Just returned from 10 days in the beautiful Sonoma and Napa valleys…spent most of my time in Healdsburg, so that I had ready access to all of my favorite wineries there…we were blessed with great weather, great wine, and great food…what a combo!
My first stop after arriving in San Francisco was an afternoon visit to Rhys in San Carlos, just south of SF…met Jeff Brinkman and Josh Beck and later Kevin Harvey came in and we tasted some barrels…we tasted:
2007 Alesia Sonoma Coast PN-nice light purple, very lively and fresh with a medium finish…this one could use a little more time in the bottle
2007 Alesia Green Valley PN-This one is clearly a step up, along with the fruit is a little chocolate, deeper and richer tastes, nice medium finish
2007 Alesia Falstaff Road Vineyard PN-A bigger wine that the previous two with way more fruit
2007 Rhys Skyline Vineyard PN-Deeper purple color, layers of flavor, very spicy with some white pepper, nice long finish
2007 Rhys Skyline Syrah (Barrel Sample)-Very floral, vanilla, spice, pepper, long finish…I love this wine!
2008 Horseshoe & Alpine Vineyards (Barrel Samples)-These barrels had been sulphured in the past couple of days, so it was hard to judge for an amateur like me…however, in spite of that, there is every indication that these will be very good…the quality and fruit just shines through!
One fact about Rhys that I did not know was that they use 4 year old barrels with medium toast…most other stops that I made, the wineries used 2 year old barrels…
On Tuesday, made the short drive from Healdsburg to Santa Rosa to taste the Siduri lineup with Kate Noble…Kate, as lovely and gracious as ever, let me taste through many of the 2007’s and some 2008 barrels…since there have been many notes on the 2007’s already, I won’t bore you with more…however, my favorites were the 2007 Sonoma Coast, 2007 Rosella’s, 2007 Gary’s, and 2007 Pisoni…as to the 2008’s, these were not the final blend, but individual components:
2008 Gary’s 5C-The structure of Gary’s-very flavorful, as usual with alot of backbone to add to the blend
2008 Rosella’s 828-I believe this Rosella’s will be better than the Gary’s and even though it is very young, this is going to be a very nice wine…
2008 Pisoni “Tina’s Block”-This will go into the “Eddie’s Blend” for 2008…back up the truck on this one, this is going to be very, very good…the usual Pisoni characteristics with a very floral nose, lots of sweet fruit, structure, with a long, long finish
A couple of others from bottle:
2006 Novy Parson’s Vineyard RRV Syrah-Blue & black fruit, inky dark, a very strong and structured syrah. Good body with a nice finish
2007 Susan’s Hill Syrah-Thick and luscious, black fruit aromas, very intense wine…Needs a little time, as is usual for this vineyard
Decided to go back up Westside Road and have lunch at Rochioli…tasted their 2008 SB and 2008 Estate PN before buying a bottle of the Pinot to have with lunch:
2008 Rochioli Sauvignon Blanc-Very flinty nose, honey, grapefruit…40% of this comes from 50 year old vines
2008 Rochioli Estate PN-Spice and earth, spice and earth!! some vanilla shows through, very floral, black cherries with a nice balanced finish
After lunch, drove to Sebastopol for a tasting with Pax Mahle at Windgap…it was good to see Pax again after several years and let me tell you…he is doing great! Across the board, his wines are very very good and typical of Pax…he was gracious to let me do some barrel samples with him…
2007 Windgap Brosseau Vineyard Chardonnay-tropical flavors abound, nice and steely with a medium finish…this is more like a good Chablis than Chard
2007 Windgap Pinot Gris-I love this wine!!! It totally rocks…faint aromas of orange, tropical fruits, very floral nose, a medium heavy wine with lots of good crisp acidity…1/2 of this was done in amphora
2008 Windgap Woodruff Vineyard-light purple, a very structured wine with layers upon layers of aromas and flavors
2008 Windgap Syrah (50% James Berry, 50% Booker)-Just a beautiful wine, very floral with a long finish…there is some tannin here, so it’s gonna need some time
2008 Windgap Castelli Ranch Syrah-This is just a wonderful, beautiful wine and a long life ahead of it…a typical Syrah made by Pax from Castelli, this just has so much going on in it that it is hard to discern every individual component
2008 Neilson Vineyard Syrah-Only 11.2% alcohol, this wine has lots of acidity, very floral, tannic and very very inky… Part of the Sonoma Coast Blend
2008 Windgap Griffin’s Lair Syrah-Once again, my favorite wine made by Pax…very intense, dark inky color, very, very floral with the longest finish of all
Pax’s immense talent really shows through in his entire lineup…
More to come!