Congratulations to Larry P on his contribution to Wine and Spirits Fall 2016 issue!!!
Thanks Drew! This belongs in Wine Talk though?
A couple months ago David Darlington contacted me to do a tasting of Historic Vineyards, focusing on the Russian River Valley. I was asked to keep it under wraps until the issue was published. The goal was to taste 6 wines which represented a good cross-section of vineyards and wineries from the area. This was the lineup we put together:
Nice congrats Larry!
Seems like much more than 6 haha
6, 11, who’s counting? 
Good job Larry!
Anyone have a link to the article
At your news stand now!
I think it’s subscription only. They wouldn’t give up anything on their website.
Well done Larry!
Thanks everyone!
Iknowright
This was the lineup:
2013 Ravenswood Belloni
2013 Novy Papera
2014 Williams-Selyem Papera
2013 Limerick Lane Russian River Valley
2014 Bedrock Papera
2013 Limerick Lane 1910 Block
2013 Carlisle Carlisle Vineyard
2013 Novy Carlisle Vineyard
2014 Carlisle Montafi Vineyard
2014 Becrock Dolinsek Heritage
…plus a Kirkland Old Vine Zin thrown in as a ringer.
Someone told us the Kirkland wine was largely based on Sodini Vineyard, but digging in to verify that seemed to point to it not being true. It’s a decent wine for $9. The tasting was done blind. We had to choose from this list which 6 to feature, with the goal of not duplicating a winery or vineyard. This had the odd effect of not including Carlisle/Carlisle because of Montafi being exclusive to Carlisle, and we really wanted to include Montafi because if it being recently sold to the parent company of Seghesio. Plus, the Novy Carlisle was damn good. Adam did a fantastic job with that wine.
In the end the 6 we decided to include were:
2013 Ravenswood Belloni
2014 Williams-Selyem Papera
2013 Limerick Lane 1910 Block
2013 Novy Carlisle Vineyard
2014 Carlisle Montafi Vineyard
2014 Becrock Dolinsek Heritage
Really an excellent lineup of historic RRV vineyards Larry, very representative of the HVS tour and dinner last May.
Larry, the selection of wines is enviable, to say the least!
My only concern upon reviewing the RRV Zin/Field Blend list was the youthfulness of the wines. Most of us would agree that any of the above wines would show their best in 3-5 years. However, I suppose that it is in the interest of the magazine’s readers to get a peak of currently available Zinfandels…
BTW, who wrote the tasting notes? I assume you did.
David and I both wrote notes separately, then compared after we unveiled the wines. What’s in the article was paraphrased from mine.
Of all the wines, the Belloni and the Montafi were the ones that probably showed as too young. Montafi in particular was shut down and really needed some coaxing. The rest were really ready to go. I’ll see if I can share all my notes here.
Congrats, Larry. Excellent line up of wines. Couldn’t have come up with a better selection. I’ll look forward to reading the article.
This also reminds me that I need to pop the '13 Novy, CV. If it’s as good as the Papera I’ll be in for a treat.
Very nice.
Outstanding!