2015 WineSmith Saint Laurent, Ricci Vineyard, Carneros, Sonoma County
Tasting Notes
This grape has very tight clusters and does poorly in humid climes like France, preferring high altitude where dry air and high UV suppress mold. It is widely planted
in Austria and is the principal red grape of the Czech Republic, where it is known by its German name, Sankt Laurent. It matures very early, near the martyrdom date
of Saint Lawrence of Rome, who was executed by Emperor Valerian on August 10 of the year 258 AD. This early harvest date is ideal for the short seasons of cool
continental climates, resulting low alcohol. 2014 was a cold year, so there is more acidity and palate life here than the previous vintage, and the nose is brighter.
The addition of well-seasoned French oak in the fermenter helps extract and stabilize color and provides whiskey lactone, an aromatic lifting element. It really is like no other wine. You will find extremely dense, soft tannins supporting generous mulberry fruit which you might easily mistake for Gamay Noir except for its lingering basil aftertaste that reminds me of Carmenère. There is no better example of the postmodern winemaking principle of aromatic integration. The wine is actually full of pyrazines, yet does not smell like bell pepper, and only expresses them in the character of sort of Eastern European personality: generous and friendly but slightly cynical.
As a result, the wine is more complex and intriguing than a simple picnic wine, but is certainly suitable for an outing in some summer meadow with a basket full of
chicken and three-bean salad. Its tannins have no edge at all, so it handles considerable acidity with grace, equally at home with lean flank steak, paella, sushi,
venison and quail and is magic with my Swedish meatballs, doused in a morel / porcini cream sauce with a dash of Marsala.
Vineyard Location:
Dale Ricci Vineyard
Sonoma Carneros
5th leaf of experimental planting
Harvest Date: 26 August 2015
Harvest Sugar: 20.7 Brix
Fermentation techniques:
100% crush/destem
Anchor VN112 yeast inoculum
7 gm/L untoasted Alliers chips, air seasoned 2 yrs
Elevage details:
Malolactic fermentation in barrel
Neutral French oak aged 27 months
TA 6.7 g/L, pH 3.73 at bottling
Alcohol 11.8%
198 cases produced
Included in the Box
3-bottles:
3x 2015 WineSmith Saint Laurent, Ricci Vineyard, Carneros, Sonoma County
Case:
12x 2015 WineSmith Saint Laurent, Ricci Vineyard, Carneros, Sonoma County
Clark Smith is an MIT drop-out who wandered out to California in 1972 and sold wine retail in the Bay Area for several years, where he acquired a love of Bordeaux, Burgundy and all things French and observed first hand the California winery explosion in the 1970s. After a three year stint at Veedercrest Vineyards, he secured enology training at UC Davis and spent the 1980s as founding winemaker for The R.H. Phillips Vineyard in Yolo County. In 1990, he founded WineSmith Consulting and patented a group of new winemaking techniques involving reverse osmosis, spinning off Vinovation, which went on to become the world’s largest wine production consulting firm over its 17-year history.
Frustrated with California’s winemaking trends, Clark started WineSmith Cellars in 1993 as a teaching winery to make Eurocentric wines to explore traditions beyond the mainstream, expanding for his winemaking clients the range of possibility for California fruit. Choosing to create long-term partnerships with committed growers rather than growing his own grapes, Clark has become an renowned expert on Cabernet Franc, having vinified twenty vintages from a wide variety of sites.
Teaching at Napa Valley College gave him access to the Student Vineyard for Faux Chablis and his Pauillac-style $100 “Crucible” Cabernet Sauvignon. From Renaissance Vineyards in North Yuba County he has made a sulfite-free Roman Syrah and also produces a Pinot Noir from Fiddlestix Vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills in a delicate, age-worthy Côtes de Beaune style. These wines are vinified in an ancient beat-up warehouse in Sebastopol, California.
WineSmith wines are noted for their longevity, classic balance, structural integrity, minerality and understated soulfulness. They often are aged extensively prior to release. When drinking a WineSmith wine, always ask yourself “What is this wine trying to teach me?” Clark is a vocal advocate of living soil and graceful longevity, and generally avoids excessive oak, alcohol, or extended hang-time. He is not shy about employing new tools when they are needed, such as alcohol adjustment to bring fruit into balance or micro-oxygenation to build refined structure, but always fully discloses techniques which are controversial and is outspoken in explaining his rationale.
His book, Postmodern Winemaking, is the culmination of four decades of reflection on wine’s true nature.
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: Tax & Shipping not included in savings calculations)
2015 WineSmith Cellars Saint Laurent - $60 = 21.42%
@rjquillin
Good question. Our style has evolved quite a bit. We began in 2013 by conventional vinification, aging in old oak and stirring lees. This wine is now coming into its own, but lacked much aromatics for a long time and we learned that these tannins had no need for softening. The wine is pretty complex now, but isn’t very bright and fruity and lacked richness.
In 2014, we again vinified conventionally but did not stir lees. I noticed that year a small amount of mildew inside the cluster tips which was hidden until we crushed. The wine was an improvement in terms of richness and expression but the botrytis enzymes attached the color a little bit.
For 2015, I decided I wanted more brightness in the aromas and employed flash detente on 50% of the fruit. The effect is a richer, cleaner, fruitier wine.
It’s a pretty cool gizmo. Flash Detente is new in the USA but was developed in France in the 1980s and is now a standard practice for perhaps 20% of the world’s wine.
We liked the results so much that subsequent vintages are 100% flashed.
Here’s the geeky explanation (sorry, feel free to skip). In this process (Chapter 19 in Postmodern Winemaking), grapes are crushed and immediately heated to 180˚F, then placed in a vacuum chamber which flashes off 10% of the water, cooling the juice to 60˚F and exploding the berry so all skin tannins, color and flavor are extracted. In addition to color enhancement, pyrazines (bell pepper) are stripped away.
The fruity amyllic esters your see in Nouveau Beaujolais are preserved by denaturing the enzymes that normally cleave them.
Any mildew fungi are killed, the browning laccase enzymes are denatured and any moldy aromas vacuumed off, so the wines are very clean, bright and fruity.
@rjquillin@winesmith
Not to be so skeptical, but flash detente?? That sounds suspiciously like pasteurizing the grapes/juice the same way they make kosher mevushal wines. An interesting and complex example of which I have never seen. How does flash pasteurizing like this not have a significant negative effect on the aromatics? Also, 20% of the world’s wine uses this method??
FWIW, I was a big fan of the 2013 and less so the 2014 of these.
@klezman@rjquillin This is the weird part. Flash detente was ignored by UC Davis, when considered at all, for this very reason. This is what happens when you let theory and mind experiments preclude real world trials. That’s largely what my book is about. Less theory, more real world observation.
I too was concerned with aromatic loss, but it turns out that most varietal characteristics are bound as glucosides and are only volatilized during fermentation.
Believe me, I wouldn’t have pursued this strategy if it wasn’t working. It’s now broadly accepted in the US and growing rapidly.
Flash was not involved in either the 2013 or 2014.
Flash detente has nothing to do with kosher pasteurization of wine, which is a tricky business, often done well by those skilled in the art, but just as often bungled by ignorant rabbis who oversee the process.
@rjquillin@winesmith
Being an organic chemist, this is a truly amazing write-up. I generally think of pyrazines (from an SAR standpoint we usually go from a pyridine to a pyramidine to pyrazine) as structural modifications we use in medicinal chemistry to modulate a potential therapeutic drug’s physiochemical properties, kinase selectivity profile, PK profile, etc. You name it, the position of a N can have huge effects! Esters on the other hand are usually introduced as a way to design a soft-drug or a pro-drug. Cheers!
@rjquillin@winesmith
Ha! It’s all chemistry!
Being a scientist, hearing wine making described on such a level of detail is truly remarkable, IMHO. I will certainly tune-in to watch your cooking shows! Cheers!
@rjquillin@winesmith Oh, I know you are a wine engineer more than anything else (in the sense that you devise practical ways to get high quality results, always based on science). That’s why I was so surprised to see flash detente come up.
I might need to borrow Ron’s copy of PMW to read your thoughts on it more fully.
I read that flash detente has replaced old school pasteurization for some kosher mevushal wines, but I hadn’t noticed an uptick in quality to go with it (not that I drink much kosher wine, doubly so mevushal).
So let’s see if I understand - because the esters and other aromatic/flavour compounds are mostly bound to other larger molecules (e.g. sugars) they don’t volatilize at 180°F, or at least not in the few seconds the grapes are held at that temperature. Then the rapid depressurization preferentially evaporates water over other compounds, so even if you’re losing some aromatic or flavour compounds, the 10% water loss more than compensates for any loss of “interesting” compounds. (Also it seems like you could then run the condensate through a cooling loop and cool another fermentation tank with it!)
@klezman@rjquillin That’s the gist. There is surprisingly little aromatic loss except for pyrazines and in the case of muscat and riesling, some terpenes (not a lot, as they are mostly bound glycosides). Amyllic esters pre-exist in most grapes and are broken down by esterases in conventional vinifications but preserved in Flask and in carbonic macerations. Other esters are created by yeasts during fermentation.
The condensate energy is used to preheat the must so the process is very energy efficient.
@rjquillin@winesmith Nice!
I took a quick look but I couldn’t identify the compounds that you’re referring to as “amyllic esters”. I’ve seen references to them, but no single compound or group of molecules that are identified as such.
I am certainly curious to try these. See how the FD worked on the wine and if I can figure out that note of it that Scott described in his report.
@rjquillin@winesmith Oh cool. Why can’t organic chemistry people just settle on one name? Pentyl esters, or even better, n-pentanol esters, would be simpler!
@klezman@rjquillin As you know, standardized names, which are great for laying out the precise structure, do not ring to the experienced chemist’s ear. Fortunately we can easily google up any name and get all its alternative nicknames and the scientific name in seconds, so what the heck. I didn’t give a complete list, and isoamyl esters are more prevalent, so they’re really 3-methyl butanyl esters. Isoamyl is easier on my ear.
@klezman@rjquillin@winesmith WineSmith Thank you for continuing to bring your amazing wines and your participation. I always learn something besides tasting your incredible vision.
@rjquillin@winesmith yeah the old names stick around forever. The quick searches I did before didn’t turn up anything quickly, but the more detailed ones certainly do!
I wonder why so many fruit flavours and aromas are isoamyl esters. (And strangely, Swype decided that isopentyl should be rendered isoamyl.)
@danandlisa@klezman@rjquillin Thanks so much. I hope you an put yourself in my shoes. Like any serious artist, I want to play outside the commercial box and find my own commercial-free blue ocean where I can experiment. My values include wines of affordable profundity, Eurocentric balance and graceful longevity as well as complete transparency. I like to make seemingly impossible wines which, when they succeed, instruct the winemaking world about new possibilities.
Always expect a message in the bottle. Can you imagine how much I treasure this one single forum I which I can describe my vision and earn your trust? I am indeed blessed to be related to this unique community that will take a chance, go along with a gag, or jump from a cliff on my say-so and come up laughing. Who wouldn’t want that?
WineDavid took a big chance on this offering. If you guys come in strongly, I will be able to offer subsequent vintages as we continue to refine our technique. With sushi and paella restaurants shut down, there really is no other platform where I can move such an unknown variety. Buy now and I’m sure later vintage releases will be supported by Casemates and I can offer these great prices.
We have drunk through all of our Winesmith St. Laurent, so in for yet another case of your wines, Clark! I remember the chemistry lecture you gave at our tasting after Shannon innocently asked “What is flash detente?” Talk about a softball lobbed right over the plate, and you were happy to take a big swing, lol!
@klezman@rjquillin The really strange thing is that the ethyl esters like ethyl butyrate smell so wonderful while butyric acid itself is the most repulsive smell imaginable.
Greetings, gang. This is one of my more interesting projects and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.
Many of you may not have heard of St. Laurent. A descendant of Pinot Noir and the father of Zweigelt, This grape is widely planted in Austria and is the principal red grape of the Czech Republic, where it is known by its German name, Sankt Laurent. It matures very early, resulting low alcohol (11.8%) and palate-cleansing acidity ideal for seafood and best served with a slight chill. (60˚F/15.5˚C)
Our St. Laurent really is like no other wine. You will find extremely dense, soft tannins supporting generous mulberry fruit. The wine is more complex and intriguing than a simple picnic wine. Its tannins have no edge at all, so it handles bright acidity with grace, a perfect wine for seafood, unlike most reds. In fact, if you close your eyes, you might think you’re drinking a fine rich white Sancerre.
The series includes How to shop for seafood, Ordering take-out sushi by phone, shopping for and shucking halfshell oysters and a couple paella recipes.
@winesmith Thank you for showing up now. I like the previous versions of St Laurent that I’ve had, and bought six bottles of this one on the expectation that it was the minimum amount.
It’s such a sad time for so many, and this wine is just a moment of pure bliss. Thank you, again.
I just started watching the video and i am super intrigued just by the phrase “the tannins have pajamas on them.” can’t think of a better line in these discussions ever!
Also I couldn’t figure out why a new wine offer was already up, it’s still twilight here in the Northwest. then I realized I am back on PDT and I forgot the offers change at midnight East time, where I had been for the last half-year. And also in pajamas a large part of that time.
@pmarin The French term is tanin enrobé - enrobed or dressed tannin. I came up with the PJ explanation for this type of tannin.
The idea is that each monomer (single building block) in a simple phenolic polymer (daisy chain) in a red wine has a weak (hydrogen bond) attraction to an amino acid in a protein chain. When the chain gets long enough, these act like a zipper (cooperative binding) and cause a grainy, sandpaper-like precipitate we call astringency or harshness.
If we can coat the polymer with something (perhaps some starch or peptide), it gets in the way of the cooperative binding and the wine is soft and rich. I often accomplish this with micro-oxygenation, but St. Laurent somehow does it all by itself.
Let’s see…Resistance Is Futile…WineSmith which Of Courses is an AutoBuy in this House, Saint Laurent: No-Brainer!! We’er in for a case, thanks Clark & Ruth-E. You always continue to deliver QPR & Out-Standing wines!! >>resolute-mischievous-head
**Not A Payed Sportsperson…Just a Lover of His Wines!!
PS: What were we drinking tonight… A WineSmith Meritage!!..So the Universe dose make sense:
Live Long And Prosper…
@winesmith We enjoyed the 2013 Lake County with a couple of Flannery dry aged New Yours. Still have 2 left, between the last 2007 Crucible and a few 2013 Victory’s, as you can see it’s keeping good company.
As always WineSmith & Double Diamond, oops Two Jakes of Dimonds are Auto-Buys with us!!
(Hi Ruth-E )
I’m super intrigued here. His Cab Franc (Two Jakes) blew my mind. Looking forward to some rattage here as I need something brought down about 200 levels to my base level understanding. Though I did pretend to follow along on the chemistry discussion above before mumbling nerds to myself and scrolling down.
@pete0744 That’s a good question. I think it depends on what you want. In general, the low alcohol and fine structure bode well for aging in the sense that this wine is not going to oxidize or fall a part for a long time. The 2013 is holding up well and presenting some interesting tertiary notes. As always, the trade-off will be fruit in youth vs complexity in age. Those amyllic esters I spoke of are likely to cleave over time in trade for some bottle bouquet.
And what do you know—I first tasted it at the final dinner at the last RPM tour. It popped up on my timehop today. (And you can see Adam “@mother” and my wife Hazel “@texashaze” to the right)
Probably against the rules to post a pro review of a WineSmith wine…however…
From Beverage Tasting Institute (tastings.com)
WineSmith
Date Tasted: 7/11/2019, Alcohol: 11.8%
92 Points
Gold Medal, Exceptional, $40
Garnet black color. Aromas and flavors of smoked meat, grilled berries, charcoal, and chocolate with a supple, bright, dry-yet-fruity medium-to-full body and a delightful, medium-long finish with touches of sour cherry pit, sandalwood, and slate with crunchy tannins. A very distinctively savory and smoky earthy Austrian red with a California twist.
And another write-up that contains a little blurb on this wine, Dan Berger, For The Press Democrat,September 4, 2018
“…Discovery of the Week: 2015 WineSmith St. Laurent, Carneros, Ricci Vineyard ($40): I have never had a wine quite like this. The St. Laurent grape may be related to pinot noir, but is darker in color, so you’ll suspect it’s going to be tannic. It isn’t.
The aroma is like fresh blueberries and wild plums, and the wine’s intense fruit is offset by generous, softer tannins. Best served slightly chilled.”
Hi Everyone. I always have some of this wine in my cellar. So, Clark called me up and asked me to Labrat the wine a week ago. This was my last bottle, so I’ll be ordering more on Casemates. Always the best price.
I opened the wine with my assistant winemaker "Molly Haycock’ around ten in the morning. Our notes are as follows;
Nose
Medium to dark color, no browning, brilliant red. Boysenberry, Mulberry to Blueberry, clean, fresh spicy red fruit, warm cinnamon, no heat or SO2, light leather, forest floor, damp cedar and not overly jammy. Light to medium oak. Fruit and spice are the primary notes.
Taste
Bright red fruit and white pepper on the front palate. Light to medium body, nice astringency on the mid palate with fresh cranberry. Makes me think of Thanksgiving. Light balanced juicy flash Detente character. Skin extraction without any bitterness. Well balanced acidity. The wine has smooth a transitional vinous nose to the front palate fallowing through to the mid palate, back palate and long finish. A wine that is complete from beginning to finish. Just enough astringency on the finish to make the wine finish dry and create thirst for more.
Corked the wine to have with dinner later that day.
Jana and I cooked Halibut with a butter caper sauce.
The bright red fruit holds up well. White pepper showing through with blueberry on the palate. Good acidity cuts the butter sauce to make the next bit of halibut taste like the first bit. There is an ongoing spicy tantalization.
1/2 hour after dinner.
Nice red licorice character, great mouthfeel and refreshing. Good ripe strawberry flavor on the finish.
Finished the bottle and need more!
@ScottHarveyWine Funny you should mention ‘Makes me think of Thanksgiving’.
Some of what I’m seeing written about this wine makes me think of the Onesta Cinsault wine that’s been offered here a couple times, which was often stated to be a good match for food items typically served during Thanksgiving.
I’ve already got my order in for this, Winesmith is an auto-buy for me!
Dense ruby color. On the nose, spiced strawberry jam dominates with puréed apple and crushed violets supporting. This is a lighter red but the texture is still complex yet approachable. A intricate palate begins with bright cherry pie and develops into a bold and long-lasting finish of ripe red currants. Try pairing with Swiss chard with a balsamic reduction. Overall this is a very well-made wine.
@jrs429@rjquillin Jordan is the genius whiskey maker behind the outrageously good whiskeys from bespoken spirits and is a long-time experienced winelover. Since we got plugged into this spot sort of at the last minute, I asked Jordan and Scott Harvey to post reviews because they already had bottles, which I’ll replace. Thanks to both!
I’ve been curious about Saint Laurent for a while now, so this is exciting. I’m in for a three pack, unless some PDX folks want to split-- I could take 1/3 of a case
Oh, humbug. I’m not supposed to be buying any wine, but I’ve managed to consume all of my previous Saint Laurent purchases. Any South Dakota/Twin Cities folk up for a split?
While Clark’s wines are always an auto-buy for me, my wife and I opened a bottle of the 2014 Saint Laurent tonight just to get an idea of what this might be like. Oh my. If this is anywhere near as good, let alone better, it’s an absolute no-brainer. In for a case.
@linkx22 I can do 3, maybe 4 bottles max. Overflowing cellar, not enough money, etc. - but I am a fan of St. Laurent and other common eastern European grape varieties.
Sorry for the late review. Been a hectic few days around here.
Got the golden ticket and waited with baited breath for the men in brown to bring me the Christmas in July present.
Imagine my excitement to see a bottle of Winesmith, and a grape I was not at all familiar with. Upon reflection, this might be my new favorite thing. An unknown grape from a trusted winemaker.
On to the wine. I would mostly agree with the other reviews. Dark in color, would not have guessed Pinot, but both the person I was tasting with and I were putting this in the. ‘Delicious in ways that are tough to describe’ category.
Definitely dark ruby color. Cherry for sure. Good balance between acid and snotty tannins. Improved over the first hour. I suspect that means it’ll gain complexity for a while yet, but it could just have been settling down after a long hot day in the brown oven of doom.
All in all we decided that this would be a heck of a bargain in the $20 range, so the case price seems like a no brainer if you have the space.
It’s funny someone mentioned Thanksgiving, because we had an actual conversation about whether this or the Cinsault would be the more perfect thanksgiving meal wine.
I am tempted to order a 3-pack. But the thought of it spending the last day (I’m at about the end of the route) getting here in the back of a brown truck in the near-100 degree heat we are having gives me pause.
@jmruru is there any way to know? I know sometimes there were emails or insert cards and I forgot (until they expired). I know I used my pastadrop already for wine.
What can I say except that I will probably regret splitting my case 3 ways? @winedavid49, any chance we’re going to see more @winesmith Meritage (or its twin, Aspects) around here again?
@Winedavid49@winesmith My “town” is a lovely, isolated, coastal town whose population swells during the summer. Unfortunately I don’t want to share my stash with the tourists and my one full time neighbor does not drink alchohol. Go figure.
@danandlisa@smtcapecod I’m a Codder! The strange town over the Southern bridge that people don’t visit unless heading to the Island Queen or want to visit the finest ocean science institution in the world.
@jiltant me too… but what are you gonna do? Drive to their tasting room or wherever in sebestapol and be like pretty please will you sell me wine cheaper than the already discount wine site online… I feel like a decent price search of the internet is the best you can do. We have a small wine shop I trust in sac but other than that bevmo or total wine is just basically a comp to internet prices
Turns out it shipped from Petaluma, haha.This was my first time ordering from casemates, so I was wondering if would do something absurd like bounce to Texas or some other central “wine clearing house” far away and then turn around and come right back, suffering the heat of transit the whole way. Nope, seems to be coming from close to the source, which is great.
2015 Winesmith St Laurent Ricci Vineyard
Late to the game here. Trying to keep up with life and a 3 week old baby is rough…
PnP. 64F. Riedel Burg glasses. Color is dark garnet in color, quite clear. Nose is vibrant and jumping out of the glass right away with lean strawberry and fresh blackberry. Palate is nicely balanced, solid streak of acidity carries from front to back with cranberry, strawberry, and an woody/pine underpinning thats a little hard to place. Low tannin, quite soft. First impression is this is a fun fruity wine that has great balance and will be a nice food wine. Low alc makes it quite quaffable. Decent length on the finish, but not even a touch of tannin for “chew”, so that is the only miss for me.
Wife quite liked this and we both would compare it to a Cali style pinot, but with more fruit and a bit more acid.
Day2, 24 hours since open, stored under gas at 60F. Nose is now showing more of a blueberry and raspberry. Still good balance and delicious, but some of the fruit has definitely faded from day 1. Had with burgers, which admittedly was a bad pairing choie, but it’s what we had. Next time would pair with a meaty red sauce and pasta.
We preferred Day 1, so my recommendation would be to pop it open and consume on the first night. That shouldn’t be a problem as it goes down quite easily! Definitely well worth the price tag here and a great chance to widen your palate with a lesser known varietal. Fence sitters should hop.
Had a bottle of this the other night with dinner. It was enjoyed by all, definitely reminiscent of a Pinot but also definitely distinct. Definitely worth having in your cellar.
2015 WineSmith Saint Laurent, Ricci Vineyard, Carneros, Sonoma County
Tasting Notes
Vineyard Location:
Fermentation techniques:
Elevage details:
Included in the Box
Price Comparison
$371.42 per Case at WineSmith Cellars for the 2015 WineSmith Saint Laurent, Ricci Vineyard, Carneros, Sonoma County
About The Winery
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Estimated Delivery
Friday, August 7th - Monday, August 10th
WineSmith Cellars Saint Laurent
3 bottles for $69.99 $23.33/bottle + $2.67/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $219.99 $18.33/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
2015 WineSmith Cellars Saint Laurent
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: Tax & Shipping not included in savings calculations)
2015 WineSmith Cellars Saint Laurent - $60 = 21.42%
WineSmith + intriguing wine that I’ve never had =
/giphy upbeat-quickest-sand
@winesmith
How does this compare to the '13 and '14 vintages?
And congrats, not a Friday only deal.
@rjquillin
Good question. Our style has evolved quite a bit. We began in 2013 by conventional vinification, aging in old oak and stirring lees. This wine is now coming into its own, but lacked much aromatics for a long time and we learned that these tannins had no need for softening. The wine is pretty complex now, but isn’t very bright and fruity and lacked richness.
In 2014, we again vinified conventionally but did not stir lees. I noticed that year a small amount of mildew inside the cluster tips which was hidden until we crushed. The wine was an improvement in terms of richness and expression but the botrytis enzymes attached the color a little bit.
For 2015, I decided I wanted more brightness in the aromas and employed flash detente on 50% of the fruit. The effect is a richer, cleaner, fruitier wine.
It’s a pretty cool gizmo. Flash Detente is new in the USA but was developed in France in the 1980s and is now a standard practice for perhaps 20% of the world’s wine.
We liked the results so much that subsequent vintages are 100% flashed.
Here’s the geeky explanation (sorry, feel free to skip). In this process (Chapter 19 in Postmodern Winemaking), grapes are crushed and immediately heated to 180˚F, then placed in a vacuum chamber which flashes off 10% of the water, cooling the juice to 60˚F and exploding the berry so all skin tannins, color and flavor are extracted. In addition to color enhancement, pyrazines (bell pepper) are stripped away.
The fruity amyllic esters your see in Nouveau Beaujolais are preserved by denaturing the enzymes that normally cleave them.
Any mildew fungi are killed, the browning laccase enzymes are denatured and any moldy aromas vacuumed off, so the wines are very clean, bright and fruity.
@rjquillin @winesmith
Not to be so skeptical, but flash detente?? That sounds suspiciously like pasteurizing the grapes/juice the same way they make kosher mevushal wines. An interesting and complex example of which I have never seen. How does flash pasteurizing like this not have a significant negative effect on the aromatics? Also, 20% of the world’s wine uses this method??
FWIW, I was a big fan of the 2013 and less so the 2014 of these.
@klezman @rjquillin This is the weird part. Flash detente was ignored by UC Davis, when considered at all, for this very reason. This is what happens when you let theory and mind experiments preclude real world trials. That’s largely what my book is about. Less theory, more real world observation.
I too was concerned with aromatic loss, but it turns out that most varietal characteristics are bound as glucosides and are only volatilized during fermentation.
Believe me, I wouldn’t have pursued this strategy if it wasn’t working. It’s now broadly accepted in the US and growing rapidly.
Flash was not involved in either the 2013 or 2014.
Flash detente has nothing to do with kosher pasteurization of wine, which is a tricky business, often done well by those skilled in the art, but just as often bungled by ignorant rabbis who oversee the process.
@rjquillin @winesmith
Being an organic chemist, this is a truly amazing write-up. I generally think of pyrazines (from an SAR standpoint we usually go from a pyridine to a pyramidine to pyrazine) as structural modifications we use in medicinal chemistry to modulate a potential therapeutic drug’s physiochemical properties, kinase selectivity profile, PK profile, etc. You name it, the position of a N can have huge effects! Esters on the other hand are usually introduced as a way to design a soft-drug or a pro-drug. Cheers!
@rjquillin @Turner103200 Us dumb-ass enologists just think pyrazines are vegie and esters are fruity.
@rjquillin @winesmith
Ha! It’s all chemistry!
Being a scientist, hearing wine making described on such a level of detail is truly remarkable, IMHO. I will certainly tune-in to watch your cooking shows! Cheers!
@rjquillin We are down to 2 bottles each of the '13 and '14 that are cached away. Both are excellent, and I’m tempted to open up one this evening.
No hesitation on recommending the latest iteration from Clark based on the prior vintages. This newest style sounds intriguing!
@rjquillin @winesmith Oh, I know you are a wine engineer more than anything else (in the sense that you devise practical ways to get high quality results, always based on science). That’s why I was so surprised to see flash detente come up.
I might need to borrow Ron’s copy of PMW to read your thoughts on it more fully.
I read that flash detente has replaced old school pasteurization for some kosher mevushal wines, but I hadn’t noticed an uptick in quality to go with it (not that I drink much kosher wine, doubly so mevushal).
So let’s see if I understand - because the esters and other aromatic/flavour compounds are mostly bound to other larger molecules (e.g. sugars) they don’t volatilize at 180°F, or at least not in the few seconds the grapes are held at that temperature. Then the rapid depressurization preferentially evaporates water over other compounds, so even if you’re losing some aromatic or flavour compounds, the 10% water loss more than compensates for any loss of “interesting” compounds. (Also it seems like you could then run the condensate through a cooling loop and cool another fermentation tank with it!)
@klezman @rjquillin That’s the gist. There is surprisingly little aromatic loss except for pyrazines and in the case of muscat and riesling, some terpenes (not a lot, as they are mostly bound glycosides). Amyllic esters pre-exist in most grapes and are broken down by esterases in conventional vinifications but preserved in Flask and in carbonic macerations. Other esters are created by yeasts during fermentation.
The condensate energy is used to preheat the must so the process is very energy efficient.
@rjquillin @winesmith Nice!
I took a quick look but I couldn’t identify the compounds that you’re referring to as “amyllic esters”. I’ve seen references to them, but no single compound or group of molecules that are identified as such.
I am certainly curious to try these. See how the FD worked on the wine and if I can figure out that note of it that Scott described in his report.
@klezman @rjquillin Amyl acetate is banana/pear/apple. amyl propionate is apricot. Amyl butyrate is pineaple/cherry/tropical.
@rjquillin @winesmith Oh cool. Why can’t organic chemistry people just settle on one name? Pentyl esters, or even better, n-pentanol esters, would be simpler!
@klezman @rjquillin As you know, standardized names, which are great for laying out the precise structure, do not ring to the experienced chemist’s ear. Fortunately we can easily google up any name and get all its alternative nicknames and the scientific name in seconds, so what the heck. I didn’t give a complete list, and isoamyl esters are more prevalent, so they’re really 3-methyl butanyl esters. Isoamyl is easier on my ear.
God, we must be boring our betters.
@klezman @rjquillin @winesmith WineSmith Thank you for continuing to bring your amazing wines and your participation. I always learn something besides tasting your incredible vision.
@rjquillin @winesmith yeah the old names stick around forever. The quick searches I did before didn’t turn up anything quickly, but the more detailed ones certainly do!
I wonder why so many fruit flavours and aromas are isoamyl esters. (And strangely, Swype decided that isopentyl should be rendered isoamyl.)
@danandlisa @klezman @rjquillin Thanks so much. I hope you an put yourself in my shoes. Like any serious artist, I want to play outside the commercial box and find my own commercial-free blue ocean where I can experiment. My values include wines of affordable profundity, Eurocentric balance and graceful longevity as well as complete transparency. I like to make seemingly impossible wines which, when they succeed, instruct the winemaking world about new possibilities.
Always expect a message in the bottle. Can you imagine how much I treasure this one single forum I which I can describe my vision and earn your trust? I am indeed blessed to be related to this unique community that will take a chance, go along with a gag, or jump from a cliff on my say-so and come up laughing. Who wouldn’t want that?
WineDavid took a big chance on this offering. If you guys come in strongly, I will be able to offer subsequent vintages as we continue to refine our technique. With sushi and paella restaurants shut down, there really is no other platform where I can move such an unknown variety. Buy now and I’m sure later vintage releases will be supported by Casemates and I can offer these great prices.
@winesmith
We have drunk through all of our Winesmith St. Laurent, so in for yet another case of your wines, Clark! I remember the chemistry lecture you gave at our tasting after Shannon innocently asked “What is flash detente?” Talk about a softball lobbed right over the plate, and you were happy to take a big swing, lol!
@klezman @rjquillin The really strange thing is that the ethyl esters like ethyl butyrate smell so wonderful while butyric acid itself is the most repulsive smell imaginable.
@wnance Yes, I do carry on, don’t I. I hope she has recovered since.
Greetings, gang. This is one of my more interesting projects and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.
Many of you may not have heard of St. Laurent. A descendant of Pinot Noir and the father of Zweigelt, This grape is widely planted in Austria and is the principal red grape of the Czech Republic, where it is known by its German name, Sankt Laurent. It matures very early, resulting low alcohol (11.8%) and palate-cleansing acidity ideal for seafood and best served with a slight chill. (60˚F/15.5˚C)
Our St. Laurent really is like no other wine. You will find extremely dense, soft tannins supporting generous mulberry fruit. The wine is more complex and intriguing than a simple picnic wine. Its tannins have no edge at all, so it handles bright acidity with grace, a perfect wine for seafood, unlike most reds. In fact, if you close your eyes, you might think you’re drinking a fine rich white Sancerre.
I did a whole series on Seafood and St. Laurent for my Youtube cooking show, Gracious Living in the Time of Corona.
The series includes How to shop for seafood, Ordering take-out sushi by phone, shopping for and shucking halfshell oysters and a couple paella recipes.
@winesmith Thank you for showing up now. I like the previous versions of St Laurent that I’ve had, and bought six bottles of this one on the expectation that it was the minimum amount.
It’s such a sad time for so many, and this wine is just a moment of pure bliss. Thank you, again.
Stay safe, stay well.
I just started watching the video and i am super intrigued just by the phrase “the tannins have pajamas on them.” can’t think of a better line in these discussions ever!
Also I couldn’t figure out why a new wine offer was already up, it’s still twilight here in the Northwest. then I realized I am back on PDT and I forgot the offers change at midnight East time, where I had been for the last half-year. And also in pajamas a large part of that time.
@pmarin The French term is tanin enrobé - enrobed or dressed tannin. I came up with the PJ explanation for this type of tannin.
The idea is that each monomer (single building block) in a simple phenolic polymer (daisy chain) in a red wine has a weak (hydrogen bond) attraction to an amino acid in a protein chain. When the chain gets long enough, these act like a zipper (cooperative binding) and cause a grainy, sandpaper-like precipitate we call astringency or harshness.
If we can coat the polymer with something (perhaps some starch or peptide), it gets in the way of the cooperative binding and the wine is soft and rich. I often accomplish this with micro-oxygenation, but St. Laurent somehow does it all by itself.
@pmarin @winesmith great explanation - I think I just earned a unit of chemistry.
Yep.
/giphy hot-unsightly-leather
Let’s see…Resistance Is Futile…WineSmith which Of Courses is an AutoBuy in this House, Saint Laurent: No-Brainer!! We’er in for a case, thanks Clark & Ruth-E. You always continue to deliver QPR & Out-Standing wines!! >>resolute-mischievous-head
**Not A Payed Sportsperson…Just a Lover of His Wines!!
PS: What were we drinking tonight… A WineSmith Meritage!!..So the Universe dose make sense:
Live Long And Prosper…
@PLSemenza Which Meritage? The '13 Lake County or the '14 Humboldt Roman Reserve?
@winesmith We enjoyed the 2013 Lake County with a couple of Flannery dry aged New Yours. Still have 2 left, between the last 2007 Crucible and a few 2013 Victory’s, as you can see it’s keeping good company.
)
As always WineSmith & Double Diamond, oops Two Jakes of Dimonds are Auto-Buys with us!!
(Hi Ruth-E
I’m super intrigued here. His Cab Franc (Two Jakes) blew my mind. Looking forward to some rattage here as I need something brought down about 200 levels to my base level understanding. Though I did pretend to follow along on the chemistry discussion above before mumbling nerds to myself and scrolling down.
@pete0744 lol
Do we have a sense of how long something like this cellars?
@pete0744 That’s a good question. I think it depends on what you want. In general, the low alcohol and fine structure bode well for aging in the sense that this wine is not going to oxidize or fall a part for a long time. The 2013 is holding up well and presenting some interesting tertiary notes. As always, the trade-off will be fruit in youth vs complexity in age. Those amyllic esters I spoke of are likely to cleave over time in trade for some bottle bouquet.
I love “interesting projects”!
/giphy roomy-minimum-basket
@mwfielder … I think that’s a bit more than a minimum basket…
@mwfielder @pmarin
Just barely a minimum, considering the contents.
@pmarin Yes, if there was a giphy contest–I won!
And what do you know—I first tasted it at the final dinner at the last RPM tour. It popped up on my timehop today. (And you can see Adam “@mother” and my wife Hazel “@texashaze” to the right)
@mwfielder well @texasHaze looks lovely…can’t say the same for the other
Probably against the rules to post a pro review of a WineSmith wine…however…
From Beverage Tasting Institute (tastings.com)
WineSmith
Date Tasted: 7/11/2019, Alcohol: 11.8%
92 Points
Gold Medal, Exceptional, $40
Garnet black color. Aromas and flavors of smoked meat, grilled berries, charcoal, and chocolate with a supple, bright, dry-yet-fruity medium-to-full body and a delightful, medium-long finish with touches of sour cherry pit, sandalwood, and slate with crunchy tannins. A very distinctively savory and smoky earthy Austrian red with a California twist.
http://www.tastings.com/Wine-Review/WineSmith-2015-Ricci-Vineyards-St-Laurent-Carneros-USA-08-18-2019.aspx
And another write-up that contains a little blurb on this wine, Dan Berger, For The Press Democrat,September 4, 2018
“…Discovery of the Week: 2015 WineSmith St. Laurent, Carneros, Ricci Vineyard ($40): I have never had a wine quite like this. The St. Laurent grape may be related to pinot noir, but is darker in color, so you’ll suspect it’s going to be tannic. It isn’t.
The aroma is like fresh blueberries and wild plums, and the wine’s intense fruit is offset by generous, softer tannins. Best served slightly chilled.”
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/lifestyle/berger-on-wine-clark-smith-a-daring-wine-innovator/?sba=AAS
fwiw
@kaolis Thanks for digging these out. I think both of these characterizations are pretty accurate.
Couldn’t wait for rats. In for a case. Anyone in Chicagoland wants a couple bottles LMK.
@pete0744
I’d take 3-4 if we could manage to find each other. I live in River North, work in Skokie.
Hi Everyone. I always have some of this wine in my cellar. So, Clark called me up and asked me to Labrat the wine a week ago. This was my last bottle, so I’ll be ordering more on Casemates. Always the best price.
I opened the wine with my assistant winemaker "Molly Haycock’ around ten in the morning. Our notes are as follows;
Nose
Medium to dark color, no browning, brilliant red. Boysenberry, Mulberry to Blueberry, clean, fresh spicy red fruit, warm cinnamon, no heat or SO2, light leather, forest floor, damp cedar and not overly jammy. Light to medium oak. Fruit and spice are the primary notes.
Taste
Bright red fruit and white pepper on the front palate. Light to medium body, nice astringency on the mid palate with fresh cranberry. Makes me think of Thanksgiving. Light balanced juicy flash Detente character. Skin extraction without any bitterness. Well balanced acidity. The wine has smooth a transitional vinous nose to the front palate fallowing through to the mid palate, back palate and long finish. A wine that is complete from beginning to finish. Just enough astringency on the finish to make the wine finish dry and create thirst for more.
Corked the wine to have with dinner later that day.
Jana and I cooked Halibut with a butter caper sauce.
The bright red fruit holds up well. White pepper showing through with blueberry on the palate. Good acidity cuts the butter sauce to make the next bit of halibut taste like the first bit. There is an ongoing spicy tantalization.
1/2 hour after dinner.
Nice red licorice character, great mouthfeel and refreshing. Good ripe strawberry flavor on the finish.
Finished the bottle and need more!
@ScottHarveyWine Funny you should mention ‘Makes me think of Thanksgiving’.
Some of what I’m seeing written about this wine makes me think of the Onesta Cinsault wine that’s been offered here a couple times, which was often stated to be a good match for food items typically served during Thanksgiving.
I’ve already got my order in for this, Winesmith is an auto-buy for me!
@nklb @ScottHarveyWine Yes, I was taken by this comment also. It does have the flavor, spice and acidity of cranberry sauce.
@ScottHarveyWine Thank you for chiming in. Love the ending notes.
Dense ruby color. On the nose, spiced strawberry jam dominates with puréed apple and crushed violets supporting. This is a lighter red but the texture is still complex yet approachable. A intricate palate begins with bright cherry pie and develops into a bold and long-lasting finish of ripe red currants. Try pairing with Swiss chard with a balsamic reduction. Overall this is a very well-made wine.
@jrs429 @rjquillin Jordan is the genius whiskey maker behind the outrageously good whiskeys from bespoken spirits and is a long-time experienced winelover. Since we got plugged into this spot sort of at the last minute, I asked Jordan and Scott Harvey to post reviews because they already had bottles, which I’ll replace. Thanks to both!
@rjquillin @winesmith Thank you!
@jrs429 Nice report - thanks
I’ve been curious about Saint Laurent for a while now, so this is exciting. I’m in for a three pack, unless some PDX folks want to split-- I could take 1/3 of a case
@LambruscoKid PDX here (Camas WA actually) was about to order a case would be glad to split 1/3.
EDIT ordered
in case you are interested PDX “whisper” me
/giphy young-vacant-match
@pmarin Awesome, thanks for taking the lead!
POKER! JOKER! NOT MEDIOCRE! AWESOME!
Oh, humbug. I’m not supposed to be buying any wine, but I’ve managed to consume all of my previous Saint Laurent purchases. Any South Dakota/Twin Cities folk up for a split?
@coynedj By the way, I’d prefer a three-way split. Four bottles would be plenty enough for me. Even three would be fine.
was about to order. did not see anything regarding two day summer shipping.
@louas Standard for the moment…
But processing time precedes shipment.
@rjquillin grazie!!
@louas Yes, 2 day shipping still in place.
If anyone in NE OH is buying, I am good for 2-4 bottles.
/giphy cagey-ugliest-taste
I was sold after watching Clark’s video. I learned so much in that 11 minutes! (especially that this wine’s tannins have pajamas on them!).
Yall convinced me
/giphy edgy-pervasive-throne
Iowa split(s)?
@Kildahl Where in Iowa? I’m in South Dakota, but not far from the northwest corner of Iowa.
Compared to the prior vintages I enjoy this one better because of the flash detente. And the prior vintages are quite good!
@Twich22 Yes, I think we’re making progress. This one was 50% FD. In 2018, we went 100%. It’s even better.
While Clark’s wines are always an auto-buy for me, my wife and I opened a bottle of the 2014 Saint Laurent tonight just to get an idea of what this might be like. Oh my. If this is anywhere near as good, let alone better, it’s an absolute no-brainer. In for a case.
So what’s going on in SoCal with this offer?
@klezman want to go in with half?
@linkx22 I can do 3, maybe 4 bottles max. Overflowing cellar, not enough money, etc. - but I am a fan of St. Laurent and other common eastern European grape varieties.
@klezman That sounds good enough to me. I’ll get a case now
@klezman @linkx22
I’ll take the remaining 2 (or 3 if Klez only wants the 3).
/giphy bodacious-striped-ape
Sorry for the late review. Been a hectic few days around here.
Got the golden ticket and waited with baited breath for the men in brown to bring me the Christmas in July present.
Imagine my excitement to see a bottle of Winesmith, and a grape I was not at all familiar with. Upon reflection, this might be my new favorite thing. An unknown grape from a trusted winemaker.
On to the wine. I would mostly agree with the other reviews. Dark in color, would not have guessed Pinot, but both the person I was tasting with and I were putting this in the. ‘Delicious in ways that are tough to describe’ category.
Definitely dark ruby color. Cherry for sure. Good balance between acid and snotty tannins. Improved over the first hour. I suspect that means it’ll gain complexity for a while yet, but it could just have been settling down after a long hot day in the brown oven of doom.
All in all we decided that this would be a heck of a bargain in the $20 range, so the case price seems like a no brainer if you have the space.
It’s funny someone mentioned Thanksgiving, because we had an actual conversation about whether this or the Cinsault would be the more perfect thanksgiving meal wine.
All in all, a really nice bottle.
@cbrehman Thank you for the report. Just my 2 cents, but for Thanksgiving, I would suggest both.
@WCCWineGirl I like the way you think!
You’re killin’ me Clark…
Your video sent me over the edge.
And, I’ve gotta watch your Youtube channel, “Winesmith1”
@FritzCat Hey, I hope you’ll subscribe. I’ve gotta get my numbers up so Youtube will be nice to me.
@winesmith I did.
@FritzCat Gracias!
@FritzCat @winesmith
Subscribed!
Case ordered! /giphy unzipped-condemned-trade
@bunnymasseuse trying to fix
/giphy unzipped-condemned-trade
I am tempted to order a 3-pack. But the thought of it spending the last day (I’m at about the end of the route) getting here in the back of a brown truck in the near-100 degree heat we are having gives me pause.
Always missed Clark’s offerings somehow, going all the way back to the WW days. Finally got one! /giphy easy-powdery-soda
@lurking_grue giphy wants to be on a new line; i’ll fix it for ya
/giphy easy-powdery-soda
@pmarin Thanks!
The real question, Casemates, is do I have any coupons left?
@jmruru is there any way to know? I know sometimes there were emails or insert cards and I forgot (until they expired). I know I used my pastadrop already for wine.
What can I say except that I will probably regret splitting my case 3 ways? @winedavid49, any chance we’re going to see more @winesmith Meritage (or its twin, Aspects) around here again?
@KitMarlot I’m on the job!
@KitMarlot Rest assured, there will be further temptations.
@Winedavid49 @winesmith Please wait a bit. My husband is about to suspend my wine buying purchases due to too much wine and no more room.
@danandlisa @Winedavid49 The solution is obvious. Drink more wine. Social distance with the neighbors. Increase your popularity.
@Winedavid49 @winesmith My “town” is a lovely, isolated, coastal town whose population swells during the summer. Unfortunately I don’t want to share my stash with the tourists and my one full time neighbor does not drink alchohol. Go figure.
@danandlisa
Hm, Cape Cod?
@smtcapecod The left coast.Otter Rock Oregon. Winter population 147. Summer population 3,000 plus. Love my purchase. Wish I bought 2 cases.
@danandlisa @smtcapecod I’m a Codder! The strange town over the Southern bridge that people don’t visit unless heading to the Island Queen or want to visit the finest ocean science institution in the world.
Serious question… Is it silly to buy this through Casemates if I live a couple hours from Sonoma? It’s still a pretty good deal…
@jiltant me too… but what are you gonna do? Drive to their tasting room or wherever in sebestapol and be like pretty please will you sell me wine cheaper than the already discount wine site online… I feel like a decent price search of the internet is the best you can do. We have a small wine shop I trust in sac but other than that bevmo or total wine is just basically a comp to internet prices
@jontemple Yeah, I mean… I ended up going for it anyways, so if i still feel silly when it gets here, it’s all on me now…
I’m looking forward to it, though, and truthfully I don’t particularly trust any of the wine shops around here… a little west of sac.
@jiltant if you come to sac check out beyond napa… Matthew is amazing fabulous selection he wi help you find a bottle or bottles you love
@jontemple Nice, thanks for the tip!
Turns out it shipped from Petaluma, haha.This was my first time ordering from casemates, so I was wondering if would do something absurd like bounce to Texas or some other central “wine clearing house” far away and then turn around and come right back, suffering the heat of transit the whole way. Nope, seems to be coming from close to the source, which is great.
@jiltant aw thanks for the update. Good to know they seem to pick direct shipping routes
It sooooo hot in Florida, I need some wine…
/giphy dingy-fanatical-shark
@jaxboating I do recommend you put a slight chill on this stuff. It’s the perfect summer red!
2015 Winesmith St Laurent Ricci Vineyard
Late to the game here. Trying to keep up with life and a 3 week old baby is rough…
PnP. 64F. Riedel Burg glasses. Color is dark garnet in color, quite clear. Nose is vibrant and jumping out of the glass right away with lean strawberry and fresh blackberry. Palate is nicely balanced, solid streak of acidity carries from front to back with cranberry, strawberry, and an woody/pine underpinning thats a little hard to place. Low tannin, quite soft. First impression is this is a fun fruity wine that has great balance and will be a nice food wine. Low alc makes it quite quaffable. Decent length on the finish, but not even a touch of tannin for “chew”, so that is the only miss for me.
Wife quite liked this and we both would compare it to a Cali style pinot, but with more fruit and a bit more acid.
Day2, 24 hours since open, stored under gas at 60F. Nose is now showing more of a blueberry and raspberry. Still good balance and delicious, but some of the fruit has definitely faded from day 1. Had with burgers, which admittedly was a bad pairing choie, but it’s what we had. Next time would pair with a meaty red sauce and pasta.
We preferred Day 1, so my recommendation would be to pop it open and consume on the first night. That shouldn’t be a problem as it goes down quite easily! Definitely well worth the price tag here and a great chance to widen your palate with a lesser known varietal. Fence sitters should hop.
@trifecta congrats on the baby!
/giphy neanderthal-flirty-curve
For posterity… This is an absolute stunner. Great summer drinker. Should have bought two cases.
@pete0744 @winesmith
Call them up, or visit the site.
They’re not bashful about selling refills.
It’s true. Call Sandra at 707-332-0056 M-F 9AM-4PM PDT and we’ll give you the same deal as long as we have stock.
Had a bottle of this the other night with dinner. It was enjoyed by all, definitely reminiscent of a Pinot but also definitely distinct. Definitely worth having in your cellar.