NOSE: raspberry fruit leather; clean; a bit earthy; dusty oak; a bit of the weedy element that asserts itself on the palate is present here as well.
BODY: clear; medium bodied.
TASTE: fig; hint of chewable aspirin; a strong weedy element - dry brown weeds - comes on strong on the finish; 14.8% alc.; finish is of good length (approx. 45 sec.); drying tannins persisted over the course of both days. Don’t know if this needs more time in the bottle, or what. Came across as green/underripe.
B: 50, 5, 10, 13, 6 = (84 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker
Brian,
Thanks for the notes . . . The sample you tried during the summer was indeed the same wine . . . not sure why it was so different, other than that was taken out of barrel and ‘beaten up’ a bit prior to pouring (double decanted to allow it to open up) . . .
This is still just a puppy of a wine, having just been bottled in early September. I’m hopeful it will match your expectations next time round . . . but I guess we’ll just wait and see (-:
Cheers!
Chewable Aspirin is a pretty rugged descriptor. Any wine that had that flavor profile or tactile sensation would get the quick flush down the drain for me.
I’ll let my other bottle lay until at least September and see what happens with that one. Hopefully this was merely a case of an odd bottle.
NOSE: initially earthy and sulphury – sulphur blew-off pretty quickly; tanned leather and concentrated plum; wild red berries; as this sat in the glass the fruit notes started to become more prominent than they had been; still, an overall earthy smelling wine.
BODY: ruby core lightening to mahogany at the very edges; color is of moderate depth; medium bodied; clear.
TASTE: a tad smoky; bitter; seems like an odd mix of ripe and underripe purple fruits; has the same woody/weedy element as prior bottle; leather; hints of animale and chewable aspirin; hint of boysenberry jam on the front palate; hint of crispy bacon fat; lots of acidity and tannin, but I worry there’s not enough fruit to hold this for very long; no brett; not overoaked; 14.8% alc. provides slight warmth in belly; medium length finish (35 - 40 sec.) of moderate to moderate-great intensity.
B: 50, 5, 11, 13, 5 = (84 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker
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2007 Tercero Mourvedre Camp 4 Vineyard - USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Ynez Valley (5/28/2011)
Tasted over 3 days. Nose is a little tight, but shows some fresh blueberry and wet gravel. On the palate, ripe blueberry, blackberry, and baking spice, medium bodied with fleshy mouthfeel and a generous helping of fine, very dry tannins on the finish. Nice balance and structure – this one should probably lay down for at least a year to let the tannins soften a bit. No heat detectable. Just a very nice and well made wine.
There must be some bottle variation here because this wine tastes nothing like the last bottle I tried 8 months ago. That last bottle was quite austere and stemmy – this bottle shows plenty of ripe fruit and no green-ness at all. I highly doubt that a mere 8 months of bottle age would transform this wine that much. (91 pts.)
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2007 Tercero Mourvedre Camp 4 Vineyard - USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Ynez Valley (9/10/2010)
Not as good as I had hoped. Nice florals and strawberry on the nose. On the palate, very fresh red and blue fruit with some caramel. Decent finish but with distracting heat.
2nd day: I read Parker’s review with his notes “Totally without any ripeness, the 2007 Mourvedre Camp 4 Vineyard is largely a failure. No Rating” and do not agree with it but I can see where he’s coming from. There is a bit of “steminess” to this wine which is not totally unpleasant, but if tasted with other high-ripeness wines (probably the case with Parker), then I can see how this wine comes off as he describes. Still, I did not really enjoy this wine all that much – the flavor profile of the fruit just didn’t do it for me, though the wine is well-balanced and seems well-made. At this price point ($27), I expect much better and can get some really killer reds for that money. (85 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker
Okay Larry, what’s going on here? Did you lose track of one of the barrels or something? I think Parker probably tasted one of the stemmy bottles of this wine. There’s no way that 8 months of bottle age changed this wine that much – it tastes like a completely different wine. Please explain.
As indicated above, both of my bottles seemed very stemmy … although the “stemminess” in my bottles seemed more like dry brown weeds, as I didn’t get any of the spiciness that I normally associate with ripe stems … perhaps the stems weren’t ripe?
Paul,
Thanks for the notes - and the question. And thanks Brian for chiming in . . .
There was no stem inclusion in this wine whatsoever - though I dig doing stem inclusion in both my grenaches and syrahs, I’ve yet to go down that path with Mourvedre . . . though I may do so this year. What I do, though, is bleed the juice out prior to fermentation to a) concentrate the fruit knowing that I will be doing a 100% mourvedre and not allowing me the ‘luxury’ of blending anything else in to give it added structure and b) giving me juice for my mourvedre rose.
As far as bottle variation goes, I cross flow filter my wines and therefore any variation would be due to factors other than microbial. Could it be the natural progression of aging that is causing these changes?!?? Of course . . .
I’m just thankful that you gave the wine another shot - too often on this board and others (and off the boards as well), a wine is tried and if not liked, never retried once again . . .
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Cheers!
Maybe this wine is starting to come around – but I just find it hard to believe that the character changed so much as to taste like a completely different wine in so short a time period. Was this wine bottled from a single large vat or multiple containers?
In any case, my description of “stemmy” didn’t necessarily imply that there must’ve been stem inclusion during the winemaking – it is more or less a general descriptor that the wine had a strong kind of bitter flavor similar to what grape stems taste like. Perhaps “weedy” is more accurate.