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Wine Scores
Below is a listing of the wine review scores we frequently reference in our notes. While these sources remain an excellent source of information, we always recommend that you trust your own palate. Scores in these publications often represent the personal taste of an individual critic, which may not always coincide with your own. We have a huge team of excellent wine professionals that can match wines you've had in the past with new arrivals that meet your flavor profile.
- Allen Meadows - Burghound
- Connoisseurs Guide
- Gambero Rosso
- James Halliday
- James Suckling
- Malt Advocate
- Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
- International Wine Cellar
- Wine & Spirits
- Wine Enthusiast
- Wine Spectator
- The Wine News
- Malt Advocate
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Staff Favorites - Mahon McGrath
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Reviews
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1990 Mortlach 22 Year Old K&L Exclusive Chieftain's Single Sherry Barrel Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky 750ml
Review Date: 5-15-2013
Pungent stuff, this! The nose gives off big aromas of salty, toasted almond, brown sugar, maple syrup and caramel fudge. You might think this would then be one of the sweeter malts, but it switches up when you taste it: the contrast of the salty, rancio notes from the Sherry cask keeps the sweetness well in bounds. Still, this is a full, thick and rich dram, which comes across to me something like a pianist playing a slow, left handed vamp on the lower reaches of his instrument. Into this deep end flavor range, on the finish, comes just the slightest bit of fruity, bright, candied citron peel; a spot of sunlight beaming into a shadowed room through a torn shade. While this, of course, makes me wish we had more Mortlach, getting to sample this singular malt is well worth the price of admission.
Price: $169.99
2012 Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc
Review Date: 5-13-2013
With summer a short ways off, this crisp, affordable Sauvignon Blanc answers the call of warm days and backyard grilling parties, picnics, and the like. Light and refreshing, with green melon, citrus, and a dash of herbs, this could either make a good foil to, say, grilled shrimp, or serve as a nice, straightforward, juicy, "cocktail" wine.
Price: $7.99
2009 Joya Sonoma County Chardonnay
Review Date: 5-13-2013
For under ten dollars, in a domestic Chardonnay with no overt oak, this is worthy of consideration. While the nose is a little short, on the palate it packs plenty of flavor, ranging from blossom, apple and orange, to honeyed, waxy notes. The thick texture is cut, on the finish, as the underlying acidity pops out, keeping things lively.
Price: $9.99
James E. Pepper 1776 Straight Rye Whiskey 750ml
Review Date: 4-29-2013
Surprisingly sweet and round, with lemon, mandarin peel, and pine contrasting toasted almond, marshmallow, and vanilla, there is a solid depth of flavor here for a two year old rye. That being said, if you plan to make a Manhattan or some similar creation, go with a lighter sweet vermouth and be chary with it. I find this works best for my palate in cocktails with just a few small additions.
As an aside, it is refreshing to see that the bottle's legend freely admits to the whiskey being from sourced barrels, while the label's own distillates are coming of age.
Price: $23.99
Old Forester Bourbon 86 Proof 750ml
Review Date: 4-29-2013
Not every whiskey needs to be pondered. Sometimes, you just want something enjoyable that you can splash liberally about. For under twenty dollars, this delivers. Robust without being heavy, this Bourbon ranges from dried fruit, crème anglais, pecan and nougat, through to cinnamon, allspice, and cedar. While you could nit-pick this or that aspect, overall, I find this quite easy to enjoy just on its own, straight up. Nicely done!
Price: $16.99
2012 Arnot-Roberts Lake County Rosé
Review Date: 3-14-2013
One of the opening salvos in this year’s roses may be one of our best new introductions to our domestic rose lineup. I can’t say I have sampled too many California wines of any color made from Touriga Nacional & Tinta Cao, but on the strength of this example, I’d certainly be glad to try more. A real high mountain stream of a wine, this is taut, vibrant, and refreshing, with light flavors of cantaloupe and pomelo and an implied bitterness behind. The only off note is that it is likely to be as long gone as the cherry blossoms by the time the weather catches up: grab some while you can!
Price: $22.99
2009 Fort Ross "Fort Ross Vineyard" Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir
Review Date: 2-16-2013
This wine leans to the dark side, with bittersweet chocolate, coffee, and dry herbs around a core of black cherry fruit. The palate adds a saline, savory edge that seems to want to veer in an almost meaty direction without ever arriving there. I like the restraint of the finish; this is a nicely balanced, proportionate, nuanced domestic Pinot Noir.
Price: $34.99
2010 Hendry "Block 7 and 22" Napa Zinfandel
Review Date: 1-28-2013
This is a real go-to bottle for me. You get an easy drinking, balanced Zinfandel with enough excitement to keep you wanting that next sip. Brambly-dusty dark fruit flavors go soft and round on the mid-palate before a tart, puckery finish and a dash of tannin shape it on the close. Good length on the finish, too. A touchstone of a medium bodied Zinfandel.
Price: $29.99
2011 Dashe "Les 'Enfant Terrible" McFadden Farms Mendocino County Zinfandel
Review Date: 1-28-2013
Before you’ve uncorked a bottle of this, you can already tell that it isn’t Zinfandel-as-usual. 13.6% is low for any Californian wine these days, let alone Zin. Once it is out of the bottle, you’ve got a light bodied wine with an exuberant berry-cherry flavor, alongside rosehip and grapefruit notes. If I were blinded on this, I’d probably have guessed it was a domestic Pinot Noir or lighter bodied Grenache. While this is well worth trying, with its transparency of flavor and delicacy, it is so unlike the majority of Zinfandels that you might be a little shocked if you didn’t know what awaited you.
Price: $25.99
Plymouth Navy Strength Gin 750ml
Review Date: 11-4-2012
It had been bruited about that such a creature as “navy strength” Plymouth gin existed, or once had, and here in the midst of the great cocktail revival, where many a long-lost dream comes true, it once more graces these shores. If you’re familiar with Plymouth gin, there are no great surprises in store for you here; which is just fine. Why mess with success? The Navy Strength bottling is simply a brawnier version of the classic Plymouth taste. When this is, for instance, mixed up simply 1:1 gin to vermouth(Noilly Prat), no garnish, as a Wondrich reprint of an early 1850's San Francisco Gibson recipe suggests, this is a fabulous drink, and one in which a standard proof just wouldn't cut it. With the Navy Stength, you can taste the gin’s presence clearly and distinctly. An excellent addition to the canon!
Price: $33.99
Pacifique Absinthe Verte 750ml
Review Date: 10-31-2012
Pacifique has a moderately strong louche, turning quite milky. The flavors lead with licorice, in a sort of “Good ‘n’ Plenty” vein, and then shifts into a fennel dominant mode, covering the spectrum of flavors from the oily intensity of the seed to the crunchy green-ness of the bulb. This is all set against a vegetal-herbaceous background, which comes to the fore in the finish, where a slight bitterness and mild numbing sensation makes itself known. Overall, this has a cool, easy going personality, with insistent but well balanced flavors, and nothing in excess. While it is more a matter of personal preference than anything else, I should note this does not require the addition of sugar to complete it.
Price: $59.99
Kina L'Avion D'Or Aperitif 750ml
Review Date: 10-8-2012
Does Kina l’Avion d’Or replace Lillet? Not exactly; more like compliments Lillet. While you can have a glass of Lillet all by itself, L’Avion is much too sweet for such a maneuver. The bitterness is also, correspondingly, more pronounced in the l’Avion d’Or, though it is still only moderately bitter. What is different is the scope. It would be more correct to say that it has an array of bitter flavors. When mixing, those flavors and l’Avion’s over-all robustness really stand out when you substitute this in a cocktail in place of Lillet. I think you might even find you want to adjust your proportions accordingly to take that into account. The fact that this is so clearly its own creature is to be commended, and provides plenty of room for the imagination to invent new drinks as well as showing established recipes in a different light.
Price: $32.99
Tempus Fugit Creme de Menthe 750ml
Review Date: 9-4-2012
I admit, I had my doubts. While a devoted fan of the sweetly aromatic, cooling smell of fresh mint, any attempt to capture that essence always seems to me to come up short. This liqueur comes about as close as I reckon you can. It doesn’t, naturally, take the place of fresh mint in cocktails; as much as it is true to the flavor, it is best considered as its own creature. It mixes splendidly, especially in gin drinks, where the juniper and the crème de menthe get together and execute a sort of cool tango on your tongue, and in a way that muddled sprigs wouldn't. So, yeah, I'm a convert: this is well worth checking this out.
Price: $29.99
Byrrh Grand Quinquina Aperitif 750ml
Review Date: 9-4-2012
What sort of aperitif is this? I'd liken it more to Dubonnet than sweet Vermouth, though it has a brighter, fresher berry-fruit character to Dubonnet's plush, bass heavy profile, and a more pronounced bitterness as a counterpoint. Note, though, that this is skewed more towards the sweet than the bitter, and therefore seems to me to suggest it wants dilution of some sort, whether passively by serving it over ice, or through mixing: dust off your copy of the Savoy Cocktail book for a few suggestions on how to get started if that latter course strikes your fancy.
Price: $19.99
Leopold Bros Navy Strength Gin 750ml
Review Date: 8-3-2012
As noted, this is NOT the same creature as the Leopold Bros small batch gin. At first, you might think it bears no resemblance; the aromatic profile is markedly different and I don't think anybody would want to sip this as is. What happens, though, when you mix it, is that that recognizable Leopold's suppleness of texture comes out. True, the botanicals here sing out clearly even when you are mixing it 1:1:1, but it still comes across more polished than savage, with the result that you can more easily plug this into a wide variety of recipes with excellent results.
Price: $44.99
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