2003 Deerfield Ranch Pinot Noir Jemrose Vineyard

Type Red
Producer Deerfield Ranch
Variety Pinot Noir
Vineyard Jemrose Vineyard
Country USA
Region California
SubRegion Sonoma County
Appellation Bennett Valley
Price $34.99 at WineQ



It's THIIIIISSSSSS big!

Night One

The nose is rich and sweet, with sweet cherry, vanilla, toasted coconut and meringue.

The palate is equally big and sweet, with sweet cherries, blueberries, and loads of vanilla. There is chocolate on the mid-palate. This is very sweet, very woody.

The label says "Pinot Noir" and nothing else, but if I were tasting it blind, I would bet there was some Petite Syrah in the mix, thought that would be a rather unique blend.

Night Two

The nose showed more depth on Night Two, adding some balsa and sage to sweet cherries and vanilla, along with some meatiness, like the crisp outside of a sage-rolled pork roast.

The palate, too, shows more depth, as well as deeper, dark fruit. It opens, not with sweet cherries and blueberries, but dark cherries and prunes, plus smoked meat and sage. Dried cranberries and marjoram appear on the mid-palate, followed by vanilla and toasted almonds. The finish is sweet, but falls off quickly.

Acids are low, tannins mild, but the two are just a bit out of balance. The lack of acid does not bode well for a long cellar life.





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2004 La Rochelle Pinot Noir

Type- Red
Producer- La Rochelle
Variety- Pinot Noir
Country- USA
Region- California
SubRegion- Central Coast
Appellation- Monterey
From WineQ
Approx. $20



This Big Wooden Guy would not leave me alone until I promised to add more of this to my queue at WineQ.

Before I even put my nose near the glass, let me thank the wonderful people at WineQ. I tried this once before, as you may recall. It gave the Webkinz a chance to make an appearance, but the bottle was flawed. The next thing I knew, I was getting email assurances another bottle was on its way. If you have not checked out WineQ yet, do yourself a favor and head over there soon.

The nose is nice. It opens with a little earthiness, truffles and black dirt. It is very light, but definitely there. Red fruit comes next, light fresh strawberries, wild cherries and pomegranate. There is also a hint, a tiny hint, of red licorice at the very edges of the glass.

The palate is rich, filed with soft full-bodied red fruit, black cherries, very ripe strawberries, followed by raspberry. The 100% new French oak starts to show on the mid-palate as vanilla first makes a gentle appearance then grows, eventually taking the lead, going from red fruit with a little vanilla to a little red fruit on vanilla ice cream.

Mouth feel is silky smooth. The finish is long.

This is good, but just on the edge of over-oaked. Too much wood is the trend in Cali pinots lately, and in my personal opinion does injustice to the fruit. This one is not quite there, not quite too much, on Night One. Sometimes, though, they can really fall apart, devolve into over-sweetened oak juice on Night Two. Will this one? Or will it dance delicately along the edge, balancing fruit and wood, while adding depth overnight? Stay tuned, and we will find out together.

Night Two

The nose is far more subtle on Night Two, less fruity, far more floral. Truffles are still there, but very light, very light indeed. Birch beer and cream, strawberries, and then violets all make up the nose.

The palate is absolutely silky smooth, even creamy. Fruits are red and soft, pomegranate, very ripe strawberries, cherries bought at a roadside fruit stand in Michigan in the summer time. More impressive, though, are the florals that appear on the mid-palate and grow, first joining the fruit then eclipsing it, in the classic Pinot Arc. They are violets and roses, and definitely worth the second night wait.

Give this wine some time in your cellar. If you can't wait, and I can't blame you, decant it for several hours, then treat yourself to a Burgundy doppleganger from the Central Coast of California.

2003 Escafeld Merlot

Type: Red
Producer: Escafeld
Variety: Merlot
Country: USA
Region: California
SubRegion: Central Coast
Appellation: Monterey County
Price: $19.99 from WineQ[disclosure- I am not sure, but believe this was a sample from WineQ]



The Little Wooden Guy is impressed, really impressed, at a $20 wine that screams "cellar me" as loudly and clearly as this does.

Night One

Don't put your nose too far into a glass of this. It will reach up and punch you right in that nose. Black cherries and mulberry, green grassy spices like sage, rosemary along with some cardamom. There is a smoky smell, too. The easy thing would be to say "bacon" and keep moving, but that would not be accurate. No, think instead the blackened grill drippings below a rotisserie leg of lamb.

Black cherries, blackened edges of grilled meat, a single fennel seed, all make up the initial attack. Chocolate shows up on the mid-palate, as the cherries take the lead over everything else on the attack, leaving not so much chocolate covered cherries, as cherries repeatedly dredged in barely sweetened cocoa powder until it is thick with the stuff. The finish is long. The tannins are strong, finely powdered but leathery-drying. This is still very tightly wound. I suspect this might be one of the real Night Two successes.

One more word for Night One, and it's just a hint now. I suspect it might really show up on Night Two. The word? Umami. That's Japanese for "savory." In Chinese, the word is "xiānwèi," or "fresh flavor." If you like Asian food think soy sauce. If you go with more of a European bent, think anchovy paste. It is a certain richness, fullness of flavor, a "certain something" that makes the four senses you are more familiar with, salty, sweet, bitter and sour, just work better.

Night Two

The nose has not changed a lot since Night One. It is still big and aggressive, fruity, earthy and complex. The cherries are a little more obvious. The spice bite is a little sharper.

On Night Two the fruit seems a little darker. Some blackberry joins the black cherries. There is still some smokey grilled meat and the fennel stands out a little more. Soy sauce makes a real appearance on the mid-palate, right before the infusion of unsweetened cocoa. Finish is long and savory. Tannins remain very strong, even twenty-four hours after it was opened. Put this one away for five years then open it. In fact, buy half a case or more, then open the first one in five years. I expect you will decide to wait another two or three years before opening the next one. This is a very moderately priced Central Coast Merlot, not the sort of wine you would usually buy to cellar over a long period of time, but this might be a real jewel. Only time will tell, but it it tremendously promising.

2004 La Rochelle Pinot Noir

Type- Red
Producer- La Rochelle
Variety- Pinot Noir
Country- USA
Region- California
SubRegion- Central Coast
Appellation- Monterey
From WineQ
Approx. $20



The Wooden Guys had no interest in the clearly flawed bottle. The farm animals from Webkinz, on the other hand, felt right at home amidst the brett.

Night One

Major funk blew out of the bottle upon opening. After an hour or two it seemed to settle down, but not disappear. Beneath it there were some great flavors, enough to think an unflawed bottle might be good. Black cherries, cranberries, smoked meat and some tomato all made for a very interesting, if not a tad heavy, palate. Tannins were smooth, acidity bright. Unfortunately ...

Night Two

The funk had funk of its own. It was just overpowering. There was plenty of barnyard and a distinct smell of moldy cherries. Two hours later a lot of the funk was gone, but not all. The nose smelled surprisingly of burnt toast spread with strawberry jam. There was dark cerry, watermelon, nutmeg, vanilla and tarragon, in that order, from attack to finish.

There is a lot of promise beneath the obvious flaw in this particular bottle. If I had an opportunity, I would give it a second try.


Just out of the bottle

Bokisch Vineyards Graciano 2005

Type: Red
Producer: Bokisch Vineyards
Variety: Graciano
Country USA
Region California
SubRegion Central Valley
Appellation Lodi
Alc. 14.5%
$25.99 from WineQ



The Little Wooden Guy appreciates wines made to drink fresh, rather than cellar.

Night One

A rich earthy smell first out of the bottle changes slowly to more fruit and spice after an hour or so in the glass. Red cherries and wild strawberries, asian spices and a touch of vanilla all overlay faint earth and mild mushrooms.

Curiously, red fruit on the nose turns to darker fruit on the palate, blackberries and blackcurrants along with unsweetened cranberries. The darker fruit fades on the mid-palate as a bit of underlying earth joins the tart, even slightly bitter, cranberries. It all leads to a mid-length richly tannic finish.

Very nice on Night One. Will it get better, or fall off, tomorrow?

Night Two

Fruits are darker and softer on Night Two. The cherries have gone from bright Bing cherries to riper black cherries. The tart strawberries are gone, replaced by sweet blueberries and mulberries. The spice is mostly gone, too. The vanilla still lingers.

Most of the balance is gone, leaving a vanilla-loaded wooden fruit bomb, adding cloying brown sugar in the mid-palate and an overall sense of over-worked sweetness.

This was a very nice bottle of wine on Night One, and a big disappointment on Night Two. Does that mean it's bad? No, not at all. It means it is a good bottle of wine made to drink fresh, not to decant for hours or cellar for years.

Jeriko Estate Pinot Noir 2005

Mendocino
Certified Organic
14.3% alcohol
From WineQ

The Wooden Guys flat out loved this wine.

The nose of this wine, just after it was opened, had serious funk, barnyard funk. There was also a lot of chocolate and coffee. Imagine the smell if a goat ate nothing but coffee and cocoa beans and you will have some idea what I am talking about. Some people might find the smell that comes out of the wrong end of a barnyard animal a bit of a turn off, but believe me, it is often a promise of good things to come. As the funk settles it turns into burned butter and dark toast. After fifteen minutes in the glass there was still no sign of fruit on the nose, but a hint of hazelnut was just starting to peek through. After thirty minutes a strawberry, one small lonely strawberry, peeked through. Now it was time to taste it.

Okay, that is interesting. This will sound odd, but stick with me and try to imagine it- strawberry marmalade. Strawberries are there, but with the tartness and richness of marmalade, rather than the pure sweetness of jam or jelly. That was the first taste up front, on the attack, along with truffles and a touch of bacon fat. This showed the classic pinot noir arc, with a mild initial attack, then huge growth through the finish. Through the evening the wine continued to evolve, later showing a more typical California pinot taste profile, with cherry pits and strawberries, but also offering up earth and meat, depth and richness.

The tannins are obvious on the finish, drying but not leathery. The finish is long,very long, even continuing to grow and evolve after drinking. Long after the sip, half a minute or more, the first taste of licorice shows up and lingers.

The mouth feel is silky, even a little oily in the way it coats the mouth and tongue.

Night Two

The nose on Night Two is different from Night One. It was intriguing, opening with the sweet smell of Jolly Rancher watermelon candy, then ripe strawberries and cherry pits, plus river rocks and smoky sage. There was as much sweet fruit as you could ever desire, but all well balanced by mineral and smoky herbs, a full-bodied but balanced wine rather than an over-extracted fruit bomb.

The palate did not see as big a change from Night One to Night Two. What I described on Night One as "strawberry marmalade" might better be described on Night Two as a blend of strawberries and rhubarb pie, sweet, tart, and rich. The mid-palate added new layers to the flavor profile, rather than replacing it in waves of different flavors. It added limestone and a meaty flavor best described as the crispy salty end slice of a good prime rib.

Again, the pinot arc is there, flavors continuing to grow, even glow long after the last sip. Licorice and beef appear, for the first time, at least thirty second later and remain for minutes more.

This is really good wine, even great wine. I am going to buy a whole lot more of it. You should, too. Then invite me over and share yours with me.

Deerfield Merlot Cuvee 2004

The Wooden Guys take the gratuitous over-use of wood personally.

Deerfield Ranch Winery
2004 Merlot Cuvee
North Coast
75% Merlot
10% Cabernet Sauvignon
7% Sangiovese
5% Malbec
3% Cabernet Franc
Alcohol 14.2%

From the bottlenotes:

Winemaking is a combination of art and science, cooking and chemistry. Like a memorable meal, it's first about the quality of the ingredients and then about interplay of flavors, textures and techniques. Our merlot cuvee is all this in the glass. Six of our favorite vineyards supplied the grapes. Our winemaking focused the individuality of each varietal. Long barrel aging gave them texture. The blend, done by taste, married them into a harmonious, fruit flavored sensation, each element playing on the other, nothing out of place, every sip memorable. We produced 2,000 cases.

Sante'

Night One

Black fruit, red fruit, fruit fruit fruit. Lots of fruit up in your snoot. Not just fruit, there's lots of wood. Do you like wood? Some wood is good. Too much wood, though can be bad. Too much wood, it makes me sad. Fruit and wood and something more. What's that more down in the core? Tobacco from the cabernet franc, cabernet franc added to the tank. It's time to drink, to drink and think. Will it be great or will it stink?

I sipped and tripped on all the oak, so much oak it's like a joke. Sure theres's fruit, it's plenty sweet, so very sweet I beat retreat. Vanilla, brown sugar, cherries and wood, too much too much is just not good.

Am I being fair or just trying to rhyme? I can rhyme at any time. Just watch me go- "blow, Joe, though, fro." It's really the wine. I thought you should know.

Will this be better on Night Two? Stick with me, my faithful crew.

Night Two

Wood defeats fruit.

Sticky vanilla oak juice.

Too much is too little.

Esca Cabernet 2004

Esca Wines
Napa Valley, California
14.3% alcohol
screw cap top
$27.99 from WineQ

The Big Wooden Guy is applauding a very nice effort- a nice wine at a good price.

from the Bottle notes:

Esca is a collaboration between the husband and wife winemaking team, Mario and Anna Monicelli. Esca means "bait" in Italian. Just as the nectar of the Hibiscus flower allures the bee on the label, these wines entice the enophile.

Night One

Immediately upon opening this smelled like Welch's grape juice. Fortunately, that blew off pretty quickly. After about 20 minutes it started to show its legs, with currants, tobacco, and a little melted licorice. That evolved over time, too. Currants remained prominent, but the tobacco faded to be replaced by a more pungent eucalyptus, and the licorice disappeared completely.

On the palate it was more vegetal than the nose suggested. It also changed significantly from attack to midpalate. Up front it was blackcurrant and blueberry, plus tobacco. That evolved to blueberry and dark plum, plus mint. Toward the end, and through the finish, vanilla grew from nothing to a crescendo, exciting at first, pleasant next, but overpowering and distracting at the end. Mouth feel was fine, not too thin but not anything to write home about. Low but very soft tannins, there, but not enough. Acid was AWOL. It was, in a word, fat. If I had to guess, I would say it lacks sufficient backbone to carry over to a second night, much less last years in the cellar.

Night Two

The nose is more terroir-driven, more vegetal and earthy, than Night One. Currants are there, black and red, and so are black cherries, but tobacco, eucalyptus and some green pepper are there, too. It also has a spicier kick, black pepper and cinnamon.

Black and red currants, blackberries, and later blueberry, are all there on the palate. The mint is there, too, spearmint, not peppermint, but only faintly and in the background, along with pepper and nutmeg. Mouth feel is far fuller than on Night One. Tannins are silky, tooth-coating and sweet, but a little light to balance the fruit. Overall, not as fat as Night One, but it does knock an otherwise very good wine down a peg or two. Finish is long.

This surprised me. Night Two was not just better than Night One, it was a LOT better. Was it great? No. Was it good? Yes. I could not recommend years in the cellar. The lack of tannins just don't have that kind of promise. However, will a few hours in a decanter make it a heck of a lot better than just opening it and taking a swig. At a mere $27.99 for a Napa Cabernet this is a good deal on a pretty good wine. Heck, I've had Napa Cabs at two or even three times the price that I would take second to this one.

Sky Saddle Cabernet Sauvignon 2003

California
Mendocino County
14.5% alcohol
from WineQ

The Wooden Guys like this wine. They like it a lot.

The nose on this wine has a distinct vegetal smell plus dark fruit. I was having some trouble putting my finger on exactly what so I went to the jellies and figured it out. Sure, there is some blackberry and maybe some dark cherry, but this time there was also something else. Elderberry. Yup, elderberry. I have a jar of Trappist Preserves just for this purpose. It is a richer earthier smell than most preserves or jellies. Interesting. It was also rather hot, not a big surprise at 14.5% alcohol.

Oh man is that complex. This is going to take a few minutes. I can tell you to start with that it ran from attack through midpalate to finish and hit about 8 distinctly different points in just a few second. Give me some time to work through this one. First, crisp french toast with elderberry preserves. The fruit is very earthy and sweet, very rich, and there is a crisp fried bread taste, too. This is a very rich full-bodied wine, but not a fruit bomb. The depth and earthiness of the fruit keeps it from being overpowering. Blackcurrant comes out on the midpalate along with vanilla and brown sugar. Mouth feel is quite good, matching the richness of the fruit. Tannins are powder-fine but significant. They do not overpower, but dry enough to leave a sense of leather along with a long sweet finish.

This could really be terrific on Night Two. Or it could fall apart completely. Let's see, okay?

Night Two

The elderberry is still there on the nose. In fact, it is more obvious because the nose is more fruity, jammy, than on Night One. Blackcurrants are there, too, but only secondary to the elderberry.

The palate is still very complex, even more than on Night One. Elderberry, blackcurrant, plus sour cherries are the fruit, but that is not all. Add a brown sugar crust on crispy french toast, with all that fruit as a jammy compote on top, and you get the midpalate if you sprinkle it with nutmeg and cinnamon. The finish is sweet and leathery, tannins far smoother than on Night One. It is long, too. Mouth feel is full bodied.

This is good, very good. I think it will get even better with some cellar time.