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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
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- 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 - Alexandre Brisoux
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Alexandre Brisoux
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2006 Friggiali Brunello di Montalcino
Review Date: 5-22-2013
The 2006 vintage for Friggiali was outstanding; it offers the more classic, focused structure and aromatics of the 2006 vintage which is one of the best vintages in Montalcino’s history. Yet there is a layer of sweet, complex fruit than bursts forth on the palate giving a lush, full, smooth flow across your palate that finishes, clean and becomes the center of attention as the finish seems to last and last. This is a wine you can drink now with a little decanting and you’ll be able to age it for another decade easily!
Drink from
2013
to
2023
Price: $29.99
2006 Friggiali Brunello di Montalcino
Review Date: 5-22-2013
This is classic 2006 Brunelli, beautifully layered, and expressive. It's bursting with sweet, ripe strawberries, black cherries intermingled with subtle earth and toasted oak notes, minerals, leather and a hint of bitter chocolate on the finish, with round and soft tannins and a long aftertaste. This is a must for the cellar, and is in my cellar and will be there till its tenth birthday and maybe a bottle to celebrate its fifthteen. (It will be tough keeping my hands off it though.) This is what 2006 is all about, structure and balance - it’s all going on here. Buy a few bottles, then forget about them, or give this at least two hours of decanting. Warning on this as it should be sold out soon.
Price: $29.99
2011 Balletto Estate Russian River Valley Pinot Noir
Review Date: 5-22-2013
This Pinot Noir has aromas of parched earth and spice in a warm, close fashion, which nicely accents the natural cherry fruit. Supple in texture, with feathery tannins, on the palate the sweet cherry fruit picks up intensity without any heaviness, and carries through to a finish of good length, which likewise demonstrates a pleasing transparency of flavor. All in all, an excellent example of a taut, well proportioned Russian River Pinot Noir!
Price: $21.99
2011 Balletto Estate Russian River Valley Pinot Noir
Review Date: 5-22-2013
Balletto is a winery that we have carried regularly in our San Francisco store over the last few years. John Balletto began as one of the regions largest vegetable farmer's but in 1999 decided to move the company business towards grape growing. The Balletto Family has over 500 acres in the Russian River Valley and selects 10% from many different clones and soil types to make their wine. The 2011 Estate Pinot Noir continues a great run of excellent wines from this winery. Light and fresh red and blue fruit with hints of cedar, rhubarb, cinnamon and vanilla give it a lovely complexity.A beautiful example of Russian River excellence.
Price: $21.99
2010 Chateau de Maligny Chablis "Vieilles Vignes"
Review Date: 5-22-2013
Maturity is not instantly acquired in individuals, nations or wines, and the 'Old World'— France to be precise, stretching back in antiquity beneath the footfall of vanquished armies, peasants and priests commingling with the even earlier barnacled abodes of ancient bivalves and ammonites, often remains a very good place to plant vines and grow grapes. Chablis, a limpidly harmonious wine of delineation, cut and clarity remains the perfect companion to a plateful of freshly-vanquished oysters, and that of Chateau de Maligny, with some expressive vines rootbound for a century or more, delivers a perfect unanimity of salinity, floral aromatics and lively citrus focus. Hold your ear to the glass and you might hear the sea.....
Top Value!
Price: $18.99
2011 Kenneth Volk "Jaybird" Santa Maria Valley Chardonnay
Review Date: 5-22-2013
Waxing poetically about California Chardonnay isn't usually amongst my staff reviews. Even more so for unoaked California Chardonnay which mostly seemed to have lacked any flavor once the oak was gone. This wine however has completely changed my opinion, this is a complete wine, it just never needed the oak like most California Chards. The Jaybird has size, focus, natural balance, pure chardonnay flavor, and a wonderfully expressive aromatic profile. The even more amazing thing is the price? This lands in the "Are you kidding me?" category, this wine outperforms so many other unoaked California Chardonnay it is in a league of its' own! Bravo to Kenneth Volk, longtime pioneer in this region blazing a trail towards real wine!
Drink from
2013
to
2015
Price: $14.99
2011 Balletto Estate Russian River Valley Pinot Noir
| Public Pending Approval
Review Date: 5-21-2013
It's hard to find a Pinot Noir at this price with this much substance. A great nose of cherry, strawberry, and light smoke is followed by flavors of dense raspberry, cinnamon spice, and oak. This is well worth the price.
Price: $21.99
2010 Arnot-Roberts "Fellom Ranch Vineyard" Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon
Review Date: 5-21-2013
I hate to be brutally honest, but I was sadly recovering from an awful head-cold when I had the pleasure of tasting with these two glorious winemakers at their Healdsburg winery. But as stuffed up as I was, I could still smell the amazing aromatics coming from this Monte Bello adjacent vineyard. Beautiful aromatics of sweet savory herbs are matched by the commanding presence of ripe candied cherries, tobacco and delicate purple flowers. This wine is so beautifully old world in its elegance and finesse, even the most hardened new world naysayer would fall head over heels for this Santa Cruz Mountains cabernet sauvignon.
Price: $79.99
2011 La Mission Haut-Brion Rouge, Pessac-Léognan (1.5L) Pre-Arrival
Review Date: 5-21-2013
Very focused and tightly wound, with lots of mineral and cedar and sweet mid-core fruit. The tannins are rather soft for La Mission, integrated and velvety; it's still a big wine, but has finesse. I like it. 91-93 points.
Price: $669.99
2011 La Mission Haut-Brion Rouge, Pessac-Léognan (1.5L) Pre-Arrival
Review Date: 5-21-2013
** Only 4,500 cases. 55% Cabernet Sauvingnon, 34% Merlot and 11% Cabernet Franc. Very rich and round.
Price: $669.99
2011 Montrose, St-Estèphe Pre-Arrival
Review Date: 5-21-2013
** 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot, 12% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot. I love this. Elegant red currant and cassis aromas. Very spicy wine. Lovely palate entry. Quite tannic back end. Ager.
Price: $109.99
2011 La Mission Haut-Brion Rouge, Pessac-Léognan Pre-Arrival
Review Date: 5-21-2013
Very focused and tightly wound, with lots of mineral and cedar and sweet mid-core fruit. The tannins are rather soft for La Mission, integrated and velvety; it's still a big wine, but has finesse. I like it. 91-93 points.
Price: $329.99
2011 La Mission Haut-Brion Rouge, Pessac-Léognan Pre-Arrival
Review Date: 5-21-2013
** Only 4,500 cases. 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot and 11% Cabernet Franc. Very rich and round.
Price: $329.99
2012 Cave de Tavel "Lauzeraies" Tavel
| Public Pending Approval
Review Date: 5-21-2013
It's finally back! The Tavel rose you all have been waiting for! Plush grenache fruit of raspberry and red cherry, with hints of lush spice. Medium acidity and super refreshing. Bring on the poolside or picnic appetizers! YAY!
Top Value!
Price: $13.99
2012 Quinta da Aveleda Vinho Verde
| Public Pending Approval
Review Date: 5-21-2013
Sprightly goodness is back! Yet another delightfully quaffable, lime zest and mineral driven vinho verde. Medium plus acidity and low alcohol at 11.5% and a killer deal at $8.99!
Top Value!
Price: $8.99
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