Mike's Wine Blog

My wine tasting notes, both current releases and older wines from my cellar.

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Location: California, United States

Friday, October 28, 2005

2003 Ravenswood, Zinfandel, Napa

Medium dark. Nose has cherry aromas. Lots of cherry forward fruit, high acid, moderate tannins, and a long fruity finish. Seems simpler than the 2002. List price $15. My rating 80.

Monday, October 24, 2005

1988 Philip Togni, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, Estate Bottled

Very dark garnet, with just a little brownish edge. Big nose with cherry, tobacco, and chassis aromas. Concentrated forward fruit with flavors of cherry, tobacco, and spices, with just a hint of herbal flavors, high acid, soft tannins, and a long smooth, fruity finish. This Philip Togni is a vast improvement on the 1986 and 1987 I tasted earlier this year. It has a hint of the green bean flavors that dominated the 1986 and 1987, but here they are integrated with lots of cherry fruit and it seems to add to the complexity rather than ruin the wine. This one tastes completely mature, and there is no need to cellar it any longer. My rating 89.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

2002 Silverado, Merlot, Napa Valley

Dark garnet color. Cherry, chassis on the nose. Big forward fruit with black cherry, red cherry and current fruit flavors, moderate acid, fair amount of hard tannins mixed with the fruit flavors on the finish. This is a big fruity Merlot. The only possible problem is that it tastes just a touch overripe. It clearly needs a few years of aging to soften out the surprising hard tannins (more hard tannins than the Cabernet Sauvignon). Alchole is 14.6%. List price is $28. My rating is 85.

According to the notes from the winery it is 91% Merlot and 9% Cabernet Sauvignon.
The vineyards used for this wine are 50% from the estate Mt. George Vineyards, 34% from the estate Stags leap vineyard and 16% from other non-estate Napa Valley vineyards.

2002 Silverado, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

Dark garnet color. Nose has aromas of cherry, chassis, currents and oak. Big flavors of red cherry, currents and chassis, moderate acid, softer tannins, and a long fruity finish. While this is a big, fruity wine, at this point the 2002 does not seem quite as big as the 2001. List price is $40. My rating is 87.

According to the notes from the winery it is 91% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Merlot, and 3% Cabernet Franc. The vineyards used are 50% is from the estate Stags leap vineyard, 35% is from the estate Mt. George Vineyards, 5% from the estate Haystack vineyard, and the remaining 10% is from other non-estate vineyards.

Friday, October 14, 2005

2003 Ridge, Lytton Springs

Dark garnet color. Rasepberry and cherry aromas. Big cherry, raspberry, and strawberry fruit flavors, moderate acid, moderate tannins, long fruity finish. When first opened it had a slightly grapey flavor, but that faded after the wine had been in the glass for a while. I expect this wine needs at least a couple more years. My initial reaction was this was an average Zinfandel, but as it aired in the glass it got better and better. That is a good sign that it is just a tight, young wine. My rating 87.

The wine is labeled simply Lytton Springs. It does not say Zinfandel on the label, even though it is 76% Zinfandel, 18% Petite Sirah, and 6 % Carignane.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Instant Simulated Wine Aging?

The Times of London has a news article on a Japanese chemical engineer that has developed a machine that he claims can simulated the effect of aging on wine in a 15 second process. The article says he has been working on it for 15 years and will have a commercial version ready in January that will be capable of processing four liters per minute. The process uses electrolysis and a patented ion exchange membrane. The process is said to cause a rapid rearrangement of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms around the alcohol molecules, which is suppose to simulate aging.

Apparently some wineries are looking at the process. The only winery mentioned by name in the article is Robert Mondavi. The article does not say that Mondavi is planning to use the process, only that they are evaluating it. The article includes some wine tasting notes for some wines before and after processing.

Is this the next big step in better wine making through chemistry? Time will tell, but for now I'm still keeping my wine cellar.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

1986 Beaulieu Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon, Georges De Latour, Private Reserve

Medium dark, brownish around the edge. Red cherry and violet aromas on the nose. Red cherry and dill flavors on the fruit, high acid, soft tannins, and a long finish. This bottle is much better then the previous bottle of this wine I had, but it seems to be a little past its prime. People who like young cabernets will probably not like this wine. My rating 87.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

1977 Warre’s Vintage Port

Dark, brownish around the edges. Rich aromas of coffee and chocolate. Flavors of cherry, chocolate and coffee, soft, fine tannins, and a very long finish. This port still has lots of fruit intensity. Someone told me they thought the 1977 Warre’s was starting to fade, but I don’t see any sign of that. My rating 95.

2003 Cline Cashmere

Medium dark garnet. Java and chocolate on the nose. Concentrated flavors of java, chocolate and raseberry, moderate acid, soft tannins, and long fruity finish. This is a huge, slightly overripe wine with 15% alcohol. I generally liked this wine, even though it tastes slightly overripe, but it is hard to pair with food and I think the alcohol is too high. I am not sure what the price was on this. Not rated.