The Allende rated 93 by Parker is no where near this; it may be a 89-90 but it is somewhat green unbalanced but have some fruit and with time in the bottle it improved a little.

The Portfolio was bought in a SF store for $118 (I think mailing list is $110), because I tasted a bottle of 2000 with Pyang at Copia and loved the sweet, balanced wine with a complex nose. The 2001 is no where near, it is slightly green, slightly sweet (I think a little unripe), has some body but not full, with time in the decanter and in the glass it becomes more green and with less fruit. I will say a 90 because I paid over $100, but if it was blind, I would say it is another $35 wine with no future and will rate lower than that.
Orlando

orlando,

I haven't had the 2001 Portfolio from the bottle, sat on my mailer too long and missed it completely.

From what I can recall (can't find any written notes), the 2001 Portfolio from the barrel was an easy top five 2001 barrel sample I've tasted. So it's really interesting to hear your notes from the bottle, especially considering the fact that you like the 2000, and the 2002 I had is wonderful.

Think I need to get ttepper to open a bottle of his 2001 so I can taste for myself and see what's going on...

quote:

I will say a 90 because I paid over $100, but if it was blind, I would say it is another $35 wine with no future and will rate lower than that.

Why give it a higher rating just because its an expensive wine??? Sorry, but that statement makes no sense at all.

Oakville:
the price would give me, SOMETIMES, an idea of how the grapes were taken care, the quality of grapes, and therefore, a possible potential for improvement of a wine and cellar potential.
This is why if I am rating something unblind I may give a higher rating. If I don't do this, many wines from Bordeaux (first growth) will be trashed down in score. This also applies to CA.
The problem of rating something blind is that you may not know the track record, the vineyard history and the wine may be just closed, not ready yet, etc.

I do prefer to know what I am tastig, but don't care to know about the vintage because I can detect that from my tasting).

Blind tastings are fun, but misleading most of the times.

Orlando

Nice to know that there is an Oakville in Canada, though I prefer the one in California.

For the above reason, I prefer Parker ratings and not WS ratings. WS knows the varietal but just that and then they make a score. Parker knows everything, and he, in my opinion, most of the times does a great job in terms of potential and assigning a score based on that (when the wine is at its prime drinking window). In contrast, I think that WS accurately rates how it tastes now, but miss on how it taste later, for example, many bordeaux 89, 90, 95 which are too tannic or have lost fruit, many CA which are already dead, or past prime, for example Flora Sprigs Reserve Hillside 94 , Caymus SS, Viader, Livingston moffet.

Orlando