Advice on US wines to try

Looking for advice on some US wines to try. Looking towards the elegant end of the spectrum. Prices would be this plus 17.5% VAT. Not sure what £ to $ is these days: maybe £1:$2 ?

1999 BIEN NACIDO HILLSIDE ESTATE SYRAH QUPE WINERY £16.00
1998 BONNY DOON OLD TELERAM MOURVEDRE SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS £19.00
1997 HARTWELL SUNSHINE VYD CAB SAUV STAGS LEAP DISTRICT £37.00
1996 HARTWELL SUNSHINE VYD CAB SAUV STAGS LEAP DISTRICT £37.00
1993 SPOTTSWOODE CABERNET SAUVIGNON NAPA VALLEY £35.00
1987 CLOS DU VAL MERLOT STAGS LEAP DISTRICT £30.00
1987 CLOS DU VAL RESERVE NAPA VALLEY £39.00
1978 SPRING MOUNTAIN CABERNET SAUVIGNON NAPA VALLEY £40.00
1977 CH MONTELENA ESTATE CABERNET SAUVIGNON NAPA VALLEY £45.00
1975 SPRING MOUNTAIN CABERNET SAUVIGNON NAPA VALLEY £23.00

The ones in bold were the ones I had pencilled in (I'm guessing not the best vintage for Bonny Doon though). Happy to take a punt on one of the others if instructed to!

p.s. I'm keen to try more Mourvedre wines - hence interest in the Bonny Doon

Any comments welcomed

regards

Ian

Yep, a pound is a coupla bucks, near as makes no difference.
Those are remarkably good prices - mostly a good deal less than I'd pay here in Silly-Con Valley.
Bonny Doon wines are usually a lot of fun and very approachable. '98 was a year that has developed well. That'd be a good one to try, though I've never had an "old" Bonny Doon wine.
I'm not a merlot fan, and I wasn't before the movie, either. Clos du Val is a reliable brand, and the Reserve would be a good example of what's good about CalCab.
I'm afraid I don't have first-hand experience with the others. Perhaps I should call myself "el cheapo".

I'd buy the Spring Mountain Cabs in a minute -those prices are cheap. The 2003 is $50. Even today, their style hasn't really wavered in the way that many big point chasers have. They are old-school through and through. The Montelena is my birth-year vintage, so I'd buy that too (at $90 a great price.) Keep in mind that I DON'T EVER (or almost ever) buy Napa Cabernet (Burgundy is a better place to spend ones disposable income IMO) though I have friends that do and I get to drink it fairly often.

I'm not a huge fan of cab, but Spottswoode and Montelena are great producers.

I'm more of a Kalin, ESJ, DDC, Tablas Creek, Gloria Ferrer kind of guy.

Best,
Joe

The Qupe should be very good, especially for that price. Be sure it is the "Hillside Select", not the regular Bien Nacido.

Thanks folks - sounds like it's worth extending to more than two bottles for some decent sampling. The source is a good one, but note these would be +17.5% VAT, so that adjusts the value equation a bit.
regards
Ian

Ian,
You've got a number of attractive choices in that list, but if you're looking for elegance, you might have some problems. In my pecking order, you've got the '77 Montelena Cab on top: a classic CalCab from a drought year, now drinking very well. Montelena's Estate Cab no one would ever accuse of elegance, but it should be a good exemplar of what Napa Cab is all about; Clos du Val made/makes(?) a very restrained style of Cabernet and Spottswoode likewise is made in a more restrained style for Napa. I defer to others on the subject of Hartwell and Spring Mtn. Qupé's Syrah is good example of what can be done with Syrah in CA, but I've never been terribly excited by Bonny Doon's Old Telegramme -- it's not bad, but nothing special. And, yes, those are good prices.

Just my $0.02 (or is that £0.01?)

Mark Lipton

I thought I ought to postscript this

...ended up getting (quite recently in the end), the 1975 Spring Mountain, the 1977 Ch Montelena and the 1999 Qupe. Add to that a wild gamble on a dusty bin end of Ojai Syrah 1992 for £6 (from Noel Young who's known on a few wine fora). Will have to crack one soon - probably the Ojai or Spring Mountain

regards

Ian

Why would you want to try California yet say "towards the elegant end of the spectrum"? Yes, Cali makes some "elegant wines" but it is clearly known for the big, rich ones. Seems odd to me.

What Harry said: in general, California isn't toward "the elegant end of the spectrum". More toward the in-your-face-fruit end.

I'm a fan of European-styled, "elegant end of the spectrum" sort of wines, so I consider myself qualified to respond to this thread.

Bonny Doon's "Old Telegram" is a mourvedre-based knock-off on Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Particularly, as the name implies, Vieux Telegraphe. It's a lot fruitier than its Rhone namesake. An excellent wine, IMO. Overpriced, in dollars, over here in the USA. It's a very nice wine. Whether it's reasonably priced in your market I'll leave it to you to decide.

Chateau Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. This is one of the great wines of the world. Year in and year out, it equals the great estates of Bordeaux. Exceeds them, in some years. You can't go wrong with quality here. This is Napa Valley Cabernet at its very best. Cabernet sauvignon is sometimes different from this (in, for example, a Bordeaux blend), but it doesn't get much better.

Salut,

-Paul W.

Why would you want to try California yet say "towards the elegant end of the spectrum"? Yes, Cali makes some "elegant wines" but it is clearly known for the big, rich ones..

Only in the past 10-20 years. Things change.

Do you think the Heitz cabernets from the 70s don't speak of California?

What about ESJ. Is that not California?

Why would you want to try California yet say "towards the elegant end of the spectrum"? Yes, Cali makes some "elegant wines" but it is clearly known for the big, rich ones. Seems odd to me.

Harry
A fair question, but partly I believe there's nothing stopping the production of relatively elegant wines (except perhaps 'critical opinion'), partly I don't on the whole enjoy the big ballbuster styled wines that others follow.

The same argument might be said of Australian wines, that are best known for the big rich wines of Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale, yet my preferences are more to somewhat cooler regions such as Margaret River, Great Western (Vic), Yarra Valley and Coonawarra.

It will be interesting tasting these wines, as I have a somewhat limited experience of US wines to date (Ridge mainly but also St Supery Meritage made a good impression).

regards

Ian

I guess I owe you a tasting note. This on the most recent acquisition.

1992 Ojai Syrah Santa Barbara County - USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Barbara County (7/8/2008)
Bought as a bin-end for £6 - seemed a fair punt at the time

More claret in colour than the remnants of red-purple that remain at the core.

The nose is pretty complex, with a plummy earthiness about it, with blackberries & coffee/chocolate in close support and somewhat bizarrely reminds me of the aromas around a winery!

On the palate there's juicy freshness to it and whilst not as complex as the nose, always invites another taste. The finish is low key, but there's decent length to it. Tannins are light and soft, but the fruit takes centre stage.

Whilst excellent drinking now, if I had a few bottles, I'd probably ferret one away to see where the wine would go from here.

Postscript
Definitely a success. Despite some of the descriptors suggesting warm climate, the sheer freshness of the fruit made this a belter of a wine at 16 years old. I wonder if it's age helped soften what I'm guessing was some high toast oak influence in it's youth?

I'd get this:

1995 Robert Mondavi Reserve [Cabernet Sauvignon]
£45.00/bottle
fourwallswine.com
[WARNING: must be the 1995 vintage - recommendation does NOT hold for other vintages]

Also, according to Wine-Searcher, there's a company called "Playford Ros", in Yorkshire, which has a pretty good selection of Cristom pinot noir [and pinot gris & viognier], from Oregon [which is just to the north of California]:

Cristom, 2004, UK
Cristom, 2005, UK
Cristom, 2006, UK

The Playford Ros web server appears to be down right now, but, for example, Wine-Searcher seems to think that Playford Ros might have the 2004 Cristom "Eileen" pinot noir in stock, and while I can't vouch for the 2004 "Eileen", the 2005 "Eileen" was about as good as any pinot I've ever had from the New World.

Finally, this shop has a Laetitia pinot noir, from the Arroyo Grande, in California:

Laetitia Limite Pinot Noir
£123.00/case
winesupplycompany.co.uk

Laetitia makes very competent wines [and a few, such as their Brut Rose sparkling wine, are outstanding].

I wouldn't purchase a whole case of the Laetitia without trying it first, but if they will sell you a single bottle, then £123.00/12 = £10.25 = about $20.19, which is not that bad a price for a wine which has been shipped all the way from California to England bearing 88 pts from Allen Meadows.

Nathan
Many thanks for the recco's - certainly Cristom and Laetitia are new names to me, and it's always good to taste out of my knowledge base.

IIRC Playford Ros are importers who also do retail and have been around for a while (I recall seeing the name in an Oz Clarke book many years ago).

regards

Ian