08 Rhys Horseshoe

Holy moly! This started out as a beautiful, yet severe stone and sour cherry burg. An hour + in and it is exploding. The spice burns your nose it is so intense. The fruit has expanded and the mushrooms and tea are so clear. Stunning wine. Utterly fascinating and still so young. /#!*#! Wow!

Pinot? Syrah?

Guess he was too excited to note?!

sounds like pinot to me

Everyone says that Rhys Pinots don’t taste like Burgs so I’m betting it was the Syrah.

Opened the 2008 Rhys Horseshoe Vineyard Pinot the other night in a blind tasting. The wine was paired with a 2008 Louis Latour Corton du Roi, both in brown paper bags. The crowd preferred the Rhys by a wide margin.
The wine showed a distinctive Rhys tart crunchy element; upon first taste, the tannins were dry and tight, and then the wine burst with flavor of fresh red berries and spice. Lovely and inviting wine.

I opened a '08 Rhys Horseshoe PN last night as a result of this thread, and I am drinking a second-day glass now. My take is similar to the notes above. The wine was thin, reserved, and uninteresting for about an hour after I pulled the cork, but then it fleshed out considerably and became extremely enjoyable. Crunchy red fruit, nice light palate weight, and a pleasant hint of something like cherry pit.

I have never opened a Horseshoe PN before because my impression is that the wines need lots of time. Based on this bottle, I still think my impression is correct. Nevertheless, with some air, it is an exciting wine to drink now.

This thread speaks to the idea of judging a wine too soon. I love to track wines over multiple days as it provides a full picture, yet it’s not practical to do this sometimes but I prefer this route when doing notes and evaluating a bottle. Reminds me of the 2011 Kutch McDougall earlier this year. That wine was best clearly on Day 2, so much different from Day 1.

If it’s of any help, Kevin has recommended the following vintage drinking order:

'06
'09
'10
'08
'07

I find myself ignoring the recommendations and not because I don’t trust the source. I just have a fair amount of Rhys in the cellar and sometimes it is worth checking in on a wine to form my own impressions.

I recently tasted a 2010 Rhys Home Vineyard Pinot, which, like the 08 Horseshoe, currently has a big “H” in Kevin’s vintage chart. That was a wine where adding a bit of food while tasting made a huge difference in my impressions of the wine.
Both showed a very distinctive flavor profile (my take - “crunchy”) and improved with time after being opened.

I enjoyed both wines and am glad I opened them, regardless of whether they ‘could’ be better in one, three or ten years.

that 2010 Home is the g. What a great bottle. The 2011 may be even better and would be a cool setting to lay them side by side in a few years and see which one is king.