2016 Rhys Alesia Pinot Noir Anderson Valley- USA, California, North Coast, Anderson Valley (11/4/2018)
Bright red fruit with good balancing herbal and earthy notes, is framed by ample acidity, and subtle tannins. Rhys wines are notable for early approachability, so this is a good cellar defender that has all the class of the bigger Rhys wines.
Did you mean to say “Rhys wines are NOT notable for early approachability”? Or did you mean to say “Rhys Alesia” instead of just “Rhys”. I have found that most of the Rhys-labeled wines I have had over the years need some time to really blossom, and are not at their best when drank young. Most of the comments on Rhys on this board say pretty much the same thing. Of course, YMMV…
I have found however that the Alesia wines are more approachable young…
I too like this wine, and while I shared this TN as part of our Nor Cal trip report last July, it’s worth popping it up here again. Of note, we tasted this wine towards the front 1/2 of the tasting and so I can assert that I wasn’t getting wrapped up in palate fatigue or anything like that. FWIW, I bought a few of these on my last order, and there is no arguing the value of this wine IMO. We can argue about the Rhys pricing in the other thread if you like but at what is $45 I think, this is spot-on great wine.
2016 Rhys Alesia Pinot Noir Anderson Valley- USA, California, North Coast, Anderson Valley (7/25/2018) July 2018 Rhys Visit–Taste The 2016s (Rhys Estate (At The Winery)): Composed entirely of declassed Bearwallow fruit. Dark apple, roasted cherry, blueberry and a touch of savory which I flagged in my notes to say “herb, but not herbal”. I say this because I don’t want my note to take you down the rat-hole of ‘stemmy’ because this is not. I failed to write down the whole cluster % on this one but I did recall a few times during the tasting us talking through the wines with the Rhys team about how the whole cluster routines have been changing, with some wines now completely de-stemmed and others seeing less %. In the end, for me this savory quality was/is more about a soil imprint, which I have found in Bear before and it is here again, which is now beginning to affirm for me that the emergence of a terroir/signature is coming through. It’s a loamy note that I really dig. There is lovely balance here and this is medium weight as it crosses through my palate. I LOVED this wine and starred it as one of my WOTD for our visit. Will be easy to buy this on release and load several of them to the cellar.
With the discount, I think that these were under $40 delivered, which was an appealing price point for me. Of course, the delivery arrived while I was traveling on business. It was rather large with the Rhys, Alesia, and Aeris combined orders. My wife advises that we owe our UPS driver a large tip. I concur.
I look forward to having a try, Pobega-style, when I get home to unpack the new arrivals.
Frank, my memory from the recent pickup event where this was poured is that it was 5% whole cluster (may have been 10, but I think 5). FWIW, I believe the Porcupine Hill was 15%.
I was trying to be intentional in saying just “Rhys.” I like the Alesia wines, as they show a reasonable approximation of the house style, while being more immediately accessible. The perils of typing fast.
Jumping back into the thread with a new impression on the 16 AV.
2016 Rhys Alesia Pinot Noir Anderson Valley- USA, California, North Coast, Anderson Valley (11/23/2018)
Opened yesterday for Thanksgiving dinner. Enjoying the remnants of a couple glasses that were left over in the bottle for today. Serving in a burg stem with an ideal temp that has warmed from the fridge where I kept it overnight. Last tasted this in July at the winery, when I really took a way a favorable impression of what is declassed Bearwallow, and on that day, I thought this declassed version showed better than the regular Bear. This bottle has a darker edged, fleshy quality, with plenty of dark raspberry and cherry, even some of the red apple kind of thing I get from the upper end of AV. As the wine warms up, the herbal note I found in July is present, but it’s not stemmy kind of thing. Has the same juicy quality of July’s bottle, a touch stony and a cool balance of all the parts working together. I paid $41 for these with the case discount, and no shipping, which is a killer value. People can form their own take on the Alesia project but for me, if this is the kind of quality that Kevin and Jeff are going to pump out in their 2-tier quality model, then these Alesia wines will stay in my cellar, along with the top tier Rhys. Excellent showing.
I let my final bottle take me for a ride the past few days. I dig the Alesia wines coming out of Rhys. Be interested to see how the 2017s show, the second vintage since the reboot in 2016. I hope to taste those in July so I’ll bring back some notes for those who want some perspective.
As to this 2016, it’s doing great.
2016 Rhys Alesia Pinot Noir Anderson Valley- USA, California, North Coast, Anderson Valley (6/20/2019)
4th bottle since release, and this is my final one. Opened this on Monday, drank a glass or so across the past few days, finishing the final glass today 48 hrs later. Burg stem, temp ideal, without food. When really cool, this has a plush collision of raspberry and cherry, along with an herbal underpinning. As this airs, a bit of oak comes through, the juiciness of the wine accelerating too. The flavors evolve too, picking up the same red apple quality of the previous bottles, and some blueberry shows up. All of this doesn’t surprise me, as if you served this to me blind, I’d guess Copain Kiser En Bas when Wells made fruit off that plot, which is right next door to Bearwallow (where the fruit for this Alesia is grown). There is some light structure here, which for my palate is absorbed into all the berry fruit that this wine nicely exhibits. Good stuff here, ready to go and this bottle finishes nicely, mixed up against A Tribe Called Quest for some final flavor as background music.