TN: 2004 Long Shadows Feather

WINE TALK
1

Opened one hour before trying.

Not much showing here, in fact the more air it has the worst it gets. No nose, no flavor on the palate and no finish. Thank god there is 14.2% alcohol so I can forget how boring this wine is. Randy Dunn did a real crappy job on this wine. 75 pts.

2

Strange, the couple I tried were pretty good. I wouldn’t say mid 90’s but better than your experience and most Randy Dunn wines get better with lots of age. hmmmmm [scratch.gif]

3

Well sweetie pie flirtysmile …not this one.

4

I tasted an 03 Feather at a wine dinner on saturday. Worst wine on the table (out of about 26 WA wines).

I’ve become pretty anti-Long Shadows of late. Nothing I’ve tasted has aged beneficially at all.

5

flirtysmile

6

sounds like low-level TCA, but I assume you considered, and dismissed, that option. real bummer to read this note, as i have one laying down with plans to pop it in 3 or 4 years.

7

Hi Steve,

Long time lurker who finally got around to registering here. Your note prompted me to take the plunge. (!)

re: Longshadows

I’m a local who’s been drinking WA wines for over 25 years. I like the stuff, like visiting the wineries, getting to know the winemakers etc…

Been to Long Shadows maybe four times. Tasted through the lineup, liked some, brought a few home, appreciated the effort at least. The wines I liked least were maybe mid-80’s, which is pretty poor QPR considering the price. Most of the wines would be low-90’s for me. (89-92 range). It’s not a favorite of mine but nothing has been a disaster.

I bring this up because reading your notes over the years, I don’t consider your palate to really be aligned with WA. If I remember correctly, you are hit-and-miss with Quilceda, don’t own Cayuse, don’t travel to WW much… basically don’t own much WA wine.

This is of course totally as it should be… we buy what we like.

But when I see a note like you posted on Long Shadows. No fruit. No flavor. No finish. It doesn’t match what I’ve tasted.

I don’t want a person who hates Pinot Noir giving me advice on Burgundy!

Am I wrong in my perception here? Do you like WA wines in general? I thought you didn’t really care for them but maybe I’m mistaken.

Tom

8

Hi Tom and welcome to the board,
You are right about my palate that I don’t like big wines and for the most part I find QC not to my liking. However I do like a lot of WA state wines like Betz, Cadance, Woodward Canyon and older Delille and I’ve had some good Long Shadow wines like the 03 Pirouette and Pedestal. As Brian mentioned, I thought about TCA but it’s not…this is just a bad wine.

I hope to drink with you something…lets get together.

9

Here is the closest thing to a defense that I can mount. I had the 2003 Feather and really didn’t like it at all night 1 including decanting and drinking over several hours. I didn’t think it even had much potential. I was convinced. Very pedestrian, but not unpleasant(which is what a wine in the 70s should be IMO). Night 2 was a completely different wine with so much more showing(night and day). It was actually quite good, but certainly not memorable. The more air, the better. The Feather surprised me with how much time or air it needed based on my one experience with it. I like a huge range of wine styles from the very subdued/subtle to the the very extracted. Night 2 it was certainly in the ballpark of most mid-range Napa cabs I have so on at least the 2003, I don’t think Randy Dunn completely whiffed on that vintage but it seemed like it before massive decanting.

10

Well we’re in luck, I have a lot left over.

The wine is no better or worst than yesterday although it is extremely thin and weak on the finish and it’s still void of fruit. A real waste of money.

BTW, a few years ago I was at my local wine shop and Alan Shoup was there pouring his wines, everyone was making a fuss except for me, while I liked some of his wines I really thought they would benefit with a lot of air. He told me they were just as good if you pop and pour. Wrong!

I bought this bottle from him at that tasting.

11

I just went and looked in my cellar and found a couple bottles of '04 Feather. Now I’m curious. We have a group of wine people coming tonight, I’m going to pop one now to let it breathe for an hour and get their .02
Will report back.

12

Ooo, I love experiments.
Pour it blind!

13

Her or the wine? [snort.gif]

14

2 bottles of the 2005 feather were opened at a restaurant about a year and a half ago. They were greatly enjoyed by the entire table, wine-novices and experts alike (myself included - and no, I’m not one of the ‘experts’). But my recent experience with the 2003 feather, and with the 2005 sequel (which has essentially fallen off a cliff of late) has prevented me from exploring this producer any further of late. There is so much excellent WA wine, I just don’t think these can compare to other vintners.

Solely my opinion of course. Not to butt into steve’s thread here.

ANyone reading want to buy my 2 remaining bottles of 2005 sequel? [wink.gif]

15

long shadows wines are fine, generally. unexciting, offer very little value, but Allen does a good job marketing them to the right people for the most part.

16

We got turned onto LS very early and bought several of the early releases on spec. Once they got the winery built and we started attending the tastings, I pared my purchases back to 3-4 of the wines. Once I bought and tried the '05 Sequel (Good vintage, Great winemaker, very disappointing wine) I reduced my buying strategy down to only a few wines and only after I taste them at the winery.

To be honest, even with all the hoopla around Dunn, Duval, Melka, et all, I think Gilles Nicault (the resident Winemaker) is making some of the best juice in the Chester Kidder label based on drinking some of the earlier vintages. All that said, in this economy there is much better wine for equal or less money in WW and WA in general.

Steve, Megan, Tom - Hope to someday share some wines with you if I ever find myself in Seattle for a few days. Let me know if you ever end up in Portland or the Gorge.

17

Having had the whole lineup at one time or another, I can say that my favorite is the Long Shadows Sequel Syrah, (made by John Duval, past winemaker of Penfolds Grange and now his own label, which I buy when I see discounted), and Long Shadows Pirouette, a Philippe Melka.

The ones I like the least is the Rolland wine, the Pedestal, and the Feather, the topic of this thread.

Interesting concept though. Interesting talent lineup.

18

I’ve bought their wines directly from LS, and I also bought 4 or 5 bottles of this wine ('04 Feather) from Garagiste a couple years back. I didn’t take notes, but I remember loving this wine. I’m guessing I had consumed it all within six months of its arrival. I also remember being pleasantly surprised that a Randy Dunn wine could be enjoyed so young.

Maybe its going through a dumb phase. If you’ve got any more, I’d be interested in taking them off your hands. PM me if you’re interested.

19

The experiment was fun. I popped the '04 at 6pm and bagged it for a blind tasting at 7 pm with Todd Anderson, Van and a group of people. Todd’s comment were almost word for word the same as Steve’s. He started out thinking it was a young tight bordeaux. After 15 minutes of swirling, smelling, tasting, Todd said Washington, maybe 2000, possibly younger. Van was sure it was pre 1999 and probably Napa but definitely not French and was very strange.
Everyone’s impressions including mine were, very little to no nose, tannic, boring, very little on the palate and the longer it sat the worse it got. Toward the end of the night (5 hrs later) there was nothing at all left, of course by that time we had been through the full lineup of Ghost Horse, '05 Marths’s, etc etc, The balance of the bottle flowed it’s way down sink.

20

thanks for that, Carrie … very helpful [cheers.gif] . I now suppose I’ll just sit on my bottle for maybe 10? years and hope for the best.