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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
- Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
- International Wine Cellar
- Wine & Spirits
- Wine Enthusiast
- Wine Spectator
- The Wine News
- Malt Advocate
Reviewers
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Reviews
2003 Sean Thackrey "Aquila" Sangiovese Eaglepoint Ranch Mendocino
Review Date: 10-28-2009
This is a singular California sangiovese. I doesn't bear much resemblance to other California sangioveses (which is perhaps a good thing), or its Italian forebears; it tastes and smells most strongly like a Thackrey Sangiovese. The nose is pungently mentholyptus. Underneath that is a medium bodied wine with meaty and dry cherry flavors and dry, dustily herbaceous, peppery accents. The tannins are modest, lightly tooth coating, and the wine has enough acidity to make it food friendly without being obvious. This is one to enjoy now.
Price: $29.99
2006 Unti Vineyard Mourvèdre Dry Creek
Review Date: 10-28-2009
A superior interpretation! Deep, dark, roasted and meaty, with hints of soy sauce and black pepper, this is a serious mourvedre with a concentration rarely seen in Californian takes on the varietal. The palate shows dark berry fruit buttressing the more animal top notes. The tannins are slightly raspy, but fine. Without a doubt, this is a real red meat wine. If you want something less domesticated than a cabernet sauvignon for beef or lamb, this is a worthy choice.
Price: $29.99
2007 Curran Santa Ynez Grenache Blanc
Review Date: 9-25-2009
The aromas in this wine are penetrating and suggestive of a dry riesling, with lots of mineral and citrus scents that flirt with going a little petrol, too, while also having a bit of the springtime green that might put you in mind of a sancerre. There is a bit of flesh when you first sip, with a sweetly transparent, starfruit quality set against a pale floral background that then becomes puckery and lip-smacking. The finish allows some of that initial sweetness to re-emerge as a lingering flavor of candied citrus peel.
Price: $23.99
2007 David Bruce Russian River Chardonnay
Review Date: 9-25-2009
There is a gentle hand with the oak here. Fruit driven, but not fruity, fresh, lively, not at all cloying, this wine is medium bodied with zippy acidity. The palate shows delicate dried pear, a whiff—but no more—of buttered popcorn and pineapple, and lemon and lime. It finishes with a lactic-citrus touch, like a lime yogurt, and clean. Those seeking full-throttle, glycerin textured, rich chardonnays should ignore it, but for everyone else, this is an easy-to-pair, versatile, pleasantly light on its feet example of a California chardonnay.
Price: $26.99
Deschutes Brewery "Mirror Mirror" Barleywine, Oregon 22oz
Review Date: 8-30-2009
When is a wine review not a wine review? When it’s a barley wine review!
A colleague of mine, and I’m paraphrasing, called barley wine contemplative beer. Well, damn! I just had my un-alloyed pleasure stepped on. There is an element of truth to both sides.
This isn’t the beer you’d heedlessly put back a few bottles of in an evening. It is far too rich, concentrated — and strong — for that. The viscosity is high. You can just about chew this. The flavors match in intensity the barley wine’s density. Nor does it want for complexity. The deep, sweet maltiness with hints of orange peel and a background of hops goes all the way down. The effervescence manifests as a soft, persistent mousse. The color is dark amber shading to nut brown.
I think you’d have to be a little churlish not to respond to this beer. Likably lavish? There is so much “much” about it. It really is trying to please, and by please I mean please in the way a Dagwood sandwich is pleasing, a lusty pleasure, an unfettered, over-the-top, smack-you-upside-the-head pleasure. What it has, it has in spades. You don’t have to wonder what it is about, not that you can’t wonder at it.
The brewery suggests you cellar it. I suggest you have it with some Stilton and call it dessert.
Price: $11.99
Lustau Puerto Fino
Review Date: 8-30-2009
The nose is salty, with toasted nuts and chalky minerality. Pungent flavors, briny, tangy, yeasty and nutty, appear on the palate. According to the producer’s notes, the Puerto Fino sees a double share of time under flor in cask, and that is certainly evident in the wine.
While very good, and in fact my preference over any number of other finos in the price range, the thing that makes this wine special for me is more how well it pairs. Put it up against food that’s been deep fried, especially seafood, and oh, my! The wine cuts through the richness like a sword and the flavors marry beautifully. That’s not its only excellence, of course, just one possibility. In short, this sherry’s genius only becomes fully evident with food. Proper pairing will catapult the wine straight into the “memorable sensations” category and cause the wine to seem a bargain even if it somehow cost twice the relatively modest price it actually does.
Price: $13.99
2007 Stefan Winter Scheurebe Trocken (Dry)
Review Date: 8-30-2009
Do you cherish the enamel on your teeth? Well, not to worry; this isn’t that kind of trocken. It has a bit less acid than a good riesling would and is more off-dry or dry-ish, rather than bone dry. Yes, the checkered flag is being waved, go! pull the cork now. Immediate gratification is at hand! I reckon this will make you want to “Keep on trocken, trocken on down the line...”
Peachy, honeyed and sweetly floral — borderline tropical — with a whiff of spice, the nose is altogether exuberant. The flavors echo the nose and are just as generous. Have a bit of chile heat and garlic in a dish, say? Fish, chicken or pork, this is sho’ nuff the Scheurebe for the occasion.
Price: $16.99
2006 Jaffurs Santa Barbara Grenache
Review Date: 7-19-2009
Searching for excellent Californian Grenache isn’t always an easy thing, being akin to rooting for an underdog sports team that seldom wins big. The heartbreaks are many. The compensation is that the triumphs, while proportionately fewer, savor all the more sweetly.
The 2006 Jaffurs is one of those grenaches akin to a slightly wild and emphatic Pinot Noir, which, if not exactly the soul of elegance, certainly isn’t made in the mold of the blue-black, show-stopper model of some of the more lauded and rare Cal grenaches. The mid palate does have good weight, though; this is neither meager nor thin. And there is that perfume; an alluring mix of cherry and currant, with a peppery, meaty aspect. The tannins are very fine and the wine has happily been spared a coating of new oak, allowing the varietal character to shine through. Pair this right, with grilled, barbecued or roasted lamb or beef, say, and it will show even better than it does on its own.
Price: $29.99
2007 Cantina Valle Isarco "Aristos" Kerner
Review Date: 6-30-2009
If you need an introduction to the varietal Kerner, and in the interest of full disclosure I admit here I’m a novice with the grape myself, I’d wager that a bottle of Isarco’s is as good as any a one to start with. Here we have an exuberantly perfumed intensity, like a Riesling that veered off in the direction of a Viognier without taking on the fatness and viscosity, keeping instead something of the former’s refreshing lip-smacking, briskness. Clean, clear stone fruit flavors are most prominent, along with a summertime blossom sweetness, and a touch of candied lemon peel—this really isn’t holding much back, being instead a wine of easy and immediate appeal with enough dimension to keep you engaged sip after sip and a novel choice for fish, fowl or pork.
Price: $25.99
2007 Domaine Cheveau Saint Amour "En Rontey"
Review Date: 5-3-2009
Clear, translucent, dark ruby color. Raspberry, sweet cherry, cracked black pepper nose. Sleek, velvety texture in the mouth with pellucid fruit flavors, this is about as finessed as you’d expect from a bottle of wine coming a Cru called Saint Amour to be, and it makes for some terrific vinous immediate gratification. This is one that is going to play well with quite a few foods and won’t hog the limelight. Dig it!
Price: $21.99
Lustau Fino del Puerto Obregon Sherry
Review Date: 5-3-2009
Strongly redolent of smoky, toasted nuts with a brisk, saline edge this fino sherry is a joy. The concentration and breadth of the wine's nose clearly reveal why Lustau chose to offer this sherry unblended as part of its Almacenista line to preserve its distinctive character. The palate offers a gentle texture with spicy, tangy, savory flavors of surprising length and delicacy that will leave your mouth watering. This can do double duty as either a killer apperitif wine or a dry white for the dinner table when paired with seafood.
Incidentally, you may well wonder what the 1/143 on the bottom of the wines label denotes. Clearing up that little bit of arcana is this, from Lustau’s website “The number of butts forming a Solera, or fully mature wine, of each individual Almacenista Sherry is also indicated on the label i.e.1/10 means that the wine originates from a Solera of ten butts.”
Price: $19.99
