The following reviews were conducted during a one-day vacation with family this past week. Wines were consumed during the afternoon and evening and alongside a variety of food, so reviews remain unofficial. Greater detail is provided in prose below the typically-formatted reviews. It is worth stating that some impressions are possibly exaggerated, as this day ranks among the most enjoyable of my life.
Loring Wine Company 2009 Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley
An outstanding value in California Pinot Noir, the Russian River Valley cuvee is very primary in its forwardness and opulence, though it has less of a layered personality than either of the single-vineyard designates. One hardly notices though, as the captivating, penetrating perfume, richly concentrated fruit and decadent floral notes mingle effortlessly and are delivered with authority and poignancy. This tastes like a souped up, refined, super-silky and supple 06' Nuits-St.-Georges Premier Cru at half (or less) the cost.
90 points.
Loring Wine Company 2009 Pinot Noir, Shaw Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands
The Shaw begins somewhat reticent given my expectations, but soon surrenders notions of roasted meats and herbs, lavender, incense and pencil shavings. It is much more savory than its sibling and cousin, and also more terse and compact in its sumptuousness (this is relative, remember). A complex and intellectually satisfying wine, I expect this to round out nicely with some bottle age and last the longest of the three Lorings.
92 points.
Loring Wine Company 2009 Pinot Noir, Rosella's Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands
A virile, full-throttle Pinot with aromatic suggestions of hard candy, licorice, salted beef stock and copious quantities of extraordinarily ripe red and blue fruits. This has to rank among the reference point Pinots made in this flamboyantly flashy, decadent style. This is excruciatingly intense and will satisfy even the most hedonistic readers. Who knows how it will age, but why delay gratification?
93 points.
Ramey 2007 Chardonnay, Hudson Vineyard, Carneros
Along with generic cuvees from the Russian River Valley, Carneros and the Sonoma Coast, David Ramey produces three vineyard-designated Chardonnays from the Hyde, Husdon and Ritchie vineyards, a few of the most famous terrors in the Napa and Sonoma AVAs. The 2007 Hudson Vineyard Chardonnay is simply gorgeous in its tremendous purity, rich and viscous texture, brilliant clarity and understated grace. The nose reveals nectarines, minerals, buttered popcorn and a hint of creme brulee along with wonderful natural acidity and underlying firmness. This is beautifully complete, rife with underlying mineral tones and leaving a dramatic, flattering impression in its long, supple and layered finish. An almost unbelievable Chardonnay, this is one for the ages!
96 points.
Stag's Leap Wine Cellars 2007 Chardonnay, Karia, Napa
The 2007 probably reveals more oak than it needs, but there is wonderful lift to the fresh nectarine and baked apple notes, augmented by restrained tones of chalky-minerals. This is a fine effort, though I'm certain the Antinori's could have more movingly encapsulated the completeness, high equilibrium and seductiveness of such a historic vintage.
89 points.
Robert Talbott 2009 Chardonnay, Kali Hart, Monterey
This has an untidy, poorly defined nose that smells vaguely of spoiling fruit salad. On entry the wine reveals a hard, austere core centered on underwhelming,vaguely tropical fruits of modest intensity. The finish becomes tart, even puckering, and reveals no additional flavor interest. A puzzling, difficult wine to cozy up to.
82 points.
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The generic Russian River Valley cuvee is an excellent introduction to Brian Loring's style and exhibits nearly as much richness, bright red and blue fruits, meat and balsamic character as its more luxury-oriented siblings. Of those, the Shaw Vineyard seems to contain a more underlying expression of meat and minerals, with less effusively sweet berry character and, though less amply proportioned than the Rosella's, proves also more elegant and more finessed of tannin. The Rosella's is an extreme example of an polarizing style and indeed I understand its primal character and sweetness will prove too ripe and rich for many readers.
It is, however, important to remember that enormity of fruit or high ripeness does not preclude a win'e ability to convey impeccable balance, an elegant profile, charm, or delicacy. The question is simply whether a winemaker's ambitions are checked by the talent, patience and knowledge that in turn allow for the technical and aesthetic execution of a vision that begins with, one might say, a greater quantity of raw materials (in the way of high sugar levels) than most growers in California or abroad are 1) interested in working with or 2) are climatically possible.
As an earlier review of the wine attests, my opinion is that the 2009 Loring Rosella's Vineyard Pinot Noir is a complate, balanced wine with distinctive character, layers of flavor, as well as a simple and unadulterated deliciousness framed by laser-like, filigree tannins. I have not visited other vintages of these wines from Loring, but I look forward to the prospect of drinking earlier and subsequent vintages to assess whether the differences in these bottlings are, to an extent, attributable to vineyard location (site) or are simply the hallmarks of the fruit brought to press in 2009. And while I admittedly have my doubts about site-specific character recurring here in any consistently appreciable way, there is much less doubt about the intrinsic inability of richly fruited, high-alcohol wines to transmit via their liquid personalities a distinctive sense of place.
It is, however, important to remember that enormity of fruit or high ripeness does not preclude a win'e ability to convey impeccable balance, an elegant profile, charm, or delicacy. The question is simply whether a winemaker's ambitions are checked by the talent, patience and knowledge that in turn allow for the technical and aesthetic execution of a vision that begins with, one might say, a greater quantity of raw materials (in the way of high sugar levels) than most growers in California or abroad are 1) interested in working with or 2) are climatically possible.
As an earlier review of the wine attests, my opinion is that the 2009 Loring Rosella's Vineyard Pinot Noir is a complate, balanced wine with distinctive character, layers of flavor, as well as a simple and unadulterated deliciousness framed by laser-like, filigree tannins. I have not visited other vintages of these wines from Loring, but I look forward to the prospect of drinking earlier and subsequent vintages to assess whether the differences in these bottlings are, to an extent, attributable to vineyard location (site) or are simply the hallmarks of the fruit brought to press in 2009. And while I admittedly have my doubts about site-specific character recurring here in any consistently appreciable way, there is much less doubt about the intrinsic inability of richly fruited, high-alcohol wines to transmit via their liquid personalities a distinctive sense of place.
There is a disconcerting and frustrating tendency among industry insiders and those who call themselves connoisseurs to blindly refer to cool vintages (or cool-climate regional wines generally) as the exclusive mediators of terroir. I recently spoke to the owner of a local wine store who expressed disgust for "California wines," nearly all of which he finds "too ripe and heavily oaked." As our discussion turned to Pinot Noir he remarked that the 2008 Burgundies are "throwback wines," by which he meant that the cool summer of 2008 imbued that vintage's wines with less ripeness and (here he assumes) more elegance, transparency to nuance and site-specific character than would be possible were the grapes riper, and thus more sugar-rich. Here, his syntax is poorly chosen and his sensorial and intellectual perceptions of the 2008 Burgundies certainly guided more by staunch underlying philosophical prejudices than honest, self-reflective drinking. In reality, the 2008s are under-fruited, and all but the best show green, astringent tannin/intrusive herbaceousness and because they are almost all short on extraction and concentration, they are simply not very fun to drink. Thus, the 2009 Rosella's is a successful wine because it possesses genuine concentration as well as balance and is highly distinctive in its vigor and electric personality.
Nor is this a diatribe about the shortcomings of old-world wines. Much the contrary, as may be evidenced by the fact that I drink a good deal more wines from France, Spain and Italy than the rest of the world combined. The simple reason for this is that there are many more wines under $20 from those three countries that consistently and eloquently combine richness with elegance and ripe fruit with secondary and tertiary complexities. This is not the place to go into why this is the case. What is important here is this summary, already adumbrated above: Stated simply, there is no reason to drink wines in 2011 and beyond that do not contain fully ripe, generous, rounded expressions of delicious fruit. There remain, however, a huge number of old world wines that are hard to cozy up to because of either 1) too-high yields 2) blowsy winemaking and resistance to technological necessities at the domaine level and 3) underwhelming fruit quality because of uninitiated vineyard management. For me, wines that betray such unnecessary, avoidable problems cannot fall by the wayside (as well as retail shelves and restaurant wine lists) fast enough and, in doing so, create the space for younger, more quality-conscious generations of winemakers to provide consumers with diverse, complex and beautiful wines.
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