Lot 7 last night.
Infanticide for the community!
I’m not an experienced or polished reviewer, so please bear with me.
3 hour decant, beautiful color, deep garnet in the glass.
On the nose very closed…stone fruit swirling through the alcohol.
Still unbalanced on the palate, lots of acidity and long gripping tannins. Cassis and sour cherries coming through, a little oak. Nice body, tannins stick around for a long time.
I figure this will get buried in storage for a couple years and we’ll see where it is in 2027 or later.
Thank you Clarkston! What a bargain $179/delivered!
You nice note encouraged me to get another case of X#3. Now 3xX#3!
Now at 25.5 cases of X! So far….
Too much is just barely enough……
I understand checking in for an early look, but I would never open a big Napa cab that was bottled just a month ago as closed, unbalanced with lots of acidity and tannin would pretty much describe them all. The one take away from nearly all the good DN reds was they need years to come together. ymmv.
Honestly, those descriptors are very promising. The mediocre ones are the ones that are unbalanced but lack structure. Sounds like that wine has structure for days, and that’s very promising indeed.
Don’t disagree but I said the good ones, not mediocre, and unbalanced is one of the descriptors. My perspective is tasting a bottle after just one month doesn’t tell you much you don’t already know and it is going to be so much better down the road.
Lot 12, crossed the country hopefully tailing the cool front.
Poured into decanter then back into bottle then into glass.
Appearance: Dark ruby
Nose: Raspberries, cherries, hint of french oak spice, alcohol (but nothing overpowering)
Palate: Medium Full
Taste: Super blueberry fruit is fair descriptor, mouth coating prickly tannins, good acidity. The oak is very well integrated considering the young age and 75% new oak.
It’s a bit one dimensional at the moment, good tannin, nicely oaked blueberry wine. It isn’t cooked, which is fantastic news. But i think it’s also not the full body wine I was sort of hoping it might be. That all being said, it feels like a very well made wine with a long life ahead of it. If you like restrained cabernet, not quite as hedonistic, this will be great. Surprises me, but I have a feeling reading some tasting notes this is probably part of Ovid Experimental.
Lot 10 next to Lot 3 opened 3 days ago
Neither of these are ready to drink.
Get oak and tannin with the just opened Lot 10. Curious if anyone else with a better palate will open one of these. I think this will be a great wine someday.
Clarkston,
Triple Thanks!!!
These were bottled ~6/27/25, 5 weeks & 1 day ago. Trying them now to judge whether to Buy more, makes total sense to me.
Remember BS= bottle shock=premature evaluation.
I’m just buying them up now, also figuring that they will ultimately be very worthwhile….
THANKS AGAIN!
Maybe wait a day for the 10 to open up and compare blind which one you like better.
That may help us decide which one to buy. Lot 3 is $179/12 and Lot 10 is $299/12 and a “10’s” number.
Can you taste any difference at this early stage?
Sometimes, drinkers think they can handle tannic wines, even “tannic” wines will not resolve for a LONG time.
In 2006, at the Wine Spectator California Wine Experience, my neighbor Marty, I found there representing his mother’s winery, asked me to fetch some Cabernets. Surprise him he said. I grabbed a Harlan, yep really fabulous and moderately tannic. Ran around the corner…grabbed another. We both just had our tongues stuck. Marty said: “Dominus? Why the hell do they make a Cabernet in California with 50 year tannins?”. But there is a set of wine drinkers out there that will equate those type of tannins with price of the wine. This is the wines you’re getting here form CamX. Look at my recent tasting of OG. N 60. Yountville Cab- Tannins rule this wine and I love it. Will I grow old enough for these tannins to “resolve”? No, these are “tannic” wines. It’s what Cabernets are- ripe fruit and ripe tannins. They can punish you early on and even 10 years later. Match it with some great food.
I’ve often wondered this myself. I assume that most of Cam’s notes come from barrel tasting just before bottling. Therefore he is not tasting wine that is in bottle shock. Although, sometimes it sounds like he is (he says bottle is sitting here on my desk or I took a bottle of lot 19 to dinner, etc.). Also, he’s a pro and been tasting young wines most is his adult life as an Negociant and we have not. Those are my two conclusions.
I also sometimes wonder if shipping rocks young wines more than others, so that when a wine lands on someone’s doorstep on the East Coast, also after recently being bottled, it’s a completely different wine then it was just before bottling, so it needs time to “get back to who it is.” Not sure, these are just my thoughts…
It may be silly, but I am a proponent of letting wine rest after it’s shipped. I do that with all wine.
I agree with what you’re saying, but I wonder if by the time the tannins resolve a bit the fruit will have given up. That’s the fear. I opened dN179 the other night and even six years in it wasn’t drinkable after a couple of hours in the decanter. I put it back in the bottle and tried it two days later (vacuvin sealed) and it was much better, but then it crapped out after a couple of hours. As one of the folks who plan to buy lots of cases and then hide them for fivish years, this is my fear.
Thank you all for taking one for the team and taking some notes, but I think I’ll have to wait a while to learn anything from this thread. Maybe when Cam gives us a list of what he thinks is currently drinkable I’ll circle back.
OG dN Lot 179 2019 Napa Valley Petite Sirah
Doh! Everyone has different preferences. I’m NOT a PS fan, so I only got 2 bottles of #179 from the shop.
Last year, I had my first bottle, and, Mark & I, both loved it. Mark is a big fan of PS.
We were camping in tents in the Sierras where everything tastes better.
Different strokes? One remaining.,
From last year:
Wednesday- #179 & Le Cuvier 2018 Petite Sirah, with Pork chops (ribeye chops). Petite Sirah night.
The great and the yuck! #179 was extra super duper delightful, we were thrilled. I cannot remember having a better PS EVER!!
The $70/bottle Paso Robles PS was a real yucky mess with extra strong nail polish & too much VA. The only Yuck of the trip. Very SAD! Ooops, back to Cam X, now…
in the Sierras where everything tastes better.