anyone going today? we’ll be there ~ 1PM.
Glenn - I’d absolutely love to do that, but I’m heading up to Berkeley. Please report back!
goodness did we have fun! this was quite the soiree considering they are right smack in the middle of harvest over @ Tenbrick Family Winery. sorry, we took no photos but did taste nearly 20 wines and ate tremendous heirloom tomatoes over the course over 90 minutes or so up there in Suisun City:
barrels were out with Abe holding court and we had 3 samples including the 08 Androkteinos, 09 Prince and the 09 Lambrusco project within The Project! the Androkteinos was in a enormous chemistry boiling flask, had to be 5L, and was more approachable than the 07 in bottle. Abe though this was b/c of the flask but i wondered if this was perhaps a vintage phenomenon. opinions were mixed on this very tannic, backwards wine (both the sample and 2007 bottle) though i am convinced the nose alone is worth the price - exquisite cold-weather Syrah tones with mineral and spice galore apparent. IMO needs minimum 5 years of bottle age from now and perhaps longer. 09 Prince was cloudy and full of papaya/pineapple, sure this vintage will reward the faithful Prince In His Caves fans. Lambruso has a real chance to be a big-time crowd pleaser - yummy, bright fruit that is sans bubbles now. if this finishes as it started i think this will be a big hit next summer.
bottled wines included 08 Prince, 08 La Severita di Bruno, 08 Marcher Sur La Lune on the first barrel/table we encountered. Prince is not as cloudy or intense as the 2007. folks we took up there took some of this wine home. LSB remains Abe’s most “typical” white and is more like Sauvignon Blanc than a 2006 Hatcher SB we had Friday night. Marcher was perhaps my favorite wine yesterday, Verdelho with tons of mineral/earth notes - more intense than Naucratis IMO. a wow wine for next summer here where it gets hot!
next stop featured 2007 Choêphoroi and 2007 Slyphs, still sans a label. i really wanted to like Choêphoroi, a Chard from Jamison Canyon heading into Napa from I 80, but it didn’t hit me right after The Marcher. 07 Slyphs is not as oxidized a presentation as previous vintages. pricepoint is hard to swallow but for the well-heeled this is magnificent and unusual Chard.
we now moved to the 4 red wines in bottle including 07 Androkteinos, 07 Babylon, 07 Gardens of Babylon and 06 Bricco Babelico. i spoke about Androkteinos in bottle above and again, i could just sniff the wine for hours. i am guessing this is really going great places with appropriate bottle age. i skipped 07 Babylon as i have had this wine in other vintages and knew it would be super tight so i’ll just wait on what i bought. 07 Gardens was quite approachable and easy to drink, a very nice blended wine. Bricco Babelico was another wine i was eager to try but the fortified, liqourous nose was just was not for me. taste had anise maybe and a touch of Twizzlers? other folks liked this wine more than me.
Tenbrick Family Winery also poured 4 wines and i tried 3. i am unsure about vintages here. had a good, if typical, Chard and a really nice dry Riesling that was $28 and worthy of contemplation and purchase. they were very excited about their Cab Sav which saw 100% new French Oak and it was hard to get past this aspect of the wine for me. if this oak integrates i do think there is superb fruit here but i wouldn’t venture a guess as to when to peek to see if that had occurred. i really want to buy their tomatoes though which were, by far, the best i have enjoyed this summer. superb tomato fruit here and they grow white peaches too!
Sounds like a great day Glenn. Makes me seriously rethink my purchase pass of the fall mailer… Too many wines I really enjoy out there to buy them all.