2001 Deerfield Ranch Syrah Ladi's Vineyard

Type: Red
Producer: Deerfield Ranch
Variety: Syrah
Vineyard: Ladi's Vineyard
Country: USA
Region: California
SubRegion: Sonoma County
Appellation: Sonoma County
Price: $39.99 from WineQ (full disclosure- this was a free sample from WineQ)



The Little Wooden Guy does a happy dance. This is good stuff.

Night One

Terrific funk. The nose opens with terrific funk, rich, dirty, earthy, barnyard funk. The deeper you dive into the glass, the more it rewards with layers of aromas. Black fruit and black pepper lie just under the funk, but that is not all. Deeper, below the fruit, are coffee, very dark chocolate, and tobacco. This is one of those wines you can sit and smell so long you forget to drink it. I won't let that happen. So go on to the next paragraph and drink along with me. Hang on a second, one more whiff.

Blackcurrant and blackberry, sprinkled with black pepper, open the palate. Smoky meat, a tiny drop of real licorice, and a wafting tendril of hickory smoke join the fruit on the mid-palate. Tannins are absolutely silky, mouth-feel is smooth and soft. The finish is long, not just lingering, but adding spice and fruit a full twenty to thirty seconds after the wine is gone.

Wow! Three hours later, and the nose is EXACTLY like oak burned by a very high rpm table saw.

Come back tomorrow for Night Two and the reaction from The Wooden Guys.

Night Two

On Night Two, the nose is far more mild. The funk is gone. The black fruits are far more sedate, spiced with an equally reduced pinch of black pepper.

Blackberry is more dominant that blackcurrant on Night Two, on the palate. Acids are bright and it sparkles with prickly pepper. the mid-palate is far smokier on Night Two, the licorice just barely an echo. The finish is even longer, and once again seems to grow and glow after the sip is gone.

2001 Château Bessan Bordeaux Contrôlée

Type: Red
Producer: Château Bessan
Variety: Red Bordeaux Blend
Country: France
Region: Bordeaux
Appellation: Bordeaux Contrôlée



The Little Wooden Guy reminds you, "Bordeaux" does not necessarily mean "good wine."

Night One

The nose on this is a dead ringer for a mediocre cabernet from Chile. It is all green pepper and coffee. There is no fruit to be found.

On the palate, too, this seems more like Chile than Bordeaux. Blackcurrants are there, but they are cooked up with green peppers and some coffee grounds. Tannins are very firm, even hard. There is not much of a mid-palate and the finish dies off quickly.

Night Two

The nose did not get any better over night. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Hang on a second.

Oh heck, it got worse.

I'm going to go open something good. Or at least drinkable.

2001 Jerome Quiot Gigondas

Producer: Jerome Quiot
Variety: Red Rhone Blend
Country: France
Region: Rhône
SubRegion: Southern Rhône
Appellation: Gigondas
Price: $18.99



The Little Wooden Guy is really confused by this wine. It was completely different from Night One to Night Two, to the point if you didn't really know it was still the same bottle, you would not believe it.

Night One

The nose opens with cherries, both fresh Michigan cherries, sweet and juicy, and tart dried cherries. It also bring smoked bacon and the saltiness of Greek olives.

The palate is very interesting. It flashes through several different and apparently unrelated flavors. First, cherries - CHANGE - Greek olives - CHANGE - bacon - CHANGE - chocolate, then it finally settles into very dark chocolate covered cherries.

Night Two

The nose on Night Two is extremely floral, filled with lilacs and violets.

Cranberries and some blackurrant lead on the palate, orange peel follows. Over it all lay the florals from the nose. Finish is long. This wine appears to bear no relationship to the same bottle on Night One. Interesting.

Chateau Haute-Bailly 2001

Grand Cru Classe' de Graves
Pessac-Leognan
$45.98 in Indianapolis, Indiana
12.5% alcohol by volume
imported by USA Wine Imports, New York, NY

This bottle of wine is a floral delight. On Night One it seems promise years of cellar growth to come, but we will know more about that on Night Two.

Night One

Purple flowers, lavendar and lilac, just float out of the glass, along with some dark plum and plum skins. On the palate the same flowers take center stage. There is fruit there, too, but it is hidden behind strong tannins that scream out for more years in the cellar. Plums, nee plum skins, are the primary fruit, but more will surely come out of hiding on Night Two. I hope you will join me to see if my prediction comes true.

Night Two

Floral aromas once again lead the nose on Night Two, but the additional time with some air brought out black fruit, more blackberry than blackcurrant, but both were there. The palate has more to offer than on Night One, but the overall impression is that this could use more time. Pencil lead, cassis, and tart plum skins are slowly wrapped in firm tannins as it moves from initial attack to mid-palate, where a hint of unsweetened chocolate makes a quick appearance. Acids and tannins are both pwoerful, but well-balanced. The finish is long.

This is good but still young. The sense of it is that it is just waking up now, just starting to come out of a closed phase. It might well be much better in as little as a year or two. There is plenty of backbone, acid and tannins, to give it time to grow and knit together.

Chateau des Deux Moulins 2001

This was a cheap Bordeaux, costing a mere $13.98. It is a Grand Vin de Bordeax from Medoc, with 12.5% alcohol. It is very dark, with a purple rim. On the first night I was, to put it mildly, unimpressed. The most obvious part of the nose was olives, maybe kalamata, strong and salty. It took a long time to find anything else, but eventually some burnt caramel and white pepper made an appearance. On the palate it improved a bit, but not much. The olives were still there, but here was also tar and pencil lead, violets and spearmint. Fruit remained elusive, but there was a tiny hint of fig. The tannins were not harsh, but that was about the kindest thing I could say.

Would this one be any better the second night? Let's find out, shall we?

This time around there are some florals on the nose, mostly geranium, perhaps a touch of violets, too. Hey, good news, there's fruit, too. Strawberries and raspberries, to be precise. On the palate, the kalamata returns. Fruit was there, but dry, very dry, like blackberry and plum skins, just skins. I did like the florals, mostly violets.

Conclusion? This is just not a great wine. It is, however, a much better wine on the second night than the first. Might this mean it is just very closed, that it might improve with a few years in the cellar? Sometimes a lot of improvement from one night to the next means just that. In this case, I suspect not. Night one this barely rated a "drinkable but who would want to" score, maybe a 78 on the 100-point scale. On night two it popped all the way up to an "adequate, but not inspired" score, about 83 points.