2010 Beringer Vineyards Quantum Red Wine Napa Valley Red Bordeaux Blend
Fruit closer to red than black with cocoa and oak spice. Tasty enough for casual drinking, but on a table with six or eight other new world cabs/blends of similar cost it was the least compelling wine present. Pretty boring, actually.
2016 Teutonic Wine Company Sprockets High Pass Willamette Valley White Blend
Alsace lovers, pay attention! There's no gewurz in this genius little blend (it's scheurebe, pinot noir and something that looks like h-axelrod but that's not right); but it's spicy in a similar way with yet more body and layers of gingery complexity. Barely off-dry with a bright acid finish that cleans it all up. Totally delightful.
2004 Château La Decelle Côtes du Rhône Villages Valréas St. Paul Red Rhone Blend
A forgotten cellar orphan way past its due date.
2005 Le Pauillac de Pichon Longueville Red Bordeaux Blend
PnP'd. Not a Bordeaux seconds buyer but here's a worthy exception. Coming along nicely. Medium plus body, very Paulliac flavors (graphite, earth, cigar box). Finish is a bit clipped but that should settle out with more time and if it doesn't, it's still well worth the $20/bottle I paid.
2014 Liquid Farm Chardonnay White Hill Sta. Rita Hills
Superb; best CA chardonnay I've had in some time. Minerally old world nose on restrained new world fruit results in a very complex understated elegance. LOVE LOVE LOVED it.
2009 Oakville Terraces Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Grown
Surprisingly more evolved than an Aug '16 bottle. Bottle variation or fast arc, dunno. Still, good stuff: burly black fruit, meat, earth, dark chocolate and a satisfying barely-there funk. Great with grilled burgers.
2001 Karl Lawrence Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley
This vintage of KL is making the long haul very well indeed. Black fruit, earthy, spice, coffee--it's more interesting now than ever. What a gem.
2012 Gramercy Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley
WHITS got it right: "Sage and blackberry on the nose, lush, with chocolate bark, black cherry, earth and herb on the palate, savoury, braced well with acid".
2005 Ritchie Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley
Dark cherry fruit with an oak and funk induced rusticity--my neighbor aptly called it "barn wood". Peak drinking right now.
2006 Trust Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Walla Walla Valley
Better than our last bottle; more body and complexity. Black cherry fruit with tons of cedar and raw cigar, leathery notes just starting to develop. Drinks well now but will continue to cellar well.
2012 Rivers-Marie Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast
Earthy red fruit. Great secondary development; ready to drink now.
2015 Toil Oregon Pinot Noir Willamette Valley
Too young. Very blue in the glass with extracted floral and candy notes in the nose and indistinct pinot noir charcteristics on the palate. Not a lot of depth. Billed as a pinot for cabernet lovers, it's made from purchased Willamette fruit (Figgins' own vineyard has been planted but isn't ready). In the meantime, as a pinot for pinot lovers, this bottle fails to earn its price.
2011 Figgins Estate Red Wine Walla Walla Valley Red Bordeaux Blend
Ah, summer's here, and Lambert the neighbor's passing bottles over the fence again. Very VERY good--tannins pretty resolved--and an informative window into the future for sturdier vintages like 12-14 since it's aging on a shorter arc.
2016 Ross Andrew Winery Pinot Gris Celilo Vineyard Columbia Gorge
Textbook Pinot Gris flavors, and more character than we usually give this grape credit for when made from new world fruit. This grape doesn't get any better than this.
2014 Clendenen Family Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc Mesa Verde Vineyard Santa Ynez Valley
Significant oak and buttery malolactic flavors initially mute sauvignon blanc's singular characteristics into something more familiar and chardonnay-like, but therein lies the appeal. It's so different! Big bodied, with apple, toffee and grass.