Audelssa Estate Winery Sonoma Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Sister Jan flew in from SoCal for the weekend to visit our mother. Having a relaxing visit in the evening, I opened from our cellar this Sonoma Cabernet which we discovered and tasted together during our Napa/Sonoma Wine Experience trip back in 2011. We stayed at the Sonoma Renaissance Lodge and Spa and the producer was serving this wine in the dining room before dinner. My records show we actually purchased this label from Winebid back in 2011. Going back to that WineBid posting, they provided no information about the producer. The only information about the source was the bottles were "Removed from a professional wine storage facility," and were represented to be in good condition without flaws.
My report and tasting notes of this label were posted back in 2014 when I wrote this report. "The fruit comes from the steep, western slopes of the Mayacamas Mountain
range that separates Sonoma and Napa Valleys. Made from grapes from
the winery's estate vineyard, and the
Warm Springs Vineyard at the base of Sonoma Mountain, this is an
interesting mid-priced Sonoma Valley Cab. About 1,650 cases
were produced.
The winemaker is Erich Bradley who learned the craft
working under well known legendary producers David Ramey and Dick
Arrowood."
Fortunately, tonight's tasting experience was far better than back in 2014 when I wrote, "This was medium bodied, dark ruby colored, it comes off a bit 'hot' initially and shows bright vibrant sweet, dusty, complex ripe cherry notes with a slightly firm backbone and layer of slightly earthy, red and black berry, with hints of smoke, cedar and anise on a short slightly edgy tannin finish." At that time I gave it 88 points.
Tonight, this was very pleasant and showed none of the adverse conditions reported earlier. It was dark garnet colored, medium bodied and was consistent with the tasting profile from earlier. It improved as the evening progressed revealing more depth, complexity, supple roundness and smooth elegance with hints of sweet mocha. Clearly this wine needed a dozen or more years to settle, integrate and balance to reveal its true potential. I don't believe the improvement or change was due to bottle variation, rather, credit the graceful cellar aging of the vintage release. Tonight, I give this 91 points. Regretably, this is our last bottle of this label and likely the end of the line for this brand.
https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=563804
There are reports of a Reserve label from this producer on Cellartracker:
http://www.audelssa.com/ no longer exists and the domain name is for sale.