TN: 1994 Kalin Cellars Sémillon (USA, California, San Francisco Bay, Livermore Valley)

  • 1994 Kalin Cellars Sémillon - USA, California, San Francisco Bay, Livermore Valley (1/10/2010)
    Last bottle had signs of seepage…this bottle was in perfect cond. Darker golden in color, oxidative nose?? Ah oh? First taste…oxidized…I almost dumped it. Let it breath a few more minutes…couple swishes and spits…the wine came alive! Does have some oxidative sherry to it, but in an aged wine way. Canned peach, apples, not the waxy banana like I got last time(2007). Very smooth and creamy…yea…little honeycomb wax…loaded with hazelnut butter spice, torched sugar, lemon minerals. Very interesting sipping wine…I’m not too keen on oxidative notes in wines, but sometimes they work well to add to the complexity of an aged white. Not as excited in this bottle as I was 2 yrs ago…but still, has some extremely interesting flavors…and all-in-all, a fascinating wine! (90 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

Recently finished my last bottle fo the 1996 vintage of this wine – Kalin do a great job with making whites that can age.

Alex

Yeah…and I think 1996 is the “current release”! How was it?

Had the 87 back in late October. Crabtree’s Kittle House, preferred haunt of a certain Westchester county wine shop owner, had both the 87 & 88 on the list for (I kid you not) $45 & $40, respectively. Quite an interesting wine…definitely not for everybody. I enjoyed it immensely…definitely had the honeyed almond paste & rancio sherry-like qualities, but was still refreshing and youthful.