Yes, I decided not to highlight all the other repetitive ticks in these. It would have been hard to see the “so much to offers” if I’d done that.
So I was just reading Dunnuck’s 99 point review of the 2018 Riverain Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, and two words stuck out: scorched earth. What kind of earth has been scorched? Forest? Desert? Was an accelerant used to facilitate the scorching? How scorched? Quick blast with a torch, like putting a crust on a creme brulee, or did the fire department have to put it out?
Why would I want something to taste as if General Sherman had come through town on his way to the sea?
There is a scent that clay gives off it’s wet and then gets hot. That’s what I think of when I read “baked earth” in a tasting note. Brunello sometimes has something like that.
“Scorched earth” is different. The only times I’ve encountered it was in a 1864 Savannah Concord Reserve and a 1968 Denang Riesling.
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Try the 1865 Petersburg Norton
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Scorched earth is an oldie. I’m sure it shows up in thousands of Parker & WS notes. Imagine a put-out campfire. Typical signature of Pessac-Leognan, and elsewhere.
Put-out campfire suggests torrefaction/charcoal. Warm earth is something quite different. I got it in an Il Poggione Rosso di Montalcino last night, and often get it in other Tuscan sangioveses.
A dowsed campfire would be damp carbon I would guess, maybe cried carbon if one waited longer. Scorched earth is usually used to refer to what an army does when it burns up cultivated fields so you can’t replant. I guess that would smell like the remains of any large fire sometime after its out and the land has dried over some. I don’t know why one would want the taste in wine.
Put out campfire is a very specific aroma to me. It smells like a hellish Boy Scout camping trip.
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The Wine Enthusiast was responsible for the memorable flavor combo of butter-softened roasting herbs on molten fudge cake with vanilla-laced blackcurrant syrup.
Comes now The Wine Advocate with chocolate-covered cherries (sounds suspiciously like Black Forest cake) with smoked meats, cast iron pan and – yes, you read it right! – Marmite.
97+ points, of course!
2017 Chateau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac
“Composed of 97% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2.5% Merlot and 0.5% Petit Verdot, the 2017 Lafite Rothschild is deep garnet-purple colored. It opens slowly, cautiously with restrained notes of > chocolate-covered cherries, mulberries, warm blackcurrants and wild blueberries, followed by emerging notions of smoked meats, fragrant earth, crushed rocks and lilacs with touches of cast-iron pan and Marmite toast. > Medium-bodied, the palate is deceptively light and quite ethereal on entry, growing in the mouth to reveal elegant layers of energetic red and black fruits with tons of savory accents. Framed by exquisitely ripe, wonderfully fine-grained tannins, it has exhilarating freshness and a very long, hypnotically perfumed finish. On a final note, the alcohol here is a jaw-dropping 12.5%, which is something of a miracle considering the ripeness of the Cabernet. A total head-turner, I cannot wait to follow the development of this wine!” -Lisa Perrotti-Brown, MW
To me, warm earth, baked clay, sun-heated rocks and scorched earth are all entirely different things. I agree with Keith and Jonathan that scorched earth is a burnt wood, earth and cultivated fields kind of smell - something that evokes familiar mental associations in a Finnish mind, as both field-burning in agriculture and scorched-earth warfare have been quite common things in Finnish history. 
And I’ve had some rather smoky wines that could’ve been quite accurately described as having elements of scorched earth.
I sort of get this note in some really intense reds that have been in high toast barrels. A taste profile I hope to avoid. Reminds me of some of the Cali cabs during the excessive late 90’s. Honestly, does LPB really thinks " lilacs with touches of cast-iron pan and Marmite toast" is a real descriptor? I have never smelled a CLEAN cast iron pan that smelled of anything really. It’s a metal, does not vaporize well. Maybe she should just go back to black forest cake. This person at the helm of the WA is why I cannot ever imagine renewing my subscription. Hard to take anything seriously she writes.
And she’s not alone in using the cast iron pan descriptor.
I don’t know about you guys, but my cast iron pans always smell like the last thing I cooked in them. Then I season them with olive oil and they smell like olive oil.
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I was just offered a “stratospheric” wine with a “satiny texture that belongs in a lingerie shop.” I wonder if that means it is pastie.
Like a French pastis?
Like the wait staff at the Hooters you ate at last night wear. Do they have BYO?
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Here are those chocolate-covered cherries again! Like an invasive species, they seem to have taken over Bordeaux:
2018 Les Gravieres - St. Emilion
“Made from 100% Merlot, the 2018 Les Gravieres is deep garnet-purple and rocks up with gregarious blueberry pie, > chocolate-covered cherries > and plum preserves scents with nuances of violets, spice cake and mocha. Big, full and decadently fruited, it has a firm frame of super ripe, grainy tannins and wonderful freshness, finishing very long and layered."-Lisa Perrotti-Brown. MW
“Rocks up”?
I’ve not had that 2018, but used to be, and likely still is, a pretty gross wine. The 2009 Gravieres was like a creamy chocolate cream pie. Notice the pie in 2018.
And spice cake!