Could you differentiate Scarecrow, Colgin, Kayli Morgan,

For any of you who have been into “cult Cabs” for a long time, do you think, honestly, you could tell the difference between any of the following blind, and, if so, how?

Colgin IX
Scarecrow
Harlan
Bond
Hundred Acre Kayli Morgan
Dalla Valle Maya
Araujo Eisele
Phelps Insignia
Spottswoode
Rivers-Marie Panek
Myriad Dr. Crane

All of these wines have been priced fairly obscenely (other than last few) with stereotypically high reviews and similar language often used to describe them. I have only had a smattering, and am curious, for those who have really had a lot of experience with these wines, how different they are in ripeness, aromatic profile and style. Just trying to educate myself, not trying make any sort of point.

From my limited experience Spottswoode is more traditional and Phelps Insignia or Scarecrow are more modern. So I think if I was given the three blind I could tell. However, they’re the only three I’ve had from your list.

Of the wines listed, I’ve tasted 5/11 only have any kind of real experience with 2/11.

So no, not a chance.

i dont think I could but if you gave me the list and served them blind, I guess this is what, off the top of my head I would look for. Assuming the same vintages. I think texture and style for the most part and not fruit flavors would distinguish them. Its not like I have had cases of each.

Colgin IX - Intense, darkest fruit of the group. Black raspberry extract (in a good way). Not overly ripe though.
Scarecrow - The most Bordeaux like of the group albeit a riper.
Harlan - Heaviest bottle? Ripe, big. Seamless but not concentrated. A big wine. Also maybe some VA newhere I kid, I kid.
Bond - IMO the weakest of the bunch (and that is not a slam with this group). A bit less of everything in the glass (not always a bad thing).
Hundred Acre Kayli Morgan - Ripest wine of the group
Dalla Valle Maya - No real experience so the one that seems new. :wink:
Araujo Eisele - More red fruits along with the purple. A bit more blowsy
Phelps Insignia - more cedar notes than the rest but traditional (maybe also tobacco)
Spottswoode - The most traditional Napa i.e. solid fruit, not overblown, not packed too tight either. Nothing stand apart.
Rivers-Marie Panek - The tightest wine (if young). Intensity and packed densley.
Myriad Dr. Crane - The most polished wine. No hard edges. Not tight but concentrated.

But, hey, if your poouring, I am willing to give it a shot. flirtysmile [cheers.gif]
Anyway, that would be my methodology. I would be happy with one right answer though.

While I don’t think I could correctly identity a large slew of cult cabs tasted blindly, I can absolutely verify that there are distinct differences in style and flavor profiles, and I know that there are some I like a lot more than others.

I’ve attended several offlines tasting/comparing these kinds of cabs, including earlier this month a 10 year 2007 high end Napa cab retrospective with several of the ones on your list and many other similar wines. Granted it was not blind, but there was a wide variation among people’s preferences, although, interestingly, most of us had the 2007 Maybach Materium as the best wine of the night. I realize it’s ridiculously expensive and impractical to taste a lineup of cult cabs side by side on your own, but I think it’s realistic and would be informative to organize a group tasting, and that would be my suggestion as to how you can figure out which ones are to YOUR particular liking.

Are you looking for signature profiles of each of these? When listed together it makes it seem like you are inclined to think they all taste similar (or at least have the potential to). The only similar characteristics they share is that they are from California and are expensive.

You could replace the wines listed here with various expensive left and right bank Bordeaux and ask the same question. :wink:

True, but there’s generally a lot more known, written about and even jotted down on this forum about Bordeaux. Very easy to learn a lot about Right Bank vs Left; typical composition, treatment and elevage; different villages’ supposed styles; modern vs traditional and when things changed; and the house style going back decades of not longer. :stuck_out_tongue:

I could pick out Maya relatively easily as its Cab Franc heavy.

I’ve written about this here before. 5 years ago a group of us got together to drink cultish 2007 Cali Cabs/blends. Scarecrow, Colgin(s), Bond(s), Harlan, Araujo, Bryant, Hundred Acre(s), Schrader(s), Maybach, Shafer Hillside, Dana, etc, including Screaming Eagle. Charles Banks had to cancel at the last minute, but sent his bottle anyway. The wines were served truly blind; everyone dropped their wine off early and they were served blind in lycra sleeves.

All of the wines tasted very much the same. So much so that I sold all of my cultish cabs/blends shortly thereafter.

The steaks, also served blind, were very good. The best among those was the Flannery grass fed whole side dry aged Wagyu strip.

The wine of the evening was 1795 Barbeito Terrantez.

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Could you tell the difference between Monte Bello Mayacamus or Corison ? Your trolling can most tell the difference between DRC Leroy or Boillot

Not trolling.
I have a few bottles in total of Colgin, Bond, Scarecrow, Spottswoode, and others not mentioned on that list like Maybach and Shafer, and I also buy both TRB and Mike Smith Cabs. I have so few bottles and they are so expensive for me that I’m fairly loath to open them. Like I said, I’m curious about them. I find a lot of mid-level napa Cabs to be similar and I’m wondering how the stylistic differences play out. You can be a jerk if you want, but the question still stands.

And could I tell Monte Bello from Corison and Mayacamas? Probably. Most going on Oak signature for MB. Old Mayacamas and Corison might be difficult except in years when alluvial/bench land would have performed differently than mountain fruit.

i’ve had all, and i think i, along with many, could come up with some phraseology to label these wines. but, unless you drink harlan and bond on the reg, i doubt many could discern a difference.
call it bullshit, but i can usually spot dr crane wines blind. eisele is pretty singular to me, same for insignia and spottswoode. scarecrow is always extremely well polished and voluptuous without being obnoxious, but i could see this wine being labeled as something else-im thinking like a bevan or pott.
maya is pretty singular due to east oakville & the cab franc component.
again, to what success rate could this be done? i’d love to find out.
your trepidation at opening these types of wine makes sense, but they are special onto themselves, so you don’t need to justify for when you open them, maybe just the ‘with whom’ part :slight_smile:

Years ago I did a Bryant blind tasting.
One vintage in each blind flight with Bryant and 2 other Cal Cabs from the same vintage.
1st flight – less than half the tasters identified the Bryant.
2nd flight – about 60% did.
3rd flight and on 80% or more of the group was able to i.d. the Bryant.

bob poirier is correct. Blind tasting is treacherous whether it’s Calif or Burgundy or Bordeaux …
Certainly identifying a single, stand-alone blind tasted wine is crazy difficult.

I’ve always felt that tasting is most effective when done with other similar wines to use as a foil.

I get where you are coming from, Noah. These bottles are expensive and you want to open them when they are at their peak, and unfortunately cannot open one of them everyday to check on them. I started buying Schrader over 10 years ago and rarely opened them, saving them for the future and special occasions. The ones I did open we enjoyed tremendously, though. Fast forward to this year when we opened a 2006 Schrader CCS cab and while we thought it was a nice cab, it definitely didn’t wow us like we thought it should. I’ve discovered that I prefer Schrader on the younger side, say in the first 2-3 years. I feel the same way about Maybach and Rivers Marie. Maybe its a TRB thing.

Contrast that to Colgin. I’ve been fortunate to have many bottles of Colgin, even tasting at the winery a few times. I definitely prefer Colgin’s with several years of bottle age…2006-2009 are really nice now. The same with Bond’s. I really like the 2003’s (yes the bad vintage) thru the 2006 right now.

I do think many of the wines you listed are different and you may be able to them apart easily enough once you’ve had a few. I’d think the Mike Smith wines and TRB wines may be a somewhat similar style, but they use different vineyards so still different in their own right.

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Not exactly certain what this cryptic, indecipherable comment means, but me thinks thou doth protest too much.

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the word trolling has certainly jumped the shark. i loved f*cking with people on the internet from 1999-summer 2016 before the word trolling was in the vernacular. it is clearly now overused at every turn and its true meaning has been lost.

I saw nothing wrong at all with the OP. When all of the cults were, I dont remember, $125 or less, vintages 1991 to 1996 or so, we did this blind a few times. Screaming Eagle was always my favorite blind, a masculine feminine yin yang very.much back loaded so that the entry was gentle and the post swallow finish endless and beautiful. Maya indeed stands out as more interesting because of the cab franc. I smelled a 1994 Harlan blind once and I thought it was Maya because there were so many aromas. 1994 Harlan is the best modern era cab I’ve had but no other Harlan I’ve had matches its style. Colgin and Bryant were both Turley Taransaud and had, respectively, dill and celery seed. I really liked the latter.

I assume with zero evidence that these wines today are all bigger and riper than they were back then, to their current detriment. Ive had too many 98 point cabs recently that I do not like, although winemaker friends were impressed with 2007 Scarecrow while I was eh. I’ve never tasted a Schrader or a Hundred Acre but it’s always seemed odd they get such huge scores no matter the vineyard. Style? Marketing? Terroir? Winemaking? Ripeness?

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1997 vintage was the turning point for me with cult cabs. Overripeness began but Parker still handed out huge scores so he no longer helped me. And back then my overripeness tolerance was higher. In 1997 Harlan seemed to have two batches and one was badly marred by VA but it got 100 points. Every bottle I tried was one of the VA ones. Bryant which I had loved was my first shock, unpleasantly overripe. Calistoga got scorched in 1997 so Araujo was mediocre after a beautiful 1991 and 1994. I lost interest until 2001, but Maya then had to replant, Helen Turley let Brett get into the Bryant and left. Screaming Eagle and Harlan 2001 were magnificent and ageless and balanced. But I still lost interest until 2007 when Scarecrow and Materium hit the Parker jackpot and all of the wines I tasted, unlike 2007 CndPape, were within appropriate limits. But prices were indeed obscene and all of the romance and anticipation were completely gone forever and I turned slowly to Europe and more offbeat US wines and drank a lot of Viader for th he honest winemaking and the cab cab franc thing. I am now on the Mayacamas list though out of curiosity about the new regime. Om cutious about Blankiet in the Turley years, quite reasonable prices now. I’m still loyal to Monte Bello but not for long, I like it with years of age and I’ve run out of time for that. A 1997 Monte Bello last week was open but merely interesting because none of the elements have come together yet at all. Even Viader needs years, there’s upfront fruit on release but thats not the wine. l sold all those 1990’s cults years ago in a 2003 divorce, many of them are probably perfect right now, especially 1995’s. But there’s a big, and for me insurmountable, difference between $100 and $250 for a bottle of wine. Especially when they are being consumed near release. No red wine is worth $250 consumed on release.

“I’ve discovered that I prefer Schrader on the younger side, say in the first 2-3 years.” Justin, you are in the minority here, but I couldn’t agree with you more. These are made to score 98-100 for the right critics at release, not necessarily for refined palates at any age. In defense of a similar style, we enjoyed a 2009 Myriad GIII recently that was exceptional.

“No red wine is worth $250 consumed on release.” George, absolutely correct. I am buying age worthy wines for less than half this price, and a lot less hype.

I too, got caught up in all the hysteria during the 90’s. The 1995 Bryant Family was a mind blowing experience, Helen Turley crafted a monumental wine, not sure how well it aged as we drank it up within 3 years after release, but if I recall our first purchase was only $50 per bottle.

The first Harlan I bought was only $85, and we continued buying until 2004 when prices got stupid.

Noah, in all honesty, I doubt that I could tell the difference between any of the wines on your list blind, except perhaps the Spottswoode, which for my preference might be the best of the group. I have had all but the Dalla Valle and Rivers Marie, and for most its been years.

We did a Napa cult blind tasting at one of the Charleston CT offline weekends several years ago. My wife identified nearly every one correctly.

We did 07s last year–Scarecrow, Maybach, Levy/Mc, Abreu. I found them all to be very distinctive.