Sipping Fine Wine

9.0

A real winner. Tried 3 bottles, all were consistently great! Located in the western end of Dopp Road where the Chehalem Mountains converge with Ribbon Ridge, medium Ruby with aromas of red fruits and enticing spice. On the palate ripe raspberry and wild cherry with pepper, baking spice and earthy notes. Young with integrated tannins, well defined, elegant with underlying richness, long finish ending with flinty notes. Nice value! Tried several bottles, now starting to develop more complex spice. — 5 years ago

Mark Eastom

9.2

Love this wine. Huge minerality, wet stones, hint of pepper, Christmas spice, brambly fruit, wild herbs, soft tannin and balancing acidity. — 6 years ago

Seth Morgen Long

Broker • Arterberry Maresh / Winemaker • Morgen Long

9.4

Youthful, bright, long, maybe a touch gritty, and green in the best kind of way. — 6 years ago

Chad Buchanan

9.6

One of our favorite Chardonnays. Melon, apple and savory notes like vanilla. Some spice and minerality add a different texture. Just enough oak- not too much. — 8 years ago

Taft Morgan

9.0

Unbelievable! Dry. Combo of sour/sweet with liquorice and cherry notes. — 8 years ago

with Ginette and Cindy

Bryan Flewelling

9.5

So much herbaceous-ness in this bottle; all the ribeye needed was salt and pepper. The tannins are soft and pervasive. The fruit is cool and baked at the same time. I don't remember what I expected to come out of the hole left by the cork I pulled, but this juice is the best kind of surprise I've had in months. — 9 years ago

Kyle Doucet-Walter

9.1

After 2 hour decant still kind of smelled like a bag of balloons. Put it back in the bottle and on day 2 it's singing. Woodsy black cherry, black tea, baking spices and some of that classic tar thing. — 9 years ago

Tom Kobylarz

9.1

Wild blue and red berry fruit, subtle notes of spice and game, a barely there touch of green comes through as herbal. While the alcohol is high, the wine shows elegantly and very feminine in style. Sauve and silky textured this has very ripe and fine tannin that get lost in the glycerol of this wine's youth. Always a perennial wine of the vintage and a great value (imo). #pegau #grenache #CdP — 9 years ago

Magnus Reuterdahl

9.2

Very good assyrtiko from Gaia who also have vineyards in Nemea. This wine had both good acidity and minerality creating a nice complexity. There is also a hint of oak and its ever so slightly oxidized that builds on the complexity and gives it a little body. Very good! Don't like the syntethic cork though! — 10 years ago

Manali Karmarkar

9.3

Delicious- smooth, hints of cherry, stone, mineral. — 10 years ago

Arden Barnett

9.5

Hot damn! A beautiful, graceful monster of a wine. Nose of dried blueberries, tobacco and flowers. Big black fruit, Sweet red plums, licorice, and freshly tanned leather all hit you at once with an intensity only attributable to some of the best in the game. Lingering finish of dark red fruit and maybe some kind of citrus? Extremely fine tannins and really nice acidity danced harmoniously with each other. Great with a prime NY Strip. While never my first choice, it is always such a treat to enjoy a bottle of Opus! — 5 years ago

Joe D'Angelo

9.8

The 2016 ‘Insignia’ is an absolutely incredible showing, and is amongst the most compelling vintages I have yet to taste from the Estate. Composed of 84% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Petit Verdot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 3% Malbec which spent 24 months in 100% new french oak. As this unwinds in the glass it begins to release its seductive aromatics of ripe dark currants, crème de cassis and blueberries along with fresh violets, pencil shavings, wild sage brush and exotic spices. On the palate this is full-bodied, with a gorgeous rich, opulent texture that is beautifully balance by a lovely touch if underlying acidity keeping it fresh and inviting all the way through the long enveloping finish. Displaying a remarkable combination of both power and precision, the 2016 is a total stunner and will go on to have a marvelous future for many years to come. — 6 years ago

MaJ CappS

9.2

Crushed velvety leaves from alpine flowers. A wondrous bouquet of a nose, and floral in the right way, not your grandmothers bathroom kind of a way.

Seemed fitting to picture this with our urban garlic harvest. As garlic take such a long time to mature, then even after picked, must be stored properly, to get the fullness of flavor.

Sweet blackberry tar is what this well crafted wine shows up front, subtle mint, eucalyptus, river stone. A perfect tango of tannins and acids, complete with the heel in the air - or maybe that’s my heel, enjoying this wine completely.
Decanted for the usual 3-4 hours. — 7 years ago

Scorewine

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

9.1

Another visit to this lovely wine and another confirmation that 2008 was a great vintage and most probably one of the best value vintages in the last decade in Bordeaux. The wine is rich, round, elegant and smooth, already ready for drinking, with earthy notes, coffee, black current, wild berries, full round body, lovely tannins, elegant long finish. A pleasure. My score 91, drink to 2025 — 8 years ago

Ian Manti

9.3

Strong finish of cinnamon and nutmeg. Great fall wine — 9 years ago

Louisa Jarvis

9.1

Much richer and more textural than expected of a semillon...delicious — 9 years ago

Brent Mayeaux

Production Burn Cottage Vineyard

9.1

2nd day open with leftover lasagna. There is bret, but it really seems integrated if you can imagine that. It just seems to accentuate and lift some nice character. Pretty levels of VA as well. Bright aromas of sour cherry/candy, dried flowers/rose. Same on the palate with some herbs just yanked out of the ground with dirt still on them. Moderately tannic but with mouth-moistening acidity balancing it out.

Structure and fruit profile actually reminds me of a Langhe or northern Piedmont Nebbiolo... But with bret.

I had kind of been down on COS and Occhipinti recently, but this was nice. — 9 years ago

Christopher Bates

Master Sommelier, Owner/Winemaker Element Winery

9.3

No oak, a year on lees, and Malo (my kind of thing) Ripe golden and red apple, roasted pineapple, brown spices, smoke, cultured cream. Great balance. Calcareous soils. — 10 years ago

Scott Lauck

9.5

'06. Bowls of fresh red raspberries and wild strawberries. Light on its toes but great depth and length throughout the finish. Always will remind me of Richard Betts' passion and teaching me about Grenache w purity. THX U! — 10 years ago

Mason Balistreri

Sommelier, International Wine Guild; Balistreri Vineyard; Sales, Joy Wine and Spirits

9.2

This wine reminds me distinctly of a Muscat my grandfather produced in 2010; and the color is the first indication. Obvious extended skin contact, but low enough extraction to reach a lite-honey color. The nose is pungent and intense with tangerine skin wrapped in wild, homemade perfumes. The mouthfeel is giving yet tense, with slightly underripe mandarin orange and a twist of lime. Interesting wine. Authentic wine. — 11 years ago

Michael Jennings

9.1

Not the kind of wine we usually drink. Still massive After 16 years. Delicious, rich with glycerin, but not notably complex. — 5 years ago

Doug Powers

9.3

Dark, rich, tannic, this probably needs 20 more years of cellaring, kind of an outlier in this group?? — 5 years ago

Mike Saviage

9.4

Le Parc at Les Crayeres in Reims. Deep dark ruby color, opaque. Wild nose with notes of black cherry, violets, menthol, slate stone and some mocha. Very perfumed. Rich and silky in the mouth. Tannins integrated. This is ready for consumption. — 6 years ago

Jeff Lander

9.4

Our favorite SB of our New Zealand research so far. Deliciously complex yet fresh and clean. Very nice. — 8 years ago

Erik Nordman

9.0

First time trying the '15s and it's as great as always. This is definitely a decent amount more brawny and ripe than the '14s but still identifiable as a Lapierre wine. That said, I'm still not the biggest fan of most of these '15's so far, they are too hot and ripe and don't really fit the profile of what I want from most Beaujolais. This is still pretty good on its own merits though. Day 1 it was closed and not giving up very much but on this morning, Day 2, it's come around and opened up quite a bit. Ripe, juicy strawberry and raspberry red fruit, tart rhubarb, wild violet, smoky gravel minerality, with a nice briny, almost gamey salinity underscoring things a bit. Nice medium (+) acid, medium (-) body with a great, soft texture. Just a touch of fine, supple tannic grip. There a bit of brett and VA but they're in balance rather than being a faulty distraction; the VA helps give a little extra lift, if anything. Will try another bottle after some more time has passed because even though it's good now it honestly still needs to come together a bit more; it seemed almost still slightly bottle shocked when I first opened it yesterday. If you're opening one soon I'd recommend giving it a little air to let it unfurl. — 8 years ago

Boris Bakovic

9.5

Still has lots of fruit for a 12 year old cab. — 9 years ago

James Mace

9.3

Full-bodied Pinot, long finish, full of flavor but not overbearing. Very solid Pinot for a cab lover.
— 9 years ago

with Jill

Drew Golley

9.0

I've been a WH Pinot fan for years, and this vintage continues to impress. Bright & lively with lots of berries, rich color, bit of peppery tone, very smooth and food friendly. Price/value tough to beat. — 10 years ago

Jesse Smith

8.9

Kind of like a lemon pound cake but lost a bit of sparkle — 10 years ago

Andrew Reetz

9.7

Unsulfured, wild, noted of cranberry and unique vivacious wafting odors. My favorite natural wine in a while. #petitmondewinemarchant — 11 years ago