It was vivid with the smell of Bing cherries and rich with the taste of sweet fruit. My favorite was the fourth wine from the left in the crescent of glasses before each taster. This year, the wines were from the 2001 vintage, and each was priced at around $100. Going in, tasters don't know the identity of the wines, though it's safe to assume one will be from Merryvale. For nine years, they've visited 10 cities in quick succession, inviting local wine stewards, wine merchants and the like to sit down to a flight of eight high-end cabernet sauvignons and Bordeaux-style blends. This lesson was delivered again the other day when officials of Merryvale Vineyards in the Napa Valley brought their annual comparative blind tasting to Sacramento for the first time. That's so even when all prices are steep and vary little from one label to the next. Helena winemakers in an Appellation Discovery tasting on June 22, 2006.” This Zinfandel was also selected as an Appellation Signature Wine by a panel of St. The wine was aged for 17 months in 22 percent new French oak barrels. The grapes were picked at a very low 22.9 degree brix, but the final listed alcohol is a surprising 15 percent. In the cellar, the wine was made with minimal invasiveness including native yeasts and no fining or filtering. Helena are 'very old.' They are head trained and dry-farmed - the way Zinfandel used to be grown and tended to. According to the technical notes on the wine, the vines at the Jan Vineyard on Mills Lane in St. Hold onto it for a couple of years and then love it for the next 20 years. There's juicy blackberry and wild cherry. It's big, and given time, this purports to be a great wine. Everything you'd expect from a Napa Valley Zinfandel is in place here. “This was one of longtime Merryvale winemaker Steve Test's last wines before going out on his own.
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