Community Tasting Note

sfwinelover1 Likes this wine:

Saturday, November 14, 2020 - First of two from the recent large, private party purchase (hard to assign a price to individual bottles, but around $35). Small taste, then about 45 minutes of air, which, IMO, it doesn't need. On the nose and palate, rich, ripe dark berries, black cherries, plums, raisins, cassis, smoked meats, earth, garrigue, leather, kalamata olives, espresso and a note of port, especially on the nose. Deep purple with a hint of black, medium+ bodied and legs. Medium- tannins, no acidity discernible, no heat, despite the port note and the 15.9% abv. Medium+ complexity, medium intensity and persistence. I had a good run of higher end California syrahs a couple of months ago--Araujo, Keplinger and Andremily--of which this is most similar to the last, although it doesn't have its power or structure. This wine could have been a delicious but somewhat unbalanced high 80s fruit bomb, but its savory notes turn it from a pretty good to a very good wine. Still, it can't get above that bar because of the absence of acidity, which, as in a good CdP, could have balanced its port-y note and given the wine more elegance. The savory notes made it a decent complement to the sausage and polenta, but its port-y note made it even better with chocolate; nevertheless, there's more than a bit of a cocktail wine aspect to this effort. Not ridiculously expensive even at retail, let alone at what I paid, yet with the great reviews this bottling regularly garners, both from the pros and CT, ever so slightly disappointing. I'd still likely purchase again at my price, unless a Keplinger was somewhere in sight. With the paucity of acidity and light tannins, I'll be drinking my other bottle within the next year and would advise others to think about doing the same. 91-92

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