Hardy and anyone who has opened on lately, how long would you decant '19 Hold Me Tight Mourvèdre?
Thanks!
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My experience with Full King Crab II was that it really needed a long decant. It transformed after a double decant, gaining a lot of citrus complexity and minerality. Now that said, I am looking over my own notes and it says that the fruit tones are “quiet” — subdued but complex. Prior to decanting I found the wine had a very pungent green apple scent that got in the way of the more complex notes without the decant.
If you still have one to try I would give it a lot of air first, if my experience is anything to go by.
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I haven’t popped one in since last spring and I gave it about 90min. It was great and could have also used another 45-60.
I decanted for three hours, then rebottled for transportation. It took all of that for the fruit to emerge from the wall of acidity. Bright, balanced, delicious, great flavor to weight ratio (light on its feet). Delicious.
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2021 Evangelho Old Vine Mourvèdre:
Off the fricken charts. My favorite Mourvèdre of all time. If the grape has a reputation for rusticity and tannin, this wine is light years from that: elegant, seductive, and electric.
From CT review:
1 hr decant and served in Zalto bordeaux glasses.
This is definitely the tastiest and probably the greatest Mourvèdre I have had in my life. Much lighter colored, lighter bodied and less tannic than a typical old world Mourvèdre. Tons of bing cherry, thyme, a light touch of vanilla and cinnamon sugar. Beautiful floral (lavender? Hyacinth?) touch on the nose as well. A completely different Mourvèdre than old world examples — and that’s the only reason for hesitating on the GoAT award, since they’re such different beasts — but oh my lord how delicious! Can it age? I’ll never know; I am not keeping these in the cellar. Wow.
Score : 95-96. Relative to expectations: +++
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Awesome! I had the 2020 a few months back, and it was the most serious and introverted EDWC wine I’ve had so far. Plenty of stuffing, but with tightly coiled and with grippy tannins. Clearly would benefit from a few years sidways. Sounds like the 21 is a bit more giving right now!
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Hardy + Evangelho is 2+2=11!
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Thank you, John! The 21 is very very special. It is the lightest of all the Evangelho Mourvèdre I have made. It is up there (and perhaps better) than the 14 and 18.
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Opened a '23 Summer Salters tonight. I’ve gone through all my bottles from recent vintages really quickly and I imagine that’ll happen again. I posted a note on CT, but the general gist of it is it had really precise strawberry, stone, and herbal tones. Really deep flavor (and beautiful color) with bracing acidity to keep everything in balance.
Good start to a Phishy weekend here in town.
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Two more
Summer Salters II
This is so different from the first Summer Salters. which I found like a more sprightly and exotic version of a Provencal rose. This one seems to come from a totally different place (even though it comes from literally the same place and the same grape blend too). It reminds me of a Cotat rose, minerally with a light, minimalist touch from the skins. Everything is closer to the vest and while I admit the first installment was more exciting to me, I’ve been going through bottles of this since last spring and I think it’s just now found it’s equilibrium. SS1 was a chaise-lounge-at-the-beach wine and SS2 is a leather-easy-chair-in-the-library wine. They both work. Can’t wait for the episode 3.
Mind Left Body
This is going to go down as one of the YEAH! greats. I don’t know if it’s the mold for another signature wine here or if the stars aligned in a way that made it irreplicable. Either way people will be talking about this for a long time. It is the vinous embodiment of the color red, the reddest of all reds. Remember how Bob Ross used to have funny names for all his colors like Van Dyke Brown and Yellow Ochre but red was just Bright Red? This is Bright Red. It is a coulis of red berries steeped to perfection totally streamlined and edgeless with the texture of flowing satin. Everything is done with the most gentle touch, the way Bob does the sky and the reflection in the lake as opposed to the happy little trees. It’s vivid enough to be a wine of joy but mellow enough to be a wine of contemplation. I nursed a bottle for days and it never failed to make me say aaaaah.
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2020 Innervisions
Pulled this bottle tonight to go with some amazing jerk chicken and pork*, on a perfect evening to eat out in the backyard as the sun was going down.
No time to decant - but from the first sip the wine was soulful with a funky bass-line…. Just like its namesake album. Worked perfectly with the fruity heat and woodsmoke on the meat. And beautiful on its own.
- Found myself at JFK on a Sunday afternoon getting my kids signed up for Global Entry. Decided to make a 15 minute detour to East New York to Forever Jerk (written up in the Times as a Top 100 restaurant in NYC). Just a row of smokers on the sidewalk - you can literally see the smoke billowing from 1/2 mile away. Brought way too much food back to Long Island…. Highly, highly recommended!!!
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Drinking this tonight and this note captures it well. There’s that Hardy signature of a joyful, juicy wine that is also cerebral and interesting. So much energy and tension- in a good way, yet really easy to crush. And it seems to have some stuffing to age for a while.
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Just got my shipment that includes the Higher Love Red Wine. Time for a Steve Winwood playlist and some Yeah!
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Opened my first bottle of this last night, and also had a serious taste-memory flashback.
From CT
My oh my. On first sniff, this wine teleports me to my mom’s thanksgiving table, spooning cranberry sauce on Chinese sticky rice stuffing. A melange of cranberries studded with orange peel, a savory meaty note, with undertones of 5-spice. It hits the mouth with a burst of sunshine, that indelible EDWC signature of bright tangy red fruit with a bouquet of fresh herbs. Like most other EDWC reds, this unfolds over the course of several hours, revealing new dimensions like an intricate origami box. Bright pings of tropical fruit punch juxtaposed with oyster-shells and intense salinity. Anise, strawberry, and oolong tea. Medium bodied, chewy tannins, and a heck of a finish… all wrapped in a 12.75% alcohol package. I can only imagine how well this will drink in 5+ years - it’s still a touch hyperactive and rambunctious today, but an incredible amount of finesse underneath. 95
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2023 Summer-Salters Rose III.
Enjoyed on Mother’s Day with my wife on a delightfully sunny and warm spring evening.
Wow! There couldn’t have been a more perfect environment for this wine. A refreshing but serious rose is a a fine line to balance and this wine is wildly successful in this regard.
There is a strong backbone of acidity with pomegranate and raspberry notes dominating the nose and palate. Faint notes of basil and herbs waft from the glass. This is a well balanced wine that produces deep thought but easily disappears from my glass.
This wine induces relaxation with sensations of poolside vibes, premature summertime emotions and pairs well with the muffled sounds of children arguing about Roblox in the distance. NY style pizza is also an enjoyable pairing option. I look forward to enjoying more bottles of this wine over the remaining spring and summer.
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Thank you!
Thank you! Bob Ross, yeah!
Sounds like a great pairing. The Innervisions is one of my fave EWCY wines to date!
Thank you, Dennis. That sums it up, well!
Thank you! The aromatics of this are my fav of the recent EWCY wines
Love this! Thank you, Steve!
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Nice. I have a magnum of that queued up for Memorial Day weekend.
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Was beautiful out of magnum last June, should be a treat
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Partial Eclipse
This is the biggest bouncing ball of Happy Happy Joy Joy from Hardy since the Dirty & Rowdy Especial. I think it is misnamed, though, because eclipses are kind of somber and mysterious events while this is about as somber and mysterious as a Tickle-Me Elmo. Way more sun than moon, too. It has the most pure and vivid fruit it is possible for a wine to have without reversing the forces of entropy and reverting to a bunch of perfectly spherical, plump, shiny purple grapes. That is the feeling it has: rounded, edgeless, plump, a polished orb of fruit at perfect ripeness, picked at the absolute right millisecond that makes it unabashedly fruity without any goop or candied flavors and an easy-drinking middleweight without any hint of edginess or angularity. It’s one of the most fruit-forward wines I’ve had from either EWCY or D&R but when the fruit is this pretty and dialed into the Goldilocks zone, that is all you need.
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