Over rated wines from California - IMHO

WINE TALK
1
  1. Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
  2. J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines
  3. Rodney Strong Vineyards

I have tried multiple wines in multiple vintages in multiple types of wines. I have been disappointed at every opportunity.

I would love to hear of good experiences with any of these with examples.

Thanks

2

I picked these three because of the newest Wine Enthusiast magazine - THE INSIDER’S GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA SIP, page 50, page 61, and page 65.

Thanks

3

IMHO, Wine enthusiast usually doesn’t deserve a look as their reviews don’t hold much weight with me. I’ve looked at wines I have tried and compared with their notes and it does not suit me based on what I have read. Just my 2 cents on WE.

4

Robert,

What style were the wines? Fruit forward, old world, austere, etc.
What vintages?
Decant times?
Did WA and WS give the wines similar ratings?

I don’t get WE so I don’t know what they said about the wines that you expected but didn’t get.

5

  1. A formerly great winery that hasn’t done much to justify its price for years. Warren Winiarski sold the winery a couple of years back and there’s talk of a revival, but the evidence hasn’t shown up in the bottle yet. The wines from the '70’s were some of the best in Napa. But on the other hand, I haven’t really seen these wines get great ratings in recent years, they’ve been living on their reputation for a long time.

  2. J. Lohr is known for making pretty decent everyday wines at pretty good prices, mainly in the low to mid-teens. I’ve never seen the wines highly rated or hyped, they’re just decent, somewhat mass-produced wines that are not overpriced for the quality. So in that sense, I wouldn’t say they are overrated.

2… Mostly supermarket crap, IMO, but again, are these highly rated anywhere you’d take seriously? Maybe by the wine writer for a small-town newspaper somewhere that doesn’t have access to better wines.

As for The Wine Enthusiast, their name say it all–they’re enthusiastic about EVERYTHING. Not a source I would recommend for buying decisions.

6

SLWC Artemis can be good, but it’s very vintage specific. I really don’t like the 2010, but I was impressed with the 2009. Also, their Sauvignon Blanc is really wonderful and in a style that’s different than a lot of Napa SBs.

7

You would have to go back to their glory days in the 70s to really understand why Stags Leap was held in such high esteem for so long. Their Cask 23 Cab was one of the original cult wines, along with Heitz “Martha’s” Ridge “Monte Bello” the old Mondavi “Reserve” the original B V “George Latour”…

As time went on they lost their mojo but I suspect a good bottle of some their classics might still be worth drinking.

Cheers, Bob

8

I can’t remember ever seeing anyone hyping the last two, so I can’t really see them as being overrated. Stag’s Leap was once great, then eventually became really bad, and is probably on the way back but I haven’t really bothered to check in much. So any overratedness probably depends on which vintages you’re speaking of.

9

Or maybe the wine judges of the Sonoma County Harvest Fair who gave the white wine sweepstakes award this year to the 2011 Rodney Strong Reserve Chardonnay. I don’t know about you but I take the harvest fair judging seriously. Blind, no preconceptions, clothes off.

When we bunch all a vintners wines into one group it makes our inner snob show.

10

+1

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The Wine Enthusiast–over rating wines since 1988.

OK, that’s a bit of hyperbole, but if you ask people in the biz what wine review publications they find reliable, I don’t think you’ll find many people who mention TWE. If I find a retailer quoting a TWE review or score, my assumption is that they couldn’t find a positive review/score from WS, TWA, IWC, etc…

Bruce

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Don’t pay attention to Wine Enthusiast.

13

This was such a tease. I was hoping, and rather in the mood, for another good thread of Caymus bashing.

I guess I’ll have to settle for the SLWC and WE bashing instead.

14

Hmmmm…that’s not the impression I get from reading Heimhoff’s blog, Brian. He seems to
indicate that the WE is the pillar of the wine biz!!! [snort.gif]
Tom

15

Oh, Tom…

16

Monica Larner, the current reviewer of Italian wines at the Wine Advocate, held that same position at the Wine Enthusiast for a decade. So the reviewing aptitude of the WE wasn’t all bad.

17

I stood before a wall of overrated wine at my local Safeway last week. An entire aisle of wine approximately 30 meters long and 10 bottles high. I did find one bottle that I happily tossed into my cart but the other hundreds were of no interest to me.

The three producers mentioned in the original post were among these. I guess I’m a wine snob, but ask yourself this: would you show up to a WB offline toting a bottle of Rodney Strong?

18

Unfortunately we all have been to a function where the choices have been Fetzer, Mondavi Coastal, with Rodney Strong and Souverain being the top end lines. Even snobs need to face reality very now and then. I’d probably go with the the RS Chalk Hill chard.

19

Great summary!

Used to have a lot of Stag’s Leap stuff that was nice, albeit 25-30 years ago. Also J. Lohr produced some stuff I really liked back in the late 80’s / early 90’s and is still one I’ll buy off a glass pour list. Usually at restaurants that don’t focus on wine, but I can’t say I’ve ever found myself disappointed with it, knowing what it is.

Reminds me of the stuff I used to buy (or consume from my father’s stash) back in the day, Meridian and Lyeth as a couple of examples, that I liked a bunch back then and haven’t bought or consumed for years. Also something called Fieldstone, which might not have been that great a wine to begin with, but since my dad bought so much of it back in the early/mid 80’s, it was probably my first experience with bottle-aged cabs.

Don’t recall ever reading much about Rodney Strong. Don’t remember having it. That’s not to say I haven’t had it…I just don’t remember it if I did:)

I ignore all WE scores/notes, without exception.

Cheers,
Jim

20

Oh man…Souverain…that’s another one that was a “back in the day” wine, and pretty decent (back then) at that! Bought a bunch of Reserves from the 90’s on auction for something like $10, and I dare say it held up better at 20 years old than many of the current market darlings might!