Steve Bozich

9.5

Always outstanding, one of my favorite CA Pinot Noirs. And a great guy too. 2010.

Mellow as can be. 13.85 ALC. Light pepper and berries, a touch of tobacco. Layers for sure, but does not overwhelm you.

Just a wonderful laid back wine. Amazing what he can do with other people's grapes. — 10 years ago

Peter Plaehn

8.9

Lazy Friday between study sessions with a wine from the Sassicaia team. #firstworldproblems — 10 years ago

Mark Bright

Partner/Wine Director Saison Restaurant

9.4

This wine is better than most people's Grand Crus, seriously — 10 years ago

Chip Cook

9.2

The People's Red! Extremely drinkable and if given a chance to open up, deepens in complexity. — 11 years ago

with Daniel

Mark de Vere

9.1

Love the structure and firm tight feel; maybe too old for some people's taste, but still together, enough flesh to balance, and focussed at 28 years. — 11 years ago

Andrew P

9.4

Офигенный! — 11 years ago

Steve Matthiasson

Owner/Winemaker Matthiasson Wines

9.6

Aromatic, spicy, crisp, great acid, delicious. — 12 years ago

alewifery

9.5

a fine work. layers upon layers of flavor. squarely sour and imho enhanced with grub. need another few sessions to really describe this thing. #damngood #BFM — 10 years ago

Tom Kobylarz

9.4

One of my favorite whites of the night and one of many people's wines of the night. Decanted the entire 3 hours this was a beauty. Complex aromas and flavors of minerality like slate and gun flint, an amazing palate that was light on its feet but massively textured with perfect acidity and maturing fruit notes. — 10 years ago

Eric Gardner

8.9

Nice house wine. Pinot Noir and Gamay blend from the People's Republic of Oregon, my country of origin. 2013 vintage. Left it open on the counter and was also good the next day. This would be a nice wine to take with you to a local bistro, not the chi chi one, but the casual local place. — 10 years ago

Tom Kobylarz

9.5

One of the top wines for me at the Andes tasting, fresh, concentrated and pure. This is hedonistic on most wine people's scales, though if you think before you just taste and keep thinking through the finish this wine has breadth on a long scale and good acidity. Lead pencil, cherry, violet flowers, scorched Graves like earth. The palate is full bodied as is the finish which sails and fans out and closes out nicely with an good rush of acid. — 11 years ago

Shane Lorente

9.5

Very fruity. Great bottle to bring to dinner if you don't know people's tastes. It's typically a crowd pleaser. — 11 years ago

Rachel Black

10

I think I may have drank some of this wine from other people's glasses. It was awesome. — 12 years ago

Jenny Fraker

9.7

The people's wine — 13 years ago

Jacqueline Cochrane

9.3

Great for summer sipping — 10 years ago

Preston Davis

8.9

Recommended for nighttime study sessions. — 10 years ago

Dade Thieriot

10

'08 Burgs were not high on most people's buying lists upon release but this Gevrey is delicate and sensual with all the finesse one expects from great Pinot--NICE! — 10 years ago

with Petra, Mindful(l) and 2 others

Laissez Fare

9.0

Els Jelipins 2009 (a very kind gift from, and shared with, @J_A_A). Made by Gloria and Berta Garriga in the hills Penedès. Based around the Sumoll grape, with a slightly different blend each year (depending on which rows of vineyards they decide to take fruit from). The fruit is hand-picked over a number of sessions — always early in the morning and in small cases. It ferments with the natural yeasts, without temperature control, fining, or filtration and only a touch of sulfur added right before bottling. Open-top barrel fermentation and some wax-lined oval amphorae are used, along with lengthy aging in big barrels. Each bottle is painted by hand – the design is different each year, but always includes the symbolic heart.
This has to be one of the most distinctive, intriguing and confounding red wines I've ever tasted. The first thing you notice is the cloudy ruby color. A mysterious scent leads to strong flavors of green herbs (almost medicinal) on the palate: is it tarragon or dill, or both? Elderflower perhaps? Maybe fresh olive too. Underlying this is an ever-changing red fruit core (cranberry, tart cherry), with the odd streak of wet rocks and a zippy freshness. Totally raw and wild. Impossible to pin down and paradoxical.
Ultimately, this wine was indomitable. We paired it with a full-flavored Iranian stew (ghormeh-sabzi), then with vegetarian Indian curry. The wine went remarkably well with both, though I wouldn't say it 'paired' well. You could always taste the distinct flavors of the wine, and it didn't interfere with the food, but they didn't really enhance each other either. Essentially, even robust food flavors could not tame this cloudy, 'little-looking' red wine.
After all of this, I will not say that I am gagging to try this wine again, as I'm not really sure I love the flavor profile overall … but it did grow on me over the four days we had it open. And the wine was possibly even better on Day 4 than it was on Day 1. I would definitely be happy to try it again, though, as there is no doubt it would challenge palates, ideologies and spark conversation. This is a 'real' wine, with no pretense and oodles of individuality. — 10 years ago

Alex Jones

Marketing/Development Kunni/Westerly Wines

9.2

Lots of minerality in the nose. Salinity, green apple and grape in the body. The people's choice. — 11 years ago

with Ann and Allison

Zyggy Tylke

9.7

Delicious — 13 years ago

with Patrick