as an old commercial goes:
"This is not your father's Oldsmobile"

Upon opening, this Californian Cab has the nose of a young Bordeaux. I wish I read the TN's in this section a priori, I'd keep it in the cellar for 5 years and let it develope first, the wine is very young with biting tannins. I'd give vintner A for an effort of expressing terroir and making the new world wine which is more old world than a new world,
but unfortunately, he still fall a little short of the mark...or me, by opening it too soon, as in 3 hours the wine finally started giving hints how good would it be if it was kept longer in the bottle. With price tag around $40, I'd call it decent QPR Cab.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Serge Birbrair,

Nice "impressions" Serge. I have a couple of these. I have not tried it yet.

quote:

Originally posted by Hunter:
Nice "impressions" Serge. I have a couple of these. I have not tried it yet.

Hunter,
don't repeat my mistake, don't pull the trigger too soon. This juice should be treated with Bordeaux gloves.

Looks like I need to revisit this, tasted it at a distributor tasting and came away thinking this wine was thin...maybe I tasted to much that day!

picked up 4 more bottles few mins ago.

I thought this wine was thin too. Since the 98 vintage, I have yet to be impressed. They have gone to younger vines (replant) and with their production levels around SO's they might be trying to keep the alc <14% for tax purposes.

For me, these are not what they were in the 70's, 80's or early 90's, yet every higher end restaurant has it. For the money, I think there are much better options from CA and France.

quote:

For the money, I think there are much better options from CA and France.

your right,
I had to take a loan to spend on 4 bottles at
$37.99 each.

<14% alchohol has nothing to do with tax purposes.
What is the highest alhohol level you've seen coming from Bordeaux?

There chard I also thought was nothing like it used to be, they have slacked off on the oak and there just wasn't much going on with the wine. Its kind of odd that the ratings have stayed pretty constant though, hmm...something sounds fishy. I quit recommending it at my store, but people still buy it on the name.

hmmm...what are the ratings of it? I never seen the "points"

quote:

<14% alchohol has nothing to do with tax purposes.

Wrong Serge. Check here. At larger productions, the increase can hurt.

Bench,
what if we are both wrong?
Seems to me it all boils down to the question who was first, the chicken or the egg?

I say the alc level low due to Bordeaux like achievement,
you say it's because of the taxation and..
we are both could be right and we can both be wrong.

Do you want me to call the winery and find out?
Why don't you do the same and we'll compare the answers from the principles.

This may not be the place to find out, but aren't wineries allowed a certain amount of variance on alcohol content and doesn't the amount of that variance change somewhere around 14%?

I seem to recall that if the wine was stated under 14%, it could be +/- something like 1.5% but if the stated alcohol was over 14%, the allowable margin of error was reduced to .75% or something like that.

Can anyone clarify?

I also disagree with the premise of HUGE money loss in the BIG production if wine is over 14%.

EVERYTHING is included in the COST, PROFIT MARGIN and the consumer just pays a little more...
it's been like that from the dawn of times.

I had this wine this week in Austin. (a client order) It was thin, a touch of bell pepper and lacked any balance.

I did enjoy the 1987 MANY times

quote:

Originally posted by wine+art:
I had this wine this week in Austin. (a client order) It was thin, a touch of bell pepper and lacked any balance.

I did enjoy the 1987 MANY times

Gotta be a good client, he let you taste the wine. I let my servers taste the wine too.

quote:

Originally posted by Squirreljam:
This may not be the place to find out, but aren't wineries allowed a certain amount of variance on alcohol content and doesn't the amount of that variance change somewhere around 14%?

I seem to recall that if the wine was stated under 14%, it could be +/- something like 1.5% but if the stated alcohol was over 14%, the allowable margin of error was reduced to .75% or something like that.

Can anyone clarify?

From winepros.org:

Alcohol content must be stated on any wines containing more than 14% alcohol by volume. These wines, even if the level of alcohol is reached naturally, are considered "fortified" and taxed at a rate four times higher than wines under 14%. For wines under 14%, either the alcohol content may be stated or the designations "Table Wine" or "Light Wine" may be used, both phrases implying alcohol content within a range of 7% to 14%.

A tolerance of 1% over or under the stated level is permitted on wines above 14%. A greater latitude of 1.5% is allowed on wines under 14% (although in no case is it allowed to exceed 14%). Many wines are labeled "alcohol 12.5% by volume" to take full advantage of this tolerance. The variation is permitted for practical reasons. It is impossible to accurately predict final alcohol content in order to print labels in advance of bottling and it's completely uneconomical to print labels after the wine is bottled. Evaporation during aging is not entirely controllable, so some changes will occur. The most common methods of measuring alcohol content use equipment that is either imprecise (vinometer) or expensive and somewhat cumbersome (ebulliometer). Large modern wineries frequently have fairly sophisticated chemistry labs on-site and are able take more precise measurements using a gas chromatograph.