Rivetto Lazzarito Barolo (Piedmont): Vibrant, earthy, lithe, complex, and currently only in its embryonic stage of development. $90 A
- 2016 M. Chapoutier Domaine de Bila-Haut ‘Occultum Lapidem’ (Cotes du Roussillon Villages): It’s the cult of meaty, leathery, herbal, dark, structured expression. Seriously, apparently there totally is one… $30
- 2016 Covenant Wines ‘Zahav’ Late Harvest Botrytis Chardonnay (Sonoma Mountain): Mandarin orange candy that’s bordering on heavenly. $30 B+
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source http://www.1winedude.com/wine-reviews-weekly-mini-round-up-for-december-10-2018/
Thursday, 6 December 2018
Return To Forever (Immortal Estate’s Inaugural Release)
The steep slopes at Hidden Ridge, back in 2010
Sometimes, the wine business is a very, very small place. Also, I am about to talk about jellyfish. You’ve been warned…
While in San Francisco recently for the SF International Wine Competition (more on the results of that in a couple of weeks), I caught up with wine marketing maven Tim Martin. Longtime 1WD readers might recognize Tim’s name from way back in 2012, when apparently (according to Tim, anyway) I was the first person to write about Tim’s Napa Valley project, Tusk. “We’ve got a ten year waiting list on Tusk now,” Tim mentioned, which I suppose is much more a tribute to that brand’s cult status, and the prowess of winemaker Philippe Melka than it is to my influence. I mean, as far as I know, even my mom doesn’t read 1WD.
Anyway…
The late Lynn Hofacket (photographed in 2010)
It turns out that in the five-plus years since we last met, Martin has been busy lining up another potential cult classic, and this one already has some connection to previous 1WD coverage – it happens to be the next iteration of Hidden Ridge, which even longer-time 1WD readers might recall from when I visited that stunning Sonoma estate, on the very edge of the Napa Valley border, back in 2010. At the time, I marveled at why the prices for their reds were so low.
After Hidden Ridge patriarch Lynn Hofacket – who planted the vineyards on the steep hills of that estate (some of which literally match the great pyramids in slope percentage) – passed away, his wife Casidy ward eventually (though not without some trepidation, as I’ve been told) sold the vineyards to what would become the team behind what would become Immortal Estate (Hidden Ridge winemaker Timothy Milos remains a part of the team).
It was Hofacket’s passing, which nearly coincided with the death of Martin’s father, that became the genesis of Immortal’s brand name. “I started to think about legacy, and what we leave behind” Martin told me, and he noticed that Wine Advocate’s 100-point review of the 2013 Hidden Ridge Impassable Mountain Cabernet included the phrase “This wine is nearly Immortal.” And thus, a brand (or, at least, the idea of one) was born.
Which brings us to the jellyfish…
Immortal Estate’s flagship Cabernet Sauvignon has a jellyfish on the label. Not just any jellyfish, of course, but the small Turritopsis dohrnii, which possesses the Medusozoa equivalency of near immortality. There’s no good way of explaining this, so I’ll point you to an excerpt from www.immortal-jellyfish.com:
Turritopsis dohrnii is now officially known as the only immortal creature. The secret to eternal life, as it turns out, is not just living a really, really long time. It’s all about maturity, or rather, the lack of it. The immortal jellyfish (as it is better known popularly) propagate and then, faced with the normal career path of dying, they opt instead to revert to a sexually immature stage.
Sexual immaturity? Forever? That’s not exactly a wine marketer’s wet dream, but check out how the innards of this nigh-undying look to the human eye; namely, almost exactly as if it’s carrying a wee little glass of red wine:
Turritopsis dohrnii (image: amnh.org)
Now, that kind of is a wine marketer’s wet dream right there.
One of my first questions to Martin, because this is the kind of guy I am, is why, if the vineyard site and winemaker are the same, should anyone feel compelled to pay three-to-four times the Hidden Ridge asking prices for Immortal Estate. Martin’s answer was obviously well-considered, and just as obviously wasn’t marketing fluff: “Lynn just didn’t have the same resources to elevate the farming practices as we do.”
Available by acquisition only because, well, cult wine. Densely packed, in terms of palate weight, complexity or aromas, and intensity of mouthfeel, this is immediately identifiable as a Napa Valley styled classic, but of course in a blind tasting we’d all get it wrong since it’s technically from Sonoma. Cassis, pencil lead, cocoa, dried herbs, black and red plums… the stuff just keeps coming and coming.
Interestingly, while this is drinkable stuff now, the palate has hints of reservation. There are nice laces of acidity through the leather of the tannins and the density of the fruit, but it’s the tannin action that has the most depth to it. Deceptively so, however; those tannin chains are nice and long, so you’re getting a silky experience now, and so it’s easy to miss just how much structural scaffolding is built into this puppy. The tannin Force is, indeed, strong with this one; and it has many, many, many years of excellent drinking ahead of it.
Cheers!
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source http://www.1winedude.com/return-to-forever-immortal-estates-inaugural-release/
Tuesday, 4 December 2018
Rotie Cellars 2013 “Northern Blend” Red, Walla Walla
Rotie Cellars 2013 “Northern Blend” Red, Walla Walla
Eventually, Walla Walla is going to crush Napa Valley. It’s not just climate change, it’s the culture of the place. Rotie Cellars is a case in point. I’ve never seen winemaker/owner Sean Boyd in a perfectly clean pair of pants or sporting a manicure. This dude works. He’s a natural winemaker, but his background was in oil and gas exploration. There’s a grittiness to winemaking in Washington State that just seems a bit more in keeping with the times we live in.
The Stats
I’m glad to see Rotie Cellars back in the PA Wine & Spirit’s Chairman Selection Program again. A few years ago it, The Northern Blend is Sean’s homage to Côte-Rôtie region of the Northern Rhône Valley of France: as such it’s a deep throated Syrah co-fermented with 5% of Viognier. Like traditional Côte-Rôtie, it is aged in older barrels for up to 16 months.
The grapes are sourced from southeastern Walla Walla Valley. This corner of the AVA (American Viticultural Region) is revered for its cobblestone soils and has always produced stellar Syrah. Since 2015, this sub-region has been officially an AVA in its own right, with the name “The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater” Doesn’t flow off the tongue, but what part of Washington State does?
The Wine Review
A full-throated experience, both aggressive and jubilant. wine with. Aromas of bouquet garni and texas bbq are layered with dark fruit and black pepper. On the palate, it’s a textural pleasure, full-bodied and lush. An attack of sauvage herbs, game and blackberry coulis evolves into white pepper and tapenade. An oaky sweetness and orange zest come through on the finish.
The post Rotie Cellars 2013 “Northern Blend” Red, Walla Walla appeared first on Wine School of Philadelphia.
source https://www.vinology.com/rotie-cellars-2013-walla-walla/
Monday, 3 December 2018
Wine Reviews: Weekly Mini Round-Up For December 3, 2018
I taste a bunch-o-wine (technical term for more than most people). So each week, I share some of my wine reviews (mostly from samples) and tasting notes in a “mini-review” format.
They are meant to be quirky, fun, and (mostly) easily-digestible reviews of (mostly) currently available wines (click here for the skinny on how to read them), and are presented links to help you find them, so that you can try them out for yourself. Cheers!
- 2015 Chalk Hill Estate Red Proprietary Blend (Chalk Hill): Sonoma County gettin’ super-sultry, seductive, and smooth as silk. $70 A-
- 2016 Dutton-Goldfield Redwood Ridge Pinot Noir (Sonoma Coast): Textured, dense, dark, and basically an unassuming triumph of bottled excellence. $62 A
- 2014 Rodney Strong Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (Alexander Valley): Tucking in those fine, ripe plums, stony minerals, and game meat under a cozy blanket of refined oak. $45 A-
- 2013 Anarchist Wine “Conspiracy Theory” Red (California): Juicy and certainly tasty, though you might feel as though your pocket had been picked. $36 B
- 2016 Stewart Cellars Sauvignon Blanc (Napa Valley): Grassier, more pungent, more textural, and definitely more affordable than you were expecting from the Valley. $25 B+
- 2015 Amici Cellars Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley): Might come off as velvety and reticent now, but time will be very, very kind to this one. $84 A
- 2017 Ferraton Pere & Fils Cotes du Rhone Samorens Blanc (Rhone): Those tropical fruits are spreading their stuff out, because that’s just how they roll, bro. $15 B
- 2014 Dr. Loosen Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Alte Reben Grosses Gewachs (Mosel): Flowers, honey, limes, and… ok, seriously, now you are just showing off… $34 A-
- 2017 Weingut Seehof Pinot Noir Rose Trocken (Rheinhessen): Red currants, dancing in the pure joy of their delightful tangy-ness. $17 B
- W & J Graham’s 10 Year Old Tawny Port (Portugal): ‘Tis the season for drinking delectable pecan pie. $35 B+
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source http://www.1winedude.com/wine-reviews-weekly-mini-round-up-for-december-3-2018/