2005 Coudoulet de Beaucastel Blanc

2005 Coudoulet de Beaucastel Blanc

Extremely light, the wine has a pleasant nose of mineral and lychee. Short finish. Pleasant and modest, if lacking a bit of stuffing.

1999 Guigal Hermitage Rouge

1999 Guigal Hermitage Rouge

Flavors dance around garrigue, resin, pepper, fig and cherry. Still on the young side, but this is becoming very approachable.

The book on Guigal is its ripe, modern style. Although it is robust in the Hermitage style, it is still fairly understated. Very interesting.

2000 Reserve de la Comtesse Pauillac

2000 Reserve de la Comtesse Pauillac

Even though this is the second wine if Pichon Lalande, it is truly one of the better Pauillacs I have tasted. Young and rubust, the wine just oozes mineral, loam, pepper, herb and lead pencil. Finish is long and still feels the weight of robust, integrated tannins. People need to try this for themselves - it's amazing.

2007 Alain Paret Les Lames du Pere St Joseph

2007 Alain Paret Les Lames du Pere St Joseph

again very solid, with nice grilled beef, summer sausage, herb and mineral nuances.

2007 Casanova Di Neri Rosso Di Montalcino

2007 Casanova Di Neri Rosso Di Montalcino

Very young and tannic, I was surprised how robust this was. Light brick red in color, the wine has nice notes of cherry, tar, and crushed rock on the nose/palate. This has to have been released fairly recently, and even though this is just the Rosso, I would suggest cellaring until 2011.

2006 Hoopes Cabernet Oakville

2006 Hoopes Cabernet Oakville

There is nothing technically wrong with this wine, but there sure isn't much unique character to it either.

It's moderately high in alcohol, fairly dense, and has flavors revolving around currant and dark cherry. Good but haven't we all had this wine 1000 times before?

2004 St. Supery Elu Red Meritage

2004 St. Supery Elu Red Meritage

I like this wine in almost every vintage, although the Dollarhide Cab is really where this producer shines. The Elu meritage is built to compete with upper tier wines like Opus but is often more complex (especially compared to boring Opus One) and is of course very reasonably priced by comparison. It really is a great wine in general.

This wine is young and tannic at this point, and for my personal taste it should be cellared for 3-4 years at minimum. But it is certainly ripe and bold, with nice black currant and spice character. Good stuff.

2005 Simi Landslide Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

2005 Simi Landslide Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

After what I found to be an atypically disappointing 2004 effort from this wine, I was pleased by the 2005. Typically dark, tannic and young, it has a lot of cassis, black pepper, loam, and herb notes. I have found the Landslide to age very well, so I would say try in 2011; should keep well through 2020.

2005 Sori Paitin Barbaresco

2005 Sori Paitin Barbaresco

High quality Barbaresco at a great price, this is (as you might expect) still wrestling with sharp, mean tannins right now but promises to be great with age. The nose is much more open knit than I am used to out of this kind of wine, but on the palate there is no getting around the tannic profile. Give it until 2012 and see how it has developed. This was the first time I had tried this wine, and I was very impressed.

1996 Dom Perignon

1996 Dom Perignon