2016 Cayuse Camaspelo wine review: Oh what a bad wine this is

 There is one thing to like in this wine: It has olive notes. But it's still a fairly poor wine, because you need much more than olives to make a good wine.  Please don't waste your money on this. Parker and Suckling gave it 94 points, but at just six years it hasn't aged well. I suspect if those critics were on truth serum, they'd have trouble scoring it in the 80s now. It's actually difficult to drink. It is so stridently different from any well-made Bordeaux blend that it's almost painful. By straining a bit, I could give it a "C." Meaning, 75 points. Save your money! There are THOUSANDS of good wines costing much less. Why pay into the Emperor's Got No Clothes? 

In fairness, Christophe Baron makes some very good wines, but you have to hunt for them. It's a poor strategy to just buy everything he makes. I finally wised up to that wisdom, and backed off-I only buy the superb Bionic Frog now. That is the ONLY wine made by Mr. Baron that performs well on the resale market. 

I say this too often perhaps, but it's essential information: Anyone can overpay for wine. It takes no skill. Do you really want to play in a game where everyone pretends that a wine is good, when it sucks? I wish I could've sold this bottle in the auction market, but the buyers understand that this is not a very good wine, so I had to drink it. Shame on me.

2015 Horsepower Sur Echalas Syrah - Review

 First, this is a well-made wine. I can see how it received 98 points. But I hated it.

I think that, as wines are made from grapes, and as grapes are a fruit, wines should taste like fruit. There is no fruit in this wine. But it is a fascinating cornucopia of aromas: Bitter coffee; bitter chocolate; blood; spam. Problem is, I don't like any of those things. That's why I don't like this wine. 

California wine buyers must agree-I couldn't sell this profitably at auction, so we opened one to drink, instead of selling it. Man, was it painful. I could not drink it. I know Christophe is an artiste, but I wish he would allow his wines to taste like winegrapes.

My grade on this wine: The bouquet is A+ but the palate is D-. Not a very good use of $140.

Update 2 days later: The wine is marginally better--I can even sense a faint hint of some slight bit of purple fruit--but it is so bitter on the palate that it's not drinkable. This winemaker has made many supremely wonderful wines, but this one is a failure in the mouth, where the bouquet is so wonderful that perhaps this product's best use is as perfume, not for drinking?

Let's save Charles Smith's reputation!

 LOL. Tonight I opened 2014 El Jefe Tempranillo. 95 points Robert Parker and he nailed it, though I predicted (after tasting and before checking scores) 96 points, as Jane is my witness. This is so smooth, so big, and it's in my wheelhouse with lovely non-black-fruit flavors of purple berries and iron and bull's blood. The oak is lovely. Lots of complexity. I'm a fan! This is a $55 wine that is worth it!

2018 Onyx Rose wine - An enthusiastic review

Wow! It's so much fun to find great wines at low prices. This 2018 Onyx Rose wine from Provence (France) is wonderful, and it's on closeout special now, as the 2019 roses are "on the boat" over here to the US.

1. "Is it past its prime?" you ask. An emphatic "no!" I had it, over the course of an hour, and it had been open for a whole day, and yet it was fresh and singing loudly.
2. Color: Pale pinkish-salmon, the typical color for Provencal roses.
3. Bouquet:  A delightful mix of summer fruits, and flowers, and lots of steel and flint. Really nice.
4. Palate: Those same fruits carried along on a great acidic frame. This is so good with food. It's a bigger and bit-fruitier wine than you expect from a French rose, so it sits in between Old World and New World stylistically.
5. Finish: A good finish, but that's not the appeal here.

This wine's made from GSM--Grenache-Syrah-Mouvedre grapes, by the famous Aix winery. I'm selling it now for just $9! Wow.

2018 Maryhill Rose of Sangiovese

What a charming rose! Yes, it's New World (lots of powerful fruit), but as I tell anyone who will listen: A grape is a fruit, and so a wine should taste like fruit!

Here we have strawberries and cranberries, riding on a lovely acid frame. Not too complex, but who cares? when the effect is so perfect?   It's nice that a 2018 rose can still sing like this. Sangiovese makes great roses (check out Barnard Griffin's Rose of Sangio. which wins every award you can name). Life is better with good rose, especially in Spring.

In order to fit my dinner into "Rose-land," when we were hitting Papa Murphy's tonight for an easy dinner (we usually cook in), I chose something new: Chicken, bacon, artichokes, onion, parmesan, on thin crust with a white garlic cream sauce, with jalepenos added at home, and wow! Perfect with this rose.

Maryhill makes a HUGE slate of wines, and I choose among those--not all are right for me. The Proprietor's Reserve wines are consistently good choices (and not too expensive), but here, in 2018, the "regular" Rose of Sangio is better than the Proprietor' Reserve Rose. But both are good.

If you don't live in the Pac NW, GET UP HERE! The world is changing, environmentally and governmentally, you need to be up here, if you have an open mind. Life is great here.

Two more examples why you should be VERY cautious before paying, say, $25 or more for a bottle of wine:

Jane made a fabulous veggie lasagna, with Beyond Meat crumble that is a very good faux ground beef. The sauce (both red and Bechemel) was great, and there were Ricotta, Cottage, and Parmesan cheeses to provide more mouthfeel. It was really spectacular, and makes me wonder how I can be the one with 10% Italian genes, but not her.

Anyway, I pulled first one expensive wine, and then another, and both came up short and it was embarrassing to sort of fail her wonderful dish with subpar wines. The first was Maryhill 2016 Barbera (Proprietor's Reserve)-my note says I liked it at the winery last summer and paid $33. I held it only 10 months in perfect storage, but tonight it was bad: no fruit on the palate, and maybe a bitter coffee note at the beginning of the finish. Not good.  A Barbera should be lively. Maybe the wine at 3.6 years since harvest is simply tired out (likely), but in that case I'm sorry they sold it, or maybe they should've sold it with a label "drink by Sept 2019" or whatever. (I used to add "drink by" labels on all my wines, and I'm sorry I don't still do it--it's difficult as a winemaker to know when your wine will finally head downhill. One of my customers forgot about one of my Cayuga white wines, I think from 2017, and recently found it and opened it and told me it was great. Whew. I would've said drink it within about 1.5 years.)

So, when Jane said she really didn't like that wine, I said let me grab a different one, and I came back with a Walla Walla Vintners 2016 Sangiovese, which I bought at wholesale from one of my distys. WWV has a great track record, but sometime in the past few years Gordy and Miles sold out (finally retired) and somewhere in there the winemaker changed. Not sure if that's involved here, but this wine is also disappointing: No fruit on the palate, and there's a tiny tiny bit of Brett on the palate, and when that's the only note you can discern in a wine, something is very, very wrong. This one's about $20 at retail (and I paid a bit less), but DUDES! You can find much better Sangios at the grocery store, for almost half that price.

I say again, it's easy to overpay for wine. Anyone can do it; it takes no skill at all. What is difficult is finding great wines at lower prices, and there are many to be found. And, worse, there is VERY LITTLE correlation between a wine's price and its quality. If you pay more than about $25 for a bottle of wine, the excess is just about all "excess profit" (meaning, extra profit on top of what is already a reasonable profit). Why would you buy into a system where you pay $80 for a wine that isn't better than another wine costing $20? How smart is it to buy the $80 bottle? If I were trying to impress somebody, I'd serve them a great $20 bottle, and they'd be amazed, and then I'd say, "Hey! Now I have $60 in my pocket, so what should we do with it?"

Finally, please let me say that these are both very good wineries. I am not meaning to impugne all their wines-that would be foolish. I am saying that almost no winery in the world, which charges high prices, is consistently worth those higher prices. Some are--I would never shirk an offered Latour, Lafite, DRC, Petrus, Pichon-Lalande, Margaux, Eschezaux. But if your label isn't on that list, be cautious about paying more than $25 for it.

Oh, My! 2016 Wines of Substance 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon - Review

Oh holy smokes! Opened this with slow-smoked BBQ Pork that I made 2 days ago, and WOW! So glad I did!

It is very rich and luscious, with the expected black currant, but also blackberry, olives, and earth. Seamless.  Teriffic fruit notes. I would expect this to cost about $40-$70, not $20! So sad this is my only bottle (got it while I was a member of the wine club).


So I looked up the pro reviews on this one, and they agree. I love the line: "Just buy it and pretend you paid three times the price!"

Jeb Dunnuck 93
"The largest production cuvée, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon was vinified in tank before being pressed to barrel where it went through malo. Aged 13 months in barrels, its vibrant purple color is followed by a terrific bouquet of blueberries, cassis, scorched earth, and spice. Deep, rich, full-bodied, and beautifully balanced, this is the real deal, ladies and gentlemen, and it's a no-brainer purchase. Just pretend you paid three times the price."

Wine Advocate 90
"Amazingly, there are 125,000 cases of the value-priced 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine offers up classic aromas of crushed cassis, loamy soil and pencil lead. On the palate, it's medium-bodied, layered and flavorful, with chewy but ripe tannins and succulent balancing acids, concluding with good length. Considering the scale of this cuvée and the pittance it commands, it's a remarkable achievement."

James Suckling 92
"The is a firm and linear red with currants, blackberries and hints of chocolate. Medium to full body, firm and velvety, chewy tannins and a juicy finish. Real cabernet at a real price. Drink or enjoy."

Wine Spectator 90
"Dark and spirited, with appealing blackberry, black olive and smoked anise flavors that build toward big but polished tannins. Drink now through 2024."

Wine Enthusiast 90
"The aromas are compelling, with notes of fresh herb, black currant, black raspberry and black cherry, showing a pleasing sense of purity. The flavors are soft and pure, with sleek black-fruit notes lingering on the finish. Firm tannins back it up. It’s a fruitful expression of the variety and a superb value. "

Charles Smith sold his winery for an amount so huge you wouldn't believe it. What a wine! He deserves everything he achieved.

Why oh Why do we buy expensive bottles of wine?

Another huge mistake in my wine buying. Tonight, to start the (one-year long) celebration of my wonderful spouse's 60th birthday, we opened a 2012 Talenti Brunello di Montalcino with wonderful eggplant parmesan. This wine is $70 retail and got 95 points from Spectator and Robert Parker, who said:

Riccardo Talenti and his family have crafted a bold and deeply saturated wine. The 2012 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva Pian di Conte shows a contemporary side with soft cherry aromas followed by sweet spice and dark chocolate. It also delivers some of those tangy balsamic and licorice-like aromas that are so specific to Sangiovese from Montalcino. You get power as well as a good dose of authenticity with this age-worthy Riserva.

Well, I'll tell you what. This wine is pretty disgusting. In desperation we opened a $12 Montepulciano as a backup, which far outshone this Brunello. The Brunello has some Brett, and its flavors are dark and bitter. Nothing to like there. Oh my, was I an idiot. My former boss from 25 years ago sung the praises of Brunellos, so I collected many of the better ones, and guess what? The emperor has no clothes. This is amazing--Brunellos are supposed to mature into things of wonder, whereas this wine must've been good when young, but now it's disgusting.

As I've said forever, "any idiot can overpay for wine. It takes no skill at all. What is difficult is buying good wines at low prices." Shame on me. Waste of money.

I urger you all to buy your good wines down in the $12-$20 price range. With careful selection, you won't be disappointed, and you will be much richer.

The Monty we opened is a very sub-par one (2016 La Villa), and yet it was far better, at all of $12. 

Think, and learn, from my many mistakes!

May I review my own wine? 2017 Epona "Rosso Misto"

Rosso Misto means "mixed red" in Italian, and I made this wine from three modern grape varieties, all grown here at the Epona Vineyard: Mindon, Regent, and Delicatessen.

This is really good!
Color: Clear; pretty red.
Bouquet: Very nice rustic, cherry nose, with flowers. I'm proud of that bouquet.
Palate: Medium body, with a touch of heft, but this is a lighter, more-elegant wine. Pleasing balance. Moderate tannins. Nice fruit notes.  I give this wine a solid "B" and it's fun to drink!

Champagne: Montaudon Grande Rose - a great bottle, but not cheap

Well, this is a really good sparkling wine. It should be, as it's not cheap (about $45 at Total Wine). What I loved about it was its smoothness, which is very unusual in most sparkling wines. Acid is present but not as much as I expected, and the red fruit flavors are sumptuous. 90 points from Wine Spectator. No yeasty/bread notes, which you see in more-expensive Champagnes. A real pleasure to drink, with fresh Dungeoness Crab. At that price, not sure I'll buy it again.

Review of 2009 Reserve de la Comtesse: Well, that was disappointing.

Well, that was disappointing. This is a $49 wine which scored 94-96 points by Wine Enthusiast.

Ten years old, it didn't drink that well at all.  It drank like a mediocre $13 bottle. You could coax a tiny trace of black currant fruit from it, and maybe some plum. The flavors were dark and the whole wine was out of balance. This is the second wine of the famed Super-Second Growth Pichon Lalande, and we can only hope the great Pichon Lalande doesn't age so poorly at this. It's possible that the second wine shouldn't be held for ten years, but the reviews (it gets about 89-90 points on Cellar Tracker) all say it still could use some more aging. I'm not so sure--a Bordeaux should be showing you some impressive flavors by ten years out. And I left half the bottle in the fridge for five days, to watch it and see if all the air time woke it up, but only very slightly.

Bordeaux may be suffering from climate change (which drives to black fruits, whereas I prefer red and purple fruits in my red wines). Or maybe the rater just got it wrong.

Spectacular 1985 Washington Cab!

I went to Roland Winery, in Longview WA, for my first time last night; it was owner Mark's granddaughter's 21st birthday; they have a pizza oven (and the pizza and salad were GREAT). It's a cute space; cozy; everyone knows each other; I liked the Roland Barbera. In summer the fun spills out onto their outside crush pad area. My kind host Steve is a favorite customer there, and gave me a great tour of the wines/space.

But this post is about a wonderful old wine that one friend of the winery, Jim, brought: 1985 Columbia Cabernet Sauvignon, made by David Lake.

1. Columbia was the 1983 successor to Associated Vintners, a Univ of Wa-professor-based organization that was one of the very first winemaker groups in this state. I have a bottle from about 1975, of an Ass'd Vintners wine. (Alas, I received the bottle already empty, but I kept the bottle for its historical importance. Hey! WA needs a wine museum. This bottle belongs in it.)
2. This 1985 Cab was still young and vibrant! The color indicated it, and then the nose, and finally the palate. The wine was no doubt made in a cooler year than optimal, as the dominant fruits were cranberry and red berries (whereas it should be black currants), but the flavor was fresh and clean, and the wine was well made. It even had a nice sagebrush note. Very impressive aging.
3.Best of all, I noticed the bottle carried a $2.89 price sticker, so I asked Jim if that was really the price. "Oh, yes," he said. "These bottles were sent back by a distributor, and got dumped onto a retailer, who priced them to go quickly." Wow is all I can say. Living history! A special moment.

This was Otis Vineyard, Yakima, and David Lake was a big deal-a reknowned winemaker. He was the first to plant Syrah in Washington state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lake_(winemaker)

Wine review: Persona Non Grata 2013 Lake County CA red blend

This is from just north of Napa/Sonoma. Their estate red grapes include Zin and Syrah.

I have nothing against a Syrah-Zin blend. Why not? But this wine has a limited appeal. The nose is actually pretty good-it harkons to darker fruits and a nice balance, and in a world where some winemakers don't achieve (or even care about) any aromatics at all (??? the nose discerns 10,000 aromas, and the tongue, six. Duh!), this bouquet is nice to have. But at 14.8% alcohol, the wine is too hot--it doesn't have enough flavors to stand up to all that alcohol. What flavor there is comes off as very dark fruits, and admittedly I'm not a huge fan of black fruit flavors (I tend like the red-to-purple space; for my palate, these grapes are grown in a place too hot for them). I had a filet mignon left over from our first winemaker dinner this past Saturday--so much work--we cooked an 8 lb beef tenderloin, encrusted with dijon-rosemary-cracked pepper, with barley risotto and roasted root vegetables, and served it with my Double-Gold Cab Franc (2019 Seattle Wine Awards) and this was a leftover piece.  It went well enough with this wine--the leftover beef was great, and the wine was just OK with it.

The winery markets this wine as "Persona Non Grata" (meaning, "Napa Valley gets all the attention; BS on that!"), and, as much as I support that sentiment, and as much as I'd love to support any winemaker who makes wine away from the trendy places (as I do), and suffers from the comparison, and enviously eyes Napa's overrated reputation, this wine is just not all that good.  But it's always good to try new wines!

What a dinner! Review of J. Drouhin 2019 Beaujoais Nouveau, with duck ragout

Wow! Just finished a dinner party.

I cooked: Duck Ragout (Epicurious recipe), served over egg noodles.

I served: 2019 Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais Nouveau, from Winebow. We loved the 2018, so we happily bought the 2019 and were not disappointed. What a great wine! Enough acid to marry with the food; great cherry flavor; just a near-perfect wine. Astonished that it could be so good after just a few months from harvest. If you haven't had this at a B.Nouveau party, do it!

Later courses were baguettes with a Brittany Brie, and then Vosges Chocolates (OMG!)  from a wizardess in Chicago--highly recommend haute cuisine!--and then I made cocktails from Angeleno Amaro and Sprite and orange slices. What an evening! This is how you cement friendships.

Review of 93-point Castelli Martinozzi 2012 Brunello di Montalcino

I've been drinking and collecting fine wines for more than 40 years, and have been making wine for more than 25 years. Wine Spectator gave this wine 92 points in 2017, saying:

"Underbrush, scorched earth, dark spice and grilled herb aromas slowly take shape on this full-bodied red. The chewy, enveloping palate doles out mouthfuls of fleshy black cherry, juicy blackberry, ground pepper and clove while ripe tannins provide support. The lingering finish closes on a mocha note. Drink 2018–2026."

Wow. And we drank it tonight inside its drinking window. It was pretty bad.

It is NOT full-bodied. Way too thin. It has the right acid, but no fruit. Makes me wonder who spiked the bottle that Spectator tasted, because usually they are trustworthy.

This kind of evening makes one wonder if cellaring good wines for years, under proper conditions, is worthwhile. Seriously, you can buy $12 Sangios that deliver more fun than this (and this was $45). 

It takes no skill to overpay for wine. Any fool can do it. And we're all made fools when an expensive wine that's supposed to be good, isn't.

K Vintners 2013 "The Creator" - review

There was a time when I thought Charles Smith, at K Vintners, could almost do no wrong. He moved speedily up the quality curve, passing large and small WA wineries alike with wines that came to garner routine high-90s scores from the likes of Robert Parker. Say this about Charles Smith: He is a genius. The few times I spoke with him (starting with a tasting at his Walla Walla farm tasting room when HE was pouring, in about 2000), I quickly saw that his mind is truly exceptional: He spoke at 99 mph and I couldn't perceive it all, but I could tell it was special. For a guy who managed R&R bands in Europe, he sure did understand wine.

A few years ago, I put him, and Cayuse's Christophe Baron, as the only wineries in WA that deserved to be "First Growths" (comparing WA wineries to Bordeaux's classification system for Grand Crus). I also added the white and rose wines of Barnard Griffin in that category. But (and isn't the way with the USA?), those rankings change radically, in just a few years, unlike Europe where generations of family carefully tend their estate's reputation.

Fast-forward many years. Now, Charles has sold most of his labels for many millions (more than $10m? more than $100M?). Most people would stop working so hard, to achieve greatness, if they were worth ?$10M or ?$100M. Charles is still making wine I think, but it's hard to imagine how his heart can still be "hungry" in it. Or maybe he is bored with what worked before, and is exploring new avenues that most of us think are misplaced.

I opened his 2013 "The Creator" tonight with grilled thick pork chops, sauteed squash, and a salad. Check out the label, where he casts himself as an angelic God. That is just too much. I'm not religious, but I think I know a god when I see one, and this is no god. It is a good wine. Maybe not the great wine I used to think it was, but it's a bit complex and interesting--certainly drinkable. But is it worth $60 or $80? (I forget)? No way. Not even close. I'm making a Syrah that is way better than The Creator (a Cab-Syrah blend), and I'll sell my Syrah for about $15-$20 probably. Charles is a genius--he was able to mold his environment (as C. Baron does) into a frenzy of demand for his wines. I'm not jealous; I'm in awe.  But send some of his wines to CA into the auction market, and you will quickly learn (as I recently did with his supposed-best Royal City Syrah, costing about $100+), that current wine buyers do not see value there, despite high scores from some well-known critics. Royal City Syrah is spurned by buyers; I dropped the price three times--way below my purchase price- and still no bids. Live and learn. I disengaged from Charles' mailing list; it wasn't worth it. I finally decided his wines didn't serve me what I deserved, from all my years of supporting him with my purchasing dollars.

I will say again: Anyone can overpay for wine. It is the easiest thing to do and takes no skill at all. What is really difficult is to find good wines for lower cost. That is the hunt worth pursuing.

And I hope that Washington fine wines will reach the point where they can maintain quality for generations, as in Europe.

Kenton Erwin, Epona Wines

(photo credit: K&L Wines, the finest retail wine store in CA and maybe the country)

...But it depends on which wine you are drinking:

Recently, I was burned by two Cayuse wines, and I blogged about that, and also about some disappointing K Vintners wines. But everything in life is complicated--tonight I opened a 2014 K Vintners "The Deal" Syrah, and it is very drinkable. Dark purple; nose is muted but at first I thought I noticed purple fruit and cola. OK--later I smell definite purple fruits and that nice "smoothness" aroma. It's a fairly big wine, but has good structure. Good with my Cuban stew. Not as much fruit on the palate as I'd like. But my point is that it is not a disappointment. At about $35, it probably doesn't make sense to buy it--most likely better Syrahs are out there at less cost. But at least this won't disappoint you.

A distributor told me that Charles Smith has now sold off most of his wine labels. For huge bucks. I'm happy for him--he turned nothing but a dream and some money, and a passion for learning about wine, into a fortune. That is great. My first meeting with him was wonderful-he spoke at about 120 mph and I couldn't catch it all but what I heard was brilliant. I guess this raises the question: How well can you continue with the nitty-gritty of making great wine, when you're so wealthy? I hope he can.

And this is a Robert Parker story. Parker was one of my wine heroes, but over the years I learned that many of the wines he gave high 90s scores to (like K Vintners' wines), were not as good as their scores. Now I trust Spectator, and James Suckling, and Wine Enthusiast, much more. It can be argued that it was Parker who made Charles Smith a multimillionnaire. OK; I can live with that. But just know that if you're willing to search for them, there are many many wines at relatively low cost, that are better than many of super-high-priced wines from the likes of K and Cayuse...

Dissing on two Cayuse wines

There is a huge benefit in following the wines from a long-established great European wine house (like Eschezeaux in Burgundy or Pichon-Lalande in Bordeaux) --they (many of them) have been in business for decades, if not centuries, and each chateau (usually) has developed and zealously maintains its own typical favor profiles and high standard of quality.

But in this infant nation we call America, most wineries don't have that kind of history. We don't see generations from the same family taking up the family wine mantle. And, here, winery fortunes rise and fall faster than the success or failure of the Seattle Seahawks. My favorite wine distributor's owners think, for example, that K Vintners' Charles Smitth, having sold out for $120M or so, is no longer able to reliably make mind-blowing wines (and I agree, having left his wine club recently for that reason--I don't mind $80 wines if they are mind-blowing, or if they perform well on the resale market, but if they seem too ordinary, or (perversely) too innovative, they leave me feeling shortchanged).

Just so, with Cayuse. I've learned the hard way that too many of their spendy wines don't perform well on the resale market. I've learned that, five or six years on, they just don't perform well enough on the palate to merit their $80 or $90 price tag.

It hurts to say all that. For years I thought Washington's two best wineries--its "First Growths"--were those two. But stuff changes. This is not Old Europe. It is necessary to stay on top of "the good wineries of today."

Tonight, we dined at the The Hammond in Camas WA, and opened our 2014 God Only Knows Grenache. It's retailing for $150 now, and got 97 points from Robert Parker. It should've been mind-blowing, but it was undrinkable. Not flawed, but just a bad wine. Both of us thought there wasn't enough fruit evident, and the wine was thin, and the finish was bitter. That bitter finish was the death knell for me, so we defaulted to our backup bottle: 2013 Foundry Malbec, which was "very good-but-not-great."

Last night, we took a 2013 Cayuse Armada Syrah to Elements in downtown Vancouver, and we made ourselves drink it, but didn't enjoy it. It also was thin and had a bitter finish. Not a very good wine. Yes, there was some bull's blood in it, and if you strained really hard, you might imagine some blueberry, but it just wasn't good or interesting. And yet Robert Parker gave it 98 points (!) and it's retailing now for $150.

When I can get much more enjoyment from a $20 or $40 bottle made elsewhere, why wouldn't I? What a disappointment.

So, who will be the next fleeting "First Growth" from Washington? I say that Cayuse and K Vintners are no longer First Growths. Maybe Thirds, if they are lucky.

Rivetto 2006 Barolo del Commune di Serralunga D'Alba

I (OK, and the winery) held this for 13 years, and now I understand why Barolos need that time. Younger Barolos can be not so great--fairly thin, and maybe disjointed--just not attractive. With age, I thought they turned bricky and had fascinating secondary flavors. But last night we opened this Barolo with Jane's fantastic veggie lasagna, and wow! The wine was very young-plenty of smooth tannins, with a bright purplish-red edge that's the hallmark of a young wine, not a bricky-brown edge that tells of an older wine. This wine was so seamlessly fantastic that you sort of got the overall sense of real excellence, instead of being able to pick out individual flavor notes. That said, Brian and I thought there was black cherry; I thought there was eucalyptus or menthol, and we thought there was just a hint of Brett, which great winemakers sometimes induce in tiny quantities, for complexity, whereas lots of Brett is a huge flaw.

Long time since I've enjoyed a wine this much! Just wow. Costs about $50 and well worth it!

I see that the pros like it too:

WS

95    #16 of the Top 100, and 95 points, Wine Spectator: "Like its macerated black cherry and plum flavors, this is both sweet and intense, taking on a bittersweet chocolate richness as it powers its way to a long aftertaste. The ripeness is supported by a dense core of tannins. Best from 2014 through 2035. Tasted twice, with consistent notes. 1,600 cases made."

WE94

Wine Enthusiast

"Rivetto has delivered an impressive portfolio this year with vineyard-designate Barolos and a stellar Riserva. This Serralunga expression is ripe with generous, velvety fruit tones and loads of mineral, cola and spice. The wine shows balance and personality and definitely has the qualities needed for long aging."

Review of Domaine Pouillon "Katydid" 2014 Rhone blend

This blend has about 32% Grenache and Mouvedre, versus just 20% Syrah, and the rest Counoise and Cinsault. The winery's near Lyle WA. All the fruit's from Horse Heaven Hills (WA), a great AVA.

In style this is more French than American, but has characteristics of each. The nose was good, with dark fruits, but was fleeting. The palate likewise had good balance and nice flavors, but the flavors fade fast in the glass. What hits in the finish, reveals the problem: I think my bottle was Bretty. Brettanomyces is a spoilage yeast which, in small concentrations, is valued for adding complexity to wine, but in larger amounts it's a flaw. It robs wines of their aroma and flavor, and I think that happened here. I had Brett issues in some of my Epona wines once, and learned how to minimize the risk. So far, I've avoided Brett since that learning time. Once this winery identifies the issue and learns how to avoid it, wines like this one will be very good.