WTN: 2001 Karl Lawrence (new stash)
Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2014 6:07 pm
My adoration for this now-defunct California winery means that whenever I spy a loose bottle in a wine shop I'm compelled to buy it, knowing they're virtually irreplaceable. And so I hesitated not, yesterday morning, when paying for my order of Bedrocks at a retailer in Anacortes* and hearing my husband call from across the room, "Honey, they have 11 bottles of 2001 Karl Lawrence here!". They join four of the same vintage that I purchased direct from the winery long ago. I am a happy girl!
We opened a bottle from the new stash yesterday evening. Tangy, angular, lots of red fruit, huge dustiness with some cocoa-chocolate--more about aroma right now than flavor. Very different from how I remember my other 2001 Karl Lawrences tasting, and I must rely on memory because my last TN on an 01, about six months ago, merely reads "Damn that Lambert, he keeps making me drink wines I plan on holding! " Lambert is the neighbor with whom we share premium Cal Cabs over the back yard fence. So routine has this practice become that I now pick up the odd Cal Cab thinking "Good fence wine!" Anyway, my guess as to the difference is that these new bottles are a little travel-shocked. At least, I hope that's the case.
*So much for the usual rules about location. Guy decides to open a wine store because he owns way too much wine and picks a little town, population 16,000, with water on two sides and no fine dining establishments, one road in/one road out and no roads passing through, 20 miles from the nearest interstate. Shouldn't work, but he's one of the most successful retailers in the state.
We opened a bottle from the new stash yesterday evening. Tangy, angular, lots of red fruit, huge dustiness with some cocoa-chocolate--more about aroma right now than flavor. Very different from how I remember my other 2001 Karl Lawrences tasting, and I must rely on memory because my last TN on an 01, about six months ago, merely reads "Damn that Lambert, he keeps making me drink wines I plan on holding! " Lambert is the neighbor with whom we share premium Cal Cabs over the back yard fence. So routine has this practice become that I now pick up the odd Cal Cab thinking "Good fence wine!" Anyway, my guess as to the difference is that these new bottles are a little travel-shocked. At least, I hope that's the case.
*So much for the usual rules about location. Guy decides to open a wine store because he owns way too much wine and picks a little town, population 16,000, with water on two sides and no fine dining establishments, one road in/one road out and no roads passing through, 20 miles from the nearest interstate. Shouldn't work, but he's one of the most successful retailers in the state.