Some leakage on this one - cork was about 75% saturated and very soft, but the wine seemed fine. Deep dark-fruited brooding color. The nose was a swirling combination of cherry, raspberry and strawberry with savory notes with some spice. Tastes very similar to the nose - good depth of flavor and balancing acidity. This is the first Rhys Pinot that has impressed me. I have some 2014’s to consume next year, so it will be interesting to see if I am ultimately influenced to get back on the list for future vintages. Cheers!
All of my 2013 Rhys bottles have had excessive staining on the corks. Not sure what happened there, but the wines have always been fine.
We opened the 2014 Alpine this past weekend and I was very disappointed. The wine seemed out of balance. The acid would stick out, then the tannins would take over, not much fruit to speak of. It didn’t improve on Day #2 either. Maybe a bad bottle? Maybe more of the bottle variation I have experienced with Rhys PN? I have one more to try, so we will see. Cheers!
I asked the team about that here roughly a year ago. IIRC, they said they had a problem with the bottles being overfilled, just pushing wine up as the corks were pushed in. I could try to dig it up if no one else chimes in.
As I understood, the problem was during bottling and had to do with the vacuum not functioning prior to the cork insertion. If they went straight from the bottling line to lay down storage this would make sense.
anyone opened a 13 hillside pinot recently? wondering about those.
2013 Rhys Pinot Noir Alpine Vineyard - USA, California, Santa Cruz Mountains (3/11/2022)
– decanted immediately before initial taste –
– tasted non-blind over 2 to 3 hours –
NOSE: expressive; cherry/cinnamon/oak combo.
BODY: medium bodied.
TASTE: relaxed; not tannic; red-fruited with noticeable oak; medium to medium+ acidity is adequate; a bit loose; it was fine — very good — but not particularly exciting. Hopefully this is just in an awkward stage, as I went a little bit longer on this one than was typical for me.