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2006 Futo Oakville, Napa

pcook — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:14:05 +0000

For all our fans out there that have harassed us for the last six weeks, this one’s for you. We do appreciate the encouragement! Several of you were able to taste this little gem with us about two weeks ago at Wine Styles on Louetta Rd in North Houston.

This wine is a rockstar, with only 374 cases produced, it brings the whole band with it.

David Abreu and Jason Exposto make this wine and really amaze me as much as the grapes do. They have done a spectacular job letting the land and fruit do their thing. Sometimes, it is a hard thing to do – to let simplicity do its thing. These guys have done the hard part… and we get the best!

The nose of this wine as divulged by J. Heck was full of dark fruits, blackberry, dark cherry, and black currant which stood out along with Spanish cedar, toasty oak, white pepper, mushroom and rocky minerals from the river bed. The pallet was full-bodied, but round, with well integrated tannins and a great well balanced generous finish. The finish was quite long and beautiful. This is an extremely complex wine with so much room to grow. It is easy to see why it is considered a ‘cult’ wine.

Paul C – 95
Jimmy H – 96+
Everyone Else That Tasted It ??

1995 Chateau D Yquem – Sauternes

jheck — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:09:14 +0000

Okay so we have been slacker’s and posted nothing for months. It certainly isn’t because we are not drinking some really special wines. Recently we enjoyed a bottle of the 1995 Chateau D Y’quem for a dear friends special birthday, and man was it ever special.

Y’quem is the dessert wine that all others are judged by, and some experts say the best white wine in the entire world.

At Y’quem they proudly boast that only one glass of wine per vine is produced. The grapes are picked one by one at perfect maturity. In 2006 a 135-year “vertical” (containing every vintage from 1860 to 2003) was sold by The Antique Wine Company in London for $1.5 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a single lot of wine. Yquem’s success stems largely from the site’s susceptibility to attack by Botrytis Cinera, the “noble rot”. Y’quem is a wine with an extremely long life, bottles of 100 years and older may be found in excellent condition if properly kept.

Tasting: The nose is like a complex beautiful perfume of honey suckle, dried figs, dried apricot, peaches, pear, pineapple, lemon zest, litchi nuts, vanilla, soft leather, and earthy mineral notes. A very seductive sumptuous, mouth coating pallet with impeccable balance. The finish goes on for several wonderful minutes. The 1995 is intense, unctuous, and still showed youth, and could be aged and enjoyed for many years to come.

Rating: 95 PC, 96 JH

2006 Cayuse Syrah – “Armada”

jheck — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:11:13 +0000

Recently tasted the 2006 Armada from Cayuse Vineyards in Walla Walla, and it blew us away. Their fifth vineyard, Armada, planted in 2001, contains 3 acres of Grenache, 3 acres of Syrah and 1 acre of Mourvedre. With four feet between vines and five feet between rows, 2178 vines were planted per acre—nearly double the standard vine quantity—and easily marks it as the highest density vineyard in the Walla Walla Valley. Cayuse Vineyards is bio-dynamically farmed and even the most labor intensive tasks are performed manually.

Christophe Baron started Cayuse Vineyards in 1996, and is also the viticulturist and wine consultant at Reynvann Family Vineyards and it is being well received in the cult wine community.

Note: Aged 30 months in 20% newRostaing barrels. Made with indigenous yeasts and bottled unfinned and unfiltered.

Review: An intense full-bodied wine with a brawny bouquet of blueberry, cherry, smoked wild game, pencil lead, lavender, pepper, liquorice, with a beautiful earthy mineral component.The wine shows great balance and an extremely long finish. The Armada is a totally gratifying wine to be cellared for years, and will improve to near perfection IMO, if you can stay away from it, and deny your inner hedonist.

The Armada was opened for about 1.5 hours for this review, and could have benefited from more time. PS This is a tough mailing list to crack!

Rating: 99 JH, 98 PC

2006 Amuse Bouche – Merlot

jheck — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:09:02 +0000

Paul and I recently enjoyed the 2006 Amuse Bouche with our wives on a night out in Houston and it was spectacular. The name Amuse Bouche is a French noun meaning “amusement for the mouth”, and that it is . Each vintage is quite literally, a work of art. The 2006 bottle artwork was created by Louisiana artist George Rodrigue, best known for his famous loup-garou or Blue Dog. This Pomerol-style Merlot/Cabernet Franc blend is made from some of the best grape sources in the Napa Valley. The winemaker is Heidi Barrett who Robert Parker has called “the first lady of wine.” If you have ever had a wine made by Heidi Barrett, you know that they always display impeccable balance. This web site has posted many wines made by Heidi as we are a big fan of her’s.

Vintage: 2006

Proprietor: Amuse Bouche

Varietal: Merlot, Cabernet Franc

Appellation: Napa Valley, CA

Notes: About 500 cases produced.

Tasting: Blueberry, plum, cherry, dewberry, cassis, pepper, followed by Spanish cedar, chocolate cocoa powder, lavender, violets, leather, tobacco, baking spices, mushroom, hazelnut, star anise, sage, and a hint of vanilla. The 2006 Amuse Bouche is drinking incredibly well at this time with little coaxing or time needed to show it’s hedonistic personality, all it needs is a fine stem and some great company to share it with. The wine shows great length and impeccable balance. This vintage scored well by recognised wine critics, but not near what I think it deserves, but of course their ratings were completed quite some time ago.

Rating: PC 96, JH 97

2004 Amuse Bouche “Merlot”

jheck — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:48:28 +0000

Paul and I really enjoyed a magnum of this wonderful right bank Pomerol-style wine made by famous winemaker Heidi Peterson Barrett. The name Amuse Bouche is a French noun meaning “amusement for the mouth”, and that it is The bottle artwork on the offerings is a conversation piece unto itself. The artwork on the 2004 was done by renowned Napa Valley artist Ira Yeager http://www.irayeager.com/.

Vintage: 2004

Appellation: Napa Valley

Varietal: 98% Merlot, 2 % Cabernet Franc

Tasting: A very complex bouquet with unctuous layer of dark plum, bright cherry, raspberry, wild berry, black berry, anise, cassis, forrest floor, tobacco, Spanish cedar, smoke, lavender, black pepper, violets, with a nice minerality. On the palate the wine is very broad, round, and savory with a full mouth-feel. Smooth integrated tannins with beautiful elegance and incredible balance with an extremely long pleasant finish. Rating: 94 PC, 95 JH

2003 Fleury Estate Winery “Passionne”

jheck — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:14:21 +0000

Paul and I recently purchased three bottles of the 2003 Fleury Passionne at the Culture Shapers charity wine auction held in Houston, TX. Culture Shapers is a group of Houston-area businessmen and women who are dedicated to serving student artists in many ways, including unique visual and performing arts contests. If you attend High School in Harris, Waller, Liberty, Chambers, Galveston, Brazoria, Fort Bend or Montgomery counties – you are eligible to compete for more than $100,000 in cash prizes! The Culture Shapers web page can be found at http://www.cultureshapers.com

The Passionne is the flagship wine from Fleury and is a Bordeaux-style blend. Fleury Estate Winery owns 50 acres spanning three vineyards in three appellations and at three elevations: Rutherford, St. Helena, and Howell Mountain. Fleury produces about 3000 total cases of wine a year through winery sales only. The current release also includes a Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel/Can blend, three Cabernet Sauvignons and a port. The owner/winemaker is Brian Fleury.

Winery: Fleury Estate Winery

Vintage: 2003

Varietals: Bordeaux-style, exact blend unknown.

Appellation: Napa Valley

Alc: 14.5%

Notes: I cant find anything regarding the 2003 case production, barrel ageing, etc on this wine.

Tasting: On the nose blackberry, blueberry, black cherry fruit, Forrest floor, eucalyptus, cedar, graphite, black pepper, with a nice dusty, rusty mineral component, followed by a hint of vanilla. The wine has a tremendously elegant full body and round mouth-feel with finely grained tannins and well balanced acidity. The finish is very long and pleasant. Go to their website and get this highly allocated wine. It is a gem. http://www.fleurywinery.com/

Rating: 94 JH, 93 PC

2007 Black Kite – “Stony Terrace” Pinot Noir

jheck — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:04:14 +0000

Paul and I received our 2007 shipment of Black Kite Cellars complete lineup late last year and we have been patiently laying them down in the cellar. The other night we broke out one of their 2007 Stony Terrace and it was drinking very well. Black Kite cellars is a family owned and run artisan producer of hand crafted, terrior driven Pinto Noir. The winery was established in 2003 and currently produces three single vineyard, block designated bottling’s. The three single vineyards Redwoods Edge, Stony Terrace, and River Turn, are each planted in four acre plots, with each displaying the diversity of their own soil types, micro climates and clone type. The Kite’s Rest is a magnificent blend of the three single vineyard offerings of which I reviewed on the site back on November last year.

Winery: Black Kite

Vintage: 2007

Vineyard: Stony Terrace

Notes: Soil type is gravel/loam, elevation is 217 feet, Pommard clone on 3309, and only 194 cases were made.

Tasting: Black cherry, black plum, forest floor, tobacco, black pepper, and dark mushroom, beautiful floral bouquet with roses being the most prominent followed by a hint of spanish cedar, chocolate, toasty oak and a nice minerality. The wine has elegant balance with with a nice weight/mouthfeel, and has a very generous clean finish. This wine is drinking well now, but IMO will continue to improve with more time in the bottle.

Rating: 92 JH

2006 Leviathan

pcook — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:34:03 +0000

On a wonderful summer day, low humidity, lower 90’s, my son’s first football game of the season (tied last year’s super bowl champions 7 to 7), AND a first tasting of the 2006 Leviathan. We sat outside and had out first taste and wow…
The nose comes at you like a sniper. Our first impressions revealed tons of dark fruit with a hint of dustiness with some smoky highlights. However, after about 30 minutes, the fruit bomb became a little more tricky by adding some tobacco and chocolate. This wine is full of complexity and structured like a much more expensive California cult red. Could it be the next Screaming Eagle?

The color of the Leviathan is dark and, as you could expect, the pallet was full of darkness as well. But to our surprise, this big red had more tricks up its sleeve. The pallet, while being very heavy and full, was like driving in a patchy heavy fog. All of a sudden it was on you, almost unable to see the road and then it just disapeared into a beautiful mysterious mist. Silky smooth greatness!

The finish was wonderfully long lasting and seemed to reveal the high alcohol content but not in a ‘hot’ way. It was more like a great roasted red pepper. The feeling you get after you’ve ate one that is a bit warm, but not so much that it bothers you. It just leaves you feeling like you had something wonderful and are ready to get some more. Wow, some cherry notes on the finish… This thing is so complex.

Ok… get some if you can. If you can’t, find me and let’s drink some of mine. This will be perfect with a nice roasted lamb dish in the back yard on an Autumn evening or just drink it on a hot summer day… it is THAT good!

96 Rating – Paul
94-95 Rating – Carol

2005 Reynolds Family “Persistence”

pcook — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:50:32 +0000

Last night, being my last night in Houston for at least five days, we decided to have a party, of course. We all met at the normal stomping gound, Cellar-17. Sean was already gone, but Cristy was there to help us get started. We had so many great bottles that it was hard to pick which one I wanted to share with everyone today. After I looked through my notes I realized I only reviewed one, so that made the choice manageable. The wine I took notes on was the 2005 Reynold’s Family Vineyard “Persistence”. How lucky everyone is… here are my notes.

The wine showed nice structure with velvety tannins. The nose was full of raspberry, plumb and dark berries. This wine is nice and chewy… The price point is around $55, but this wine rocks for the price.

2003 Dyer Cabernet Sauvignon

jheck — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:06:15 +0000

Had the 2003 Dyer Cabernet yesterday at Cellar 17 in Houston and really enjoyed it.

80% Cabernet, 20% Cab Franc, Only 380 cases made.

On the nose hints of ripe dark fruit, white pepper, cocoa, and violets. On the palate dark cherries, bell pepper, with a hint of chocolate and vanilla. Nice soft tannins, and long finish.

92+ rating JH…

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The overall impression I had, since I’ve had this twice in as many days, is that the more you get to ‘know’ a wine the more you enjoy the stuff you like and forget about the stuff you don’t. Or maybe I’m just saying, “I like wine alot…”. Anyway, I got a real dark fruit with slight vanilla on the nose and the mid palate had some licorice and smooth to the end. Very nice both times I had it. I think it can age several years and continue to beautify… Drink it and also keep some back for the next year or two.

92 rating Paul…