I think it is like Grand cru Burgs. I know people who can id them blind (and people who think they can). Yet, that is what they mostly drink. I doubt they could tell Sangiovese from Nebbiolo. If you drink a lot of these wines and pay attention, they are different enough to tell apart. If so, I would like to drink with you. But for most of us, we have them at most only once or twice a year and probably less. Hard to be able to tell based on that.
Thanks to all for useful replies. Like I said, I have a handful of bottles and agonize over whether some are for near term drinking or whether their richness is something that will calm down to refinement over the course of a few decades. A lot of folks are skeptical of that. The great years of Bordeaux were ripe years, but that was when most years could barely make good wine and alcohols ran universally in the 12-13% range, from what I understand. Perhaps Parker was the one who really extrapolated this. Do we even have examples of 15% non-fortified wines from more than 30 years ago that we can point to and say, ‘yeah, these really will age well if given time’?
I am curious as to whether the style of these wines is so particular as to merit the very high scores they get, or if they are actually so close as to be indistinguishable. Maybe the underlying question is whether a 97-100 Parker point cab tastes like most others. Same would go for a 97-100pt Nebbiolo at the hands of Galloni.
P.S. Loren - if I ever make it back to NE OH, will look you up!
Riiiiight… ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
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15 people have made thoughtful comments, and I’ve thanked them for contributing. I’ve laid bare my reasons for asking the question, and what biases I have are well known. Some reason you feel compelled to be a jerk?
This was my thought. It’s the heaviest cab franc and so may stand out with a slightly different fruit profile. I often find Colgin has a distinct red cherry note with it. Myriad and Hundred Acre the largest, with Hundred Acre the sweetest profile. But most of the rest, no. And frankly if I had those 11 all blind together I don’t think I’d do very well and I’ve had 10 of 11 and almost all of them of multiple vintages.
I’ve played this game before, including a 2007 throw down on my birthday a few years back. 14 wines from the 2007 vintage, many of which I’d had previous vintages and many of which I’d had before on multiple occasions. Insignia, Revana, Spottswoode, Altamura, Dominus, Gemstone, Montelena Estate, Hillside Select, Foley Claret, etc. I instantly nailed the Dominus. I guessed the Revana correctly due to lack of tannic structure. The rest was largely a crap shoot. I was able to break some down into 3-guess groups. As in, I think this is either Foley Claret, Hillside Select, or [fill in blank]. Oh, it’s the Hillside. But I couldn’t pin the tail on the donkey. I’ve had quite a few hundreds of bottles of Napa cabs and think trying to nail stuff blind, even single blind, is a brutally difficult task.
I’ve gotten pretty good at nailing the Napa v. Bdx challenge, and I’m pretty happy to settle with that.
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IIRC, 1947 Cheval Blanc considered one of the great all time wines has almost 14.4% IIRC.
Tongue-in-cheek, mostly. I feel like it was a set-up question, frankly. Something akin to asserting that Cali Cult lovers don’t know wine.
I haven’t had Bond, Colgin, Hundred Acre, or Harlan. I would like to think that I could tell the difference, but I know too well how hard that is to differentiate them if they are young. With a few years I’m decent in picking them apart. This is my take on the wines:
(Scarecrow) Celia’s wines tend to all taste the same to me. They are intensively black and blue fruited young with a polished front to mid palate that is never too over the top. Her wines are in the modern style, but she dials it back just a tad.
(Myriad & RM) Mike and Thomas have slight differences but I tend to always get a very ripe, rounded mouthfeel upfront. Always seem to be on the black/blue/plummy side of things. Very intense and on the sweeter more modern spectrum of winemaking. Thomas (imho) usually has massive tannins on the backside of things, while Mike, not so much.
(Spottswoode) Definitely the most classic of the list in winemaking style and flavor. Effortless elegance in my opinion.
(Dalle Valle) Maya is highly extracted and structured but incredibly balanced. I always think it’s like Welch’s wines with more muscle. With age they tend to go in the red fruit spectrum (cab franc?), compared to the other brands.
Just my two cents on what I think about certain winemaking styles of these top producers.
Agree with all of this in that unlike the 1990’s, I now find that all wines made by certain winemakers share the same structure profile and mouthfeel. Not what I want in expensive wine. I know I am taking your post in a more negative direction on my own.
[quote="Brandon]
Tongue-in-cheek, mostly. I feel like it was a set-up question, frankly. Something akin to asserting that Cali Cult lovers don’t know wine.[/quote]
Brandon I don’t know either of you but the original post was a great question near and dear to my heart. I don’t think its a matter of nuance or interpretation as to what his post meant. You’re just very wrong. I think you’re a lazy reader and owe an apology. Further, at this point you’re now calling Noah a liar about his intent. It’s ugly.
Do you have anything to contribute about any of these wines?
I’ve had a good deal of these at tastings, and whilst most of them are definitely not my style, I’m confident that if I tasted them first non-blind, then tasted them blind straight afterwards, I’d be able to distinguish between them enough to have a stab at a guess at each one. So the flavor profiles are certainly different. What they lack (to me at least) is a distinctive enough character to give me any chance of guessing them if I didn’t do a non-blind tasting immediately beforehand.
I swear I recall Parker droning on like 10 years ago on the Parker board about how 47 Cheval is a tech sheet disaster, and that the alcohol was something over 16%. Going purely from memory, and not going to spend the time double checking 
, so don’t hang me if I’m wrong.
To the OP-
Colgin IX- Most likely yes. I don’t love the wine, and find the alcohol really never integrates.
Scarecrow - Yes. The acidity in this wine really helps it stay in check. Big, but well put together.
Harlan - Depends, and I’m not hedging. The 2010 tastes nothing like any other vintage of Harlan.
Bond - Highly doubtful. I don’t like these wines at all, and I don’t find them to have much character.
Hundred Acre Kayli Morgan - Possible, but again, not a wine of a lot of vineyard character.
Dalla Valle Maya - Easily. The Cab Franc domination in this wine is the give away.
Araujo Eisele - See Harlan. Pre-2002 I like a lot. 2003-2012, not so much. 2013 I’m holding back on judgement. I just had it, and wasn’t inspired by it, but it could be really young.
Phelps Insignia - Yes, but not in a good way. This wine always tastes cheap to me. Not quite as bad as Caymus, but never tastes like $100 bottle, let alone $200 to me.
Spottswoode - Yes. This one is pretty straight forward in this crowd.
Rivers-Marie Panek - Probably? Hard to say, since the wines are mostly too young.
Myriad Dr. Crane - Yes, Dr. Crane stands out in this crowd.
I guess I’m lazy. Sorry, Noah. No offense intended.
We should do a line up tasting. When can I come over?
Noah - good post. In spite of some of the BS above, I like the premise. I am on, or have been on, all of the mailing lists for the wines you mentioned, with the exception of Myriad, which I have no experience with. With the exception of Harlan and Bond, which have similar styles, I think they are all fairly different and could be differentiated in a tasting, especially if non-blind. I would probably get a lot wrong, but they would each be distinctive in their flavor profile.
Thanks for posting the question.
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Ian, can you expand on this? What characteristic make Dr. Crane stand out?
Noah…this is my wheelhouse…even if things are changing pretty deamatically of late. I have had multiple vintages of every wine in that list with palates experienced and not ao much…
I have never mer anyone who could blind pick those consistently, even if served side by side single blind, with much more accuracy than random luck would provide. For one thing, your palate would get iffy half way through the lineup. For another, there are too many similarities between them. That is not to say that there are no differences. Most have been explained in the thread already. One thing that has not come up is the mintiness of Harlan, which I find unique, but even that isnt always prominent, bottle variation and all…
What I can add, and this is 100% opinion, is that of those araujo and maya are the only two that have consistently shown dramatic improvement with 10+ years in the bottle. Even older insignias, which seem built to age, change but not necessarily improve to my taste. Of course the jury is still out on wines like panek but generally, I dont sweat too much when to open the wines you asked about. Three to five years in the bottle to let them settle a bit and let em rip. As an aside, 10 years in the bottle doesnt do anything bad to them, they just loose a bit of their luster sometimes but they still taste great 
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I like this post, and wished we had more of these discussions, snarky posts excepted. With the exception of Myriad, I have a lot of experience with the balance of the list. As Humberto said in his thoughtful post, like most I would probably get more wrong than right in a blind tasting. Non-blind, I find them all fairly distinctive, with the exception of Harlan and Bond which share some similarities.
The one disagreement I would have with Humberto is the point on aging. I have had every vintage of Harlan multiple times, and find that age does wonders for it. I recently had another bottle of the 1992 (first commercial vintage, I believe) at the winery, and it was one of the best Harlan bottles I have ever had. Similar experiences with Colgin and Spottswoode.
They are all terrific wines that I love to drink.
My experience has been similar to Humberto’s. The cults are tough to identify blind even though they don’t all taste the same. After several blind tastings in the 90s where Shafer Hillside matched or exceeded all of the others on my card, including Harlan and Screagle, I started dropping off of most of the uber-expensive lists.
As to aging, I have too little experience with Maya but I agree that Araujo does get dramatically more complex after 15 years, more so than the others mentioned in this thread, at least to my palate. I’ve seen Ridge Monte Bello, Togni, and older Heitz and Laurel Glen bottlings pull this off as well.
Depends on what you mean by differentiate. Two years ago, I served a blind flight at LBTG of 2007s. Scarecrow, Colgin and Outpost True. They were very different. Could I pick out which was which? a much harder question. I think I knew the Outpost by the TRB style. I liked the other two more but I thought the Outpost actually needed more time. Everyone else noted differences but most of our group are AFWE types so they were not thrilled with the flight. My son handed to be there and he thought the Scarecrow was by far the greatest wine he had even had. Could I tell the difference between the Scarecrow and the Colgin blind. Not really, but I’ve had enough to blind dinners over the past 7 years that failures are not confined to high and Cali cults.