Venge Vineyard "Scout's Honor" Napa Valley Red Blend 2015
Son Alec and daughter-in-law
Viviana arrived from Florida as part of their circuitous relocation from New York City to Chicago. As part of our welcome to them we opened this bold expressive casual sipper, one of our "V" wines, those featuring the letter 'V' on their labels or in their branding, as a tribute to Viviana, that we have fun with in our collecting and serving.
As I have written often in these pages, we've been enjoying Nils and Kirk Venge' wines since the early
1990's when Nils was featured by Wine Spectator Magazine in a 1994
article on up and coming wine producers.
One of the labels of the Venge
portfolio is Scout's Honor named for the family Labrador
Retriever. I remember Scout walking the rows in the
vineyards with Nils during a visit to the Rutherford Penny Lane estate back in the nineties (shown right from our 2002 visit).
This wine was initially meant to be a fun sipper for the Venge
tasting room, yet it became — and remains — one of the most popular wines of the Venge portfolio which has now grown to nineteen labels.
Scout's Honor is based on a tradition of producing a full bodied,
delicious and enjoyable red wine that can be opened and enjoyed
immediately upon release however when cellared correctly it will age for
5 to 8 years.
Scout's Honor starts as a unique proprietary red blend anchored by a
base of old-vine Zinfandel and builds upon that with dry-farmed Petite
Sirah, old-vine Charbono, and finish with mountain vineyard Syrah.
The blend for 2015 70% Zinfandel, 14% Charbono, 9% Petite Sirah and 7% Syrah.
We have been collecting this label since the earliest releases in the
mid-nineties and hold a half dozen vintages. We typically keep a half
dozen vintages of this label on
hand for easy, enjoyable smooth sipping with everyday fare, great with
BBQ, burgers, pizza to hearty cheese, beef, fruits and chocolates. I was surprised when I went to write up this tasting note that this was my first recorded tasting of this vintage.
Nil's
has stepped down into retirement and winemaker and production duties
are now with son Kirk who has raised the bar taking this label to new
heights in recent years, earning 93 or 94 points from Wine
Advocate for vintages 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. Wine buddy Andy and I visited Kirk and Nils up at the Calistoga estate and the Signal Fire Vineyard back in 2002 (shown right).
From a branding perspective, this may be the last year you see this
packaging with a paper label as the 2018 release went to a more upscale
painted on glass bottle label marking, moving to a more premium
positioning for this label. It remains to be seen what happens to the
price point. It is already priced at the high end of the Zinfandel
range, but well worth it with its sophistication and complexity and
quality of the blend.
2015 Venge "Scout's Honor" Napa Valley Red Blend
This release got 94 points from
Jeb Dunnuck and 93 points from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate. Winery notes: "The base starts with old-vine Zinfandel from Venge's
Signal Fire Vineyard in Calistoga (where some of those vines have been
producing for over 100 years!) and build upon that with dry-farmed
Petite Sirah, old-vine Charbono, and finish with mountain-vineyard Syrah
from the Stagecoach Vineyard. The result is an unpretentious red wine
that will satisfy time and time again. This vintage has a gorgeous,
concentrated assemblage of aromas of stone fruits, crushed blue herbs,
violets, cherry, anise, and a touch of honeysuckle. On the palate is
pure richness from the old-vine Zinfandel with loads of super-ripe
blackberry, pepper spice, and an enveloping masculinity of char and
tannins from the Syrah, Charbono and Petite Sirah. A seamless balance
and mouth coating deliciousness are found throughout the palate, with an
extra-long finish."
Deep
garnet-purple colored, full bodied, rich, bold expressive dense, forward,
especially ripe black berry and black currant fruits, this is another fruit bomb that is almost a
bit over the top with its super ripe fruits' opulence, almost bordering
on raisin notes with a bit of burnt coffee and tobacco notes turning to anise and
dark bitter mocha with hints of cedar and pepper on the long moderate tannin laced
finish.
RM 89 points.
https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2390574
http://www.vengevineyards.com/
@VengeVineyards