By Jim Gordon, The Wine Enthusiast, March 2022
This fun and refreshing light-pink wine offers effusive red-cherry and pistachio aromas and tutti-frutti flavors that seem to defy its apparently bone-dry balance.
By Jim Gordon, The Wine Enthusiast, March 2022
This fun and refreshing light-pink wine offers effusive red-cherry and pistachio aromas and tutti-frutti flavors that seem to defy its apparently bone-dry balance.
Nicely balanced with a nice mouthfeel and a teeth staining color. The mix of black and red fruits is very interesting. Tangy and rich. Good right out of the bottle and better with airtime. Drinking very nicely now, and will continue to age in the next 5 to 7 years.
This annual post looks back at all the wines I wrote about in the previous year and singles out 50 that I thought were great wines. “Great” doesn’t necessarily imply the most profound, though several of these are as profound as wine gets; nor does it necessarily mean that these are the world’s famed wines intended for laying down in cellars for long aging. I don’t usually encounter such wines anyway.
This Petite Verdot has a very fragrant nose with macerated black cherries and crème de cassis enveloped in a veneer of creamy oak that does not impede the fruit. The palate is full-bodied with a salacious dark, creamy cassis and chocolate-tinged fruit on the entry. It is beautifully balanced, with a long, sensual finish that demonstrates just what this esoteric variety can do in the right hands. It should last for 15 years in the cellar.
This immense wine is wrapped tightly in tannins, holding the black currant and black cherry flavors firmly in check while a drying sensation puckers the palate. It has good focus and concentration underneath all that, which bodes well for aging.
Notes of blueberry, red cherry, oak spice, plum, cocoa, slight stem and savory herb. The fruit is rich on the palate with a good amount of oak spice and a hint of vanilla notes. Nice lift on the back palate with some brighter, tart red fruit and acidity. Tannins are present but rather easy going. Decant recommended.
From the winery’s biodynamic-certified estate vineyard reaching elevations as high as 2,200 feet, this is a highly aromatic red with a perfume of chocolate-covered cherry and new leather. On the palate, the grip is firm and dusty, Italian herbs, iron and taut acidity settle atop a mineral base.