TN: The best and the worst (Monte Bello and Caymus 40th Anniversary)

WINE TALK
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  • 2012 Ridge Monte Bello - USA, California, Santa Cruz Mountains (2/1/2024)
    Served blind by the host at our monthly tasting group, this was the runaway wine of the night. Still very young, but also quite drinkable, with solid black fruit, firm tannin, a touch (just a touch) of wood framing, and a very long finish. Not the most aromatic wine of the night, but definitely the most complete, and with the longest runway for improvement. Drink now if you must, but better off not to, as it's going to get a lot better.
  • 2012 Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon 40th Anniversary - USA, California, Napa Valley (2/1/2024)
    Served blind by the host at our monthly tasting group, this was far and away the last place wine of the night. It smelled pretty good, but on the palate was a distracting, cloying sweetness, and a caramel sugar flavor that was better suited to toddlers' ice cream toppings than fine wine. Oh how far the once mighty Caymus has fallen. Disgusting plus!
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Had the Caymus 40th at Santa Fe Wine and Chile last fall. This is what Gary Vaynerchuck should have poured over cereal.

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Pancakes or waffles.

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I just read Robert Parker’s note on the Caymus. It is truly delusional.

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Perhaps written after a couple of glasses?

And it’s also the tail end of his career, so who knows what he had left in the tank.

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I had that Caymus 40th a couple years ago out of sheer curiosity (my in laws had a bottle). None of us could make it through a glass. Like your note said, it is disturbingly sweet and viscous. Like, even if you’d never tasted wine before you’d question it. I’d call it port, but that’d be an insult to port!

I also tasted that 2012 MB when tasting out at Lytton Springs in 2022. I also agree that’s such a beautiful wine, and I’m not a big cab guy (but I’d drink that wine any day, no question). Still one of the most balanced wines I’ve tasted to this day, and felt like it would age indefinitely.

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My note in 2014 after a friend brought a bottle to dinner.

"It doesn’t even taste like wine, including like big / modern / ripe new world wine. In fact, it really doesn’t even taste like an alcoholic beverage. It’s like something your kids might buy at a convenience store and drink out of a plastic bottle.

I’m an omnivinovore, and I appreciate well made wines in all styles. This is just truly horrible wine that doesn’t even resemble wine."

And I’m really not one to grandstand about modern wines in this fashion. The Caymus 2012 just seemed so out of bounds it wasn’t even in the general wine universe to me.

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