Soléna Grande Cuvée Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2012

Soléna Grande Cuvée Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2012

Tasted from 375 half bottle with grilled burgers on the patio. Not enough meat on the bone of this lighter Pinot for beef-burgers. Should've saved this for a lighter fare, perhaps. Consistent with previous quests in search for a moderate priced high QPR (quality price ratio) Pinot Noir - the search continues. This is my first encounter with this producer who boasts a broad portfolio of labels.

Ruby colored, light medium body, a bit awkward flabby structure, black cherry, strawberry and cherry cola tones with slight tangental non fruit tones of herbs, grass and leather turning to a slightly acidic moderate tannin finish.

RM 87 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=1755477

Clark Claudon Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

Clark Claudon Napa Valley Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

For Mother's Day eve dinner, we took Clark Claudon Napa Cab BYOB to Wildwood Restaurant in Geneva with John and Kath McM... Wildwood has a Wine Spectator Award winning winelist for five years running with a broad selection of choices that include many favorites, several at good value prices. Still, the rewards of a deep cellar are to enjoy favorite wines at their prime on such occasions, aside sourcing a second wine from the list. Clark Claudon was a fitting selection for Mother's Day given their strong family centered wine business.

As I've written before in this blog about this wine, we've been collecting this Howell Mountain classic since our Napa Valley Wine Experience 1999 when we first met Tom Clark and Laurie Claudon-Clark and hosted them at one of our wine producer dinners.

Clark Claudon are located halfway up Howell Mountain, the northeastern pillar of the dual ranges that make Napa Valley. The mountain fruit produced from the steep terraces, rocky soil and warm dry climate is full, rich, concentrated and firm, our favorite style in a Cabernet. 

Clark-Claudon typifies the Howell Mountain terroir of its heritage and origins. Their vineyard sits back on the north east side a bit more than half way up Howell Mountain between 800 ft and 1,000 ft elevation. Vineyards above 1200 feet elevation are designated Howell Mountain appellation, while those below 1200 ft are designated Napa Valley. This is because the fog level rises up to that level thereby establishing two different terroir effects above and below that point. 

Clark-Claudon have 18 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon and a bit of Petit Verdot vines, 'carved out', as they say, of their 117 acre hillside property. The shallow, rocky, mountain soils, consistent sun exposure tempered by the cool evening breezes just about level with the fog line hovering over the valley below provide ideal conditions to produce intense extracted mountain fruit with that characteristic Howell Mountain spice and firm solid core of smooth tannins.

The 2004 Napa growing season was condensed with early bud break, warm days, cool nights and one challenging heat spike. The result was a small harvest of intense, flavor packed fruit from an unusual, but exceptional year that is showing and drinking well and should last another decade.

Deep dark ruby colored - full bodied - explosive aromas of ripe dark berry fruits fill the room as the wine is being decanted, big mouth-full of forward complex but polished spicy black and edge of red berry fruits, violets, layers of mocha and oak with a long lingering tannin finish.


RM 92 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=229261

https://www.clarkclaudon.com

During our Napa Wine Experience visits of 1997 through 2000 we hosted gala tasting dinners with the 'Undisccovered Dozen', emerging new wine producers to watch, featured in an article in Wine Spectator Magazine. Many of these producers released their inaugural vintage releases in or about the 1994 vintage. Those producers and winery visits included Plumpjack, David Arthur, Clark-Claudon, Robert Craig, Del Dotto, Elan, Paradigm, Pride Vineyards, Snowden, Nils Venge and White Cottage and are featured on my winesite http://www.unwindwine.com. An complete index of my tasting notes of these wines over the years is on the site at this link to California Producers Index. These producers make up a foundation of our wine cellar collection even today. In many of these wines, we still have vertical selections of these wines, some dating back to those early release vintages. 

Hall Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2005

Hall Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2005

We hold close to a dozen vintages of this wine in our cellar dating back to their early releases back around the milenium.

We first visited Hall at their St Helena site during our Napa Wine Experience back in 2003. Then, a decade later, our tasting at the new spectacular Hall Rutherford Estate vineyards, winery and cellars (shown left) in 2013 was one of the highlights of that trip.

Hall have grown their portfolio of labels to several varietals and numerous single vineyard and other designated releases, many of which are only available at the winery or from their club. This label is their basic Napa estate release which has been a mainstay of the brand since the early days. At close to a dozen years of age, its holding well, but it certainly won't improve with further cellaring/aging.

This was the right accompaniment to grilled beefsteak with dinner, and was especially good with after dinner dark chocolate and dried cherries with dessert.

Similar tasting to earlier tasting notes in 2010, this was dark ruby colored, medium full bodied, with a tight backbone to the bright vivid red berry and black berry and cherry fruits that give way to tar, smoke, a hint of mocha on a firm, slightly hard edged finish with a subtle whiskey or cognac tone on the finish.

RM 87 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=489505

http://www.hallwines.com

Robert Craig Central Coast Syrah 2004

Robert Craig Central Coast Syrah 2004

We pulled this Robert Craig Syrah from the cellar for a casual sipper with mid-week light dinner. Readers of these pages know we have a significant collection of Robert Craig Cabernets from the range of labels across a wider range of vintages. We also hold a collection of various Craig labels of other varietals from a range of vintages such as this one.

Robert Craig is known for a range of Napa Cabernets, but he ventures off the reservation occasionally to source occasional fruit for smaller production labels from other areas such as Chardonnay from Sonoma, Zinfandel from the Sierra foothills, and this Syrah from the California Central Coast region - sourced from a 20 acre vineyard in Ranchita Canyon, north of Paso Robles. We've typically sourced these other wines from many visits to the winery as well as occasionally from auction.

I think the berry fruit flavors have been affected by age to reveal tones of metallic graphite and ripe raisiny fruits.

Dark blackish garnet colored, full-bodied, this Syrah offers a complex concentrated ultra ripe black and blue berry fruits that come across as raisin or dried cherries giving way to tones of graphite, licorice and creosote with hints of black pepper, cardamom and clove spice - the off-fruit flavors perhaps attributable to age.

This was best accompanied by dark chocolate and dried cherries. 

RM 87 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=341610

https://www.craigwines.com/

Hazyblur South Australia Baroota Shiraz 2003

Hazyblur South Australia Baroota Shiraz 2003

This is a repeat follow on to my blogpost of the other night last week when I brought home our shipment of recently purchased wines from the auction warehouse and popped one open for casual sipping with midweek leftover pasta dinner.

From that same lot, following our tasting of the fourteen year old 2002 Hazyblur Baroota Shiraz, tonight we opened a 2003 vintage of the same label for a comparison tasting.

Like the 2002, this vintage is also in the last chapter of its drinking window, hence it provides good value when picked up at auction, most likely released from someone who needs to thin their cellar if they have more bottles than they'll consume in the near term, or by someone who prefers younger wines for consumption earlier in their drinking profile.

Tonight, we picked up carry-out barbecue ribs and hoped for a full throttle, big, forward Shiraz accompaniment. Whereas the 2002, tasted the other night, that despite its age, was delicious, showing little diminution from aging, less than the other last bottles of that label consumed back in 2015 from our cellar, this 2003 did not show as well. The 2003 lacked the backbone and the full bodied forward flavorful fruits of the '02.

Dark blackish garnet color, medium-full bodied, a bit flabby in structure with moderate black berry and black raspberry fruit flavors that give way to tones of smoke, leather, hints of cedar and licorice with a moderate tannin finish.

RM 87 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=33499

Viader 'V' 2002 Proprietary Napa Red Blend

Viader 'V' 2002 Proprietary Napa Valley Red Blend for gala family dinner

With son Alec visiting home from NYC with g-friend Viviana to run the Naperville 1/2 Marathon on her birthday weekend, it seemed only fitting we pull out a bottle of 'V' for our gala family dinner celebration. This might be considered the flagship label of Viader. The 'V' has a double significance - it stands not only for Viader, but it also represents Petit Verdot, the core varietal in this Bordeaux blend. We featured this wine BYOB from a Magnum with our dinner at Angeli's Italian, our favorite neighborhood trattoria.

We discovered this limited release wine during our visit to the Viader Estate on lower Howell Mountain back in 2008. 

The “V” label is an exclusive Viader blend of Petit Verdot, to showcase the unique character of the the Petit Verdot varietal.  The fruit is sourced from a small three quarter acre vineyard plot in the northeast corner of the Viader Estate where the ground is particularly rocky resulting in especially small yields rendering highly concentrated fruit. Petit Verdot typically represents a miniscule percentage of a Bordeaux blend. It is included for its dark color and firm backbone to complement the other varietals, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and or Cabernet Franc. 
 


Viader 'V' Napa Valley Red Blend 2002

The blend for the 2002 release was 72% Petit Verdot, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 3% Cabernet Franc, almost upside down from a 'normal' Bordeaux blend.


This was dark garnet colored, medium-full bodied, bursting with bright vibrant black raspberry, ripe plum and currant fruits, accented by a layer of mocha, hints of leather and earth on a tangy bright silky smooth but firm tannin lingering finish.

RM 93 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=70507

http://www.viader.com/ 

Hazyblur South Australia Baroota Shiraz 2002

Hazyblur South Australia Baroota Shiraz 2002

I brought our shipment of recently purchased wines home from the auction warehouse and popped one open for casual sipping with midweek leftover pasta dinner. At fourteen years of age, this label is in the last chapter of its drinking window, hence it provides good value when picked up at auction, most likely released from someone who needs to thin their cellar if they have more bottles than they'll consume in the near term, or by someone who prefers younger wines for consumption earlier in their drinking profile.

Despite its age, this was delicious showing less diminution from aging than the other last bottles of this label consumed back in 2015 from our cellar. It tasted consistent with our previous, earlier tasting notes from back in 2009.

Full bodied, super ripe plum, blackberry and currants with mocha, vanilla, caramel and hint of cedar and licorice on the full firm lingering finish.

RM 90 points. 

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=25284

Venge Scout's Honor Napa Red 2014

Venge Vineyards "Scout's Honor" Napa Valley Red Blend 2014

We've been fans of Nil's Venge and his wines since the eighties and now son Kirk has taken over center stage in Venge Vineyard wines. We first met Kirk up at the Rossini Ranch estate during the time that they were actually digging the caves there. This label is a tribute to Scout, their yellow Lab that used to romp through the vineyards accompanying Nils and the workers. I had the chance to meet Scout and witness this during one of visits to the Family vineyards down in central Napa Valley during one of our visits back in the nineties. I recall owning this label from as early as 1995 and have owned several of the rebranded styles of it since. 

I think Nil's was one of the first to take Zinfandel seriously as a core lead varietal in this sophisticated Blend, as if it were a Bordeaux varietal. This version is 71% Zinfandel with 16%  Petite Sirah, 7% Charbono and 6% Syrah. We hold a half dozen vintages of the label and tasted and acquired this year's at the release unveiling tasting at Vin Chicago in Naperville. I write often that every cellar needs a few bottles of Zin for hearty foods and this begs for grilled meats, hearty cheese or my favorite with big sweet Zins, barbecue!

Dark blackish purple colored, full bodied, concentrated, tongue coating thick black raspberry and more subtle blue berry fruits are accented by a layer of sweet mocha with tones of anise and spicy oak with hints of coffee and vanilla bean on a firm tannin finish.

RM 92 points.



https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2304902

http://www.vengevineyards.com/


Coming next ..

Hartford Court "Four Hearts" Russian River Valley Chardonnay 2014