Weijie Shi (Jay)

9.3

Top quality Marlborough Pinot. Big structure and beautiful balance. Smooth like feather. Still young. — 7 years ago

David Kline

9.2

Baby, it’s cold outside. Falling near 70! The stouts are out! This sleek black beauty has it all! Thick, even lacing in two tone cafe shades, a cumulus attitude. Clean almond and cacao pod with a lemon pith aura. Bee pollen, waterfall rocks and northern oyster shell, including a light brine. Medium mouthfeel and soft minerality prevailas sips reduce the lace to alphabet soup fonts and ultimately horror forests. Unexpectedly clean, with coffee-cola notes and caramelized onion minus the burn. Crispy vanilla that turns creamy with agitation. Steely, smoky, pepper crackers, and bitter violets. #boulevardbrewing #darktruth #kcbeer #stout #dankdark — 7 years ago

with Courtney

Andy Wigginton

9.1

Loads of complexity! Nice boisenberry and cherry along with sambuca (that's right) and brownie, with a suggestion of, perhaps green bean. Tip of the cap to one of Livermore's best. Could go another 2 years... — 8 years ago

Juan Menendez

9.4

Gorgeous. Just gorgeous. — 8 years ago

Matt Perlman

9.6

Stunning wine, feather light, mellowed fruit and northern Rhone savory elements (pepper, licorice, herbs, smoked meat). All about treble — 9 years ago

Justin Gilman CSW, CSS

9.3

Love this #Chinon. Ready to drink now!

Light color and beginning to brick. Watery hue. The nose is very green pepper upon opening and blows off to a stemmy, wet leaf. Lots of pink rose aromas and potpourri.

Flavor has lots of Ranier cherry. Fine and clean. Watery consistency. The acid is diminishing and tannins are falling off. The finish leaves a sense of roses. Opened 1/15/16 — 9 years ago

Christine Havens

9.8

Tasted with awe and much contemplation, the 1990 Margaux was one of the crowning jewels at my last tasting in Carmel, a parting gift opened the evening before my move to Portland. Garnet-robed with no bricking, this bottle was fresh and vibrant with pronounced aromas of forest floor, leather, earth, plums, black cherries, sandalwood, roses and dried spearmint. On the palate, ethereal lightness, with fine-boned tannins and infinitely evolving complexity. Velvety from start to finish, save for a dash of minerality at the close, rather like throwing oneself into a an impossibly soft, luxurious feather bed. — 10 years ago

with John

Mark Salinas

Owner World and Wine Getaways

9.3

Slight pink hue in the glass. Hint of spice and citrus on the palette. Not high on acidity on the finish and goes down smooth. Nice wine to go with a picnic lunch and my beautiful wife on a perfect Monday afternoon. — 10 years ago

with Tina

Adrian Bryksa

Blogger YYCWine.com, Contributor Culinaire

9.6

2005 vtg. Superb notes of dried plum, garrique, licorice. Tannins falling out here, drink up. Liquid art! — 11 years ago

Jason Adams

9.7

Very nice but falling apart on day three — 11 years ago

Tom Kobylarz

9.2

Girolamo Russo “a’Rina” 2016 Etna Rosso 🇮🇹 $25
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Nerello Mascalese (94%) and Nerello Cappuccio are the yin and yang of red grapes that grow exceedingly well in the wild and high altitude clime atop the Sicilian volcano #MountEtna.
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A hell of a bargain at about $25 as this crushes most Bourgogne/Hautes-Cotes under $50 and would give pricier versions a run for their money. It is also more complex now and ready to consume when compared to many similarly priced, well made “Langhe” Nebbiolo wines. From the @coravin this was ready to go and opened up well with 10-15 minutes in the glass.
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A youthful medium ruby color, fairly transparent. The nose suggests to me a red Burgundy, possibly a Beaune or Chassagne-Montrachet red from the wildness of the Etna character. A deep underpinning of rocky minerality, hints of ash, rose petal and purple florals, with dabs of red cherry and red plum fruit, sweet spices with hints of old leather jacket and unsmoked pipe tobacco. The palate is juicy and fresh, with refined, silky, ripe tannin that are youthfully firm. Excellent density and persistence, but light as a feather. Medium+ on the finish.
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Etna red wines are commonly described as having similarities to nebbiolo from Piedmonte and pinot noir from Burgundy. There are for sure some similarities, but make no mistake that Etna wines, when made well, refract the wild and volcanic Etna terroir well and are genuine in their own right. •
The complex volcanic soils of Etna, combined with some of the highest elevations for vineyards in Europe at 3,000+ feet, can produce wines with immense complexity and freshness. A sense if refinement comes across in the density without excessive weight, allowing for transparency of terroir. Most vines are trained in the traditional bush-vine method, which works well in the rocky soils that see a lot of wind and sunlight at these high altitudes.
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#GirolamoRusso #aRina #NerelloMascalese #NerelloCappuccio #EtnaRosso #Sicily #Italy #GiuseppeRusso #coravin #winesolutions #wine #winelover #somm #sommelier #instawine #wineporn #naturalwine #vinnaturel #winegasm #winegeek #vin #vino #vinos #vinhos #wein #ilovewine #winetasting #winetime — 7 years ago

Jay McNair

8.9

Delicious in the cold barn by the vineyard tasting room, rain falling outside, they brought us hearth rugs. Tasted like the Iraqw once-upon-a-time: "I remember something that our father told me..." — 8 years ago

Christopher Bates

Master Sommelier, Owner/Winemaker Element Winery

9.4

1959- started a bit muted, but structure continued to build and shined for about an hour before falling off. — 9 years ago

Gae Saccoccio - NdC

9.6

Really complicated on these so suspect days, expose themselves with concepts such as: tradition, terroir, identity without falling into the most sinister rhetoric if not sounds just trite and hypocritical as the counterfeit currency with which even large-scale industries - supported by marketing - pays back its inattentive mass audience riding the wave of the country of origin or protected typicality. A diabolical mechanism this one for which even the most noble ideas probably the right practices and good experiences completed in the scale of centuries to human measure and not on massive industrial scale, are trivialized by sleazy slogan, emptied of meaning to be more or less surreptitious thanks to barbaric persuasion techniques and brain-washing propaganda.
Yet with the Valentini's Trebbiano you may not groped to summarize in words if not by drawing on terms so appropriate to express it. Now concerning this iconic label we've got behind it a local grape variety, a real family and a great wine that collect in a bottle the past and present story of a side of Abruzzo who claims to defeats victories and sacrifices to dominate the abuses (on and of) nature, miseries and splendours of agricultural seasons. Places, people, vision, wines such as Valentini are here to remind us how each bottle stay so proudly standing as non-reproducible beauty and fermented goodness expressing all its artisanal uniqueness and authenticity which are just that suspect to industrial wine production in manufacturing chains on standardized quantities; wines that are all equal to themselves even though wine itself is not much left at the end of the day/cycle. Trebbiano d'Abruzzo Valentini 1998 is what we have to rate right now: rusticity with class; style, purity and glory of a local grape recognized by many admirers from all over the world: act local think global this is another slogan-cliché which in this specific Valentini's wine exemple could sounds a little less false and more effective. — 9 years ago

with Alberto and Giovanni

Kristian Uhrskov

9.5

Really Nice Stuff - from napa cab. King randy dunn 👍
— 10 years ago

Ryan Mullins

9.4

Big classic and built for the cellar — 10 years ago

Doug Burress

Sales K&L Wines

9.3

The sister to Friday's "Steak and Claret Night" is now Monday's "Martini Night." The Terroir is just that... Like falling face first into the undergrowth of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Pine, flowers, earth. Yum! — 10 years ago

Andrew Lampasone

Owner Wine Watch Selections

9.1

A blend of 67 CS 28% Syrah 5 PV this is made by Gilles nicault who is the winemaker who works will all the celebrity winemakers the fruit is from candy mountain and red mountain this wine has a good punt of dark cherry fruit blackberry fruit with dark chocolate and a good amount of earth loamy notes nice complexity on the nose. A thick and chewy wine on the tongue with ripe round tannins very balanced a bigger wine than the feather but just as nuanced. Finish 45+. Excellent+ — 11 years ago

S Shaw

10

Best petite sirah I ever ever tasted — 12 years ago

Tobin Trevarthen

9.2

Opened tight, but blossomed into a lovely cab, with Big bing cherry, hints of brown sugar. — 7 years ago

Michael Seely

9.4

2007. 1.5 liter. Excellent — 7 years ago

with Joe

Rob Moose

9.3

Clutch pickup from Winfield Flynn. Broad shouldered and delicious. Falling for Chenin at Reservoir. — 8 years ago

Jeff Loo

8.9

Definitely over the hill but not quite through the woods. Enjoyable for a foreseeable 30 minutes before falling apart. Tired leather notes with decaying fruit and turned earth gone the other way complemented by tomato stew. — 8 years ago

with Arp

Scorewine

Wine writer http://www.israelwines.co.il

8.9

A lovely surprise this 2011 Fixin from this good producer is doing wonderfully well, with a lovely tempting nose, full of red current, Cassis, raspberry, mushroom and a touch of wet soil, medium body with lovely mild smooth tannins and superb supporting acidity, all falling in place to provide a great balanced wine with a lovely fresh finish full of fruit and flavors. My score 89, drink to 2020 — 9 years ago

April Wang

9.0

Medium minus garnet. Forest floor, cherry, raspberry, misty, basil, feather. Medium acidity, medium sugar. — 9 years ago

Tim Herrmann

9.3

This wine conjures a specific setting for me: just-chilled, with pork sausages, next to a fireplace, snow falling outside. It has just enough sugar to make this luscious if you're drinking it as a dryish white. The flavors are exotic and almost flamboyant with fresh peaches, fresh lemon zest, and more subdued but rich candied orange and bitter grapefruit peels. There's a hint at some non-fruit savoriness--is it smokiness?--that makes me want to explore what one of these with 5-10 year of age is like. — 9 years ago

with Rajiv

Mike Lee

Beverage Manager/Sommelier Catch Miami

9.2

Surprisingly feather light on the palate. Fig & raisins, blue and black fruits. Tons of earth and very nice acidity. Yessir I like it!
Quiles makes an awesome vermouth btw... — 10 years ago

Carlo Mantica

10

Ok we are falling in love with love with Tuscany — 10 years ago

James Lechner

9.7

Late September wine; luminescent, crisp, foreshadowing rain, full of falling harvest fruit. — 11 years ago

Colleen Fleming

Sales & Marketing Kelly Fleming Wines

9.5

Decadent minerality, racy, sexy...having a hard time not falling in love with Thomas Pico. — 12 years ago