Coterie Winery was new to me, but Kyle flew in and attended the Outstanding in the Field dinner last night in Galena, IL, and four of Coterie’s wines were served. He was a delight to chat with (and follow with by e-mail) and the wines were delicious. I prefer aged wines and often find new releases too primary, oaky, structured, and/or shut down. These were none of those. While they obviously didn’t show any tertiary development at this age, they showed exactly as a young wine should (IMO) if the goal is to drink and enjoy it now as opposed to evaluating it for some hypothetical future after a decade or two in the cellar. Kyle obviously applies a light touch in the winery, in a good way, and it shows. These were fresh, flavorful, and appropriate - and open for business and ready to enjoy. And now that I’ve checked out the website, I see that they are also very reasonably priced, especially with the discount offered if you join their club (and a real bonus for those of us who can’t visit to hang out and pick our wines up in person in San Jose - free shipping on all wine club orders!).
I didn’t take formal notes (not that mine are usually very good anyway), but we had the 2020 Rose of Pinot Noir from “Catie’s Corner” in RRV, which was good, followed by the 2018 grenache blanc from the same vineyard, which I really enjoyed. It had more freshness/acidity than I associate with most white Rhones, and that really helped it with the food.
I’m not a domestic pinot guy, but the 2018 Tondre Grapefield pinot noir from the Santa Lucia Highlands avoided my two most common complaints about domestic pinot - too heavy/oaky/extracted or too “confected” with what I call strawberry cotton candy flavors. It was very nice and was a huge hit with some others at our table.
My favorite was the 2018 Las Madres Carneros syrah (co-fermented with 4% viognier). Really delicious and varietally correct, yet it seemed to have more going on than the many CA syrahs that can be one-dimensional especially when so young. This had a nice meatiness to it. 14.5% abv, but not heavy at all (though obviously more deep-fruited than the pinot that preceded it). This sees 10 months in oak, hardly any of it new.
Recommended!