Disclosure: I purchased wines from Six Cloves last Berserker Day and have loved them. I listed Six Cloves as my Discovery of the Year in the WsOTY 2023 thread. The winemaker, Sonoe Hirabayashi, seeing my enthusiasm, reached out and asked if I would be interested in reviewing a few wines in anticipation of Berserker Day 15. Free wine? Yes please! Seriously, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to taste these wines. So tonight, I roasted a chicken with some winter veggies, and had a little Six Cloves tasting. I think all three wines were tremendous in their own way. Really great stuff and I plan on purchasing on BD. Here are the tastings notes (all wines 2022 vintage):
Chardonnay, Linda Vista Vineyard, Oak Knoll Napa (13.5% ABV)- Pale yellow in the glass. A little tight at first but it opens nicely after a few mins in the glass. On the nose: Lemon drops, white flowers, a little pineapple in the background, and a fun chalky character that reminds me of clapping out blackboard erasers in elementary school. What an association! The lemon drop character continues in the mouth, as does the fresh pineapple. There is a perception of fruit sweetness here without any actual residual sugar*. It’s very nice. The acidity is high enough, and the body lean enough, that it creates an unexpected juxtaposition with the tropical flavors that I usually associate with much bigger/riper wines. And while the acid is high, it isn’t ripping my enamel off; there is just enough roundness so that holding the wine in the mouth is just lovely. This is very restrained for a Chardonnay from Napa, but it still manages to retain the sunny character that can make these wines so enjoyable. What a balancing act!
*- I read the winemaker notes after writing the above tasting note, and it mentions that this vintage has 5g/L RS. I thought I tasted some sweetness!
Pinot Noir, Buf-Wher Ranch, Russian River Valley (13.1% ABV)- Light translucent ruby with a pink watery rim. A surprisingly dark fruit character on the nose given how light the wine appears. Black cherry, deep raspberry, a bit of herbaceousness (spearmint?) that compliments the fruits nicely. There are also damp dark earth and forest floor aromas that are welcome in a wine so young. A touch of cinnamon spice to tie it all up. So light and lively in the mouth, medium acidity, with flavors that mirror the nose- dark cherries lead the way with complimentary earth, herbals, and spice. There are tannins here for sure, but they are smooth and polished. There is so much going on, lots of complexity, especially for a wine so young, but nothing is aggressive—it’s restrained and subtle, the word that comes to mind is “suave”. I’d love to taste this in 5-10 years, but also so enjoyable right now.
Zinfandel, Castanon Vineyards, Redwood Valley, Mendocino (13.5% ABV!)- I was very excited to hear that this producer made a Zinfandel. The gentle hand used in Six Cloves winemaking is just the sort of treatment that produces my favorite Zins. The fact that the fruit came from cool Mendocino intrigued me as well.
For me, of these three wines, this one is the most exciting, but also the least ready to drink right now. It pours the color of a lightly extracted Pinot- extremely light for a Zinfandel. The aromas are pleasant, but feel a bit locked up- it just seems like this wine needs some time in the bottle to blossom. It’s a bit hard to pick out individual aromas but I pull out raspberry, cherry, concord grape jelly, some cocoa powder. The entrance in the mouth is just lovely, so fresh and so alive, but a second later come a rush of tannins. They aren’t unmanageable, but I do feel like at this stage this wine needs food to show well. Like the nose, the flavors are a bit of a mélange of fruits, but along with the raspberry and cherry, there are intriguing deeper darker fruits as well (mulberry, Italian plums?). A wonderfully long finish, especially for a wine so young.
This is some very high-quality wine that I just don’t think is 100% ready quite yet. A semi-relevant tangent: I took a drawing class in college, and one day, the professor projected a painting that was very out of focus at the front of the room. She had us copy it, and over the course the class, slowly slowly slowly adjusted the focus. We revised our drawings as the focus sharpened. I can’t even remember what we were supposed to learn from all this, but I do remember that at first, you couldn’t even tell what the drawing was of, but over time, details emerged, and eventually there was a perfectly crisp photograph projected in the front of the room. This wine is like that; it’s half-way between the blurry image, and the final photo. The details haven’t resolved yet, but I think they are going to. Ultimately, this will be a beautiful wine, it just needs a little time.
Looking forward to seeing you on BerserkerDay!
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