2010 Rhys Pinot Noir San Mateo County- USA, California, San Francisco Bay, San Mateo County (12/3/2013)
Dee-freaking-licious. Right now this wine is surprisingly open. On the nose, red berry fruits dominate, with a touch of cola, and the whole cluster adds a floral orange blossom note to a perfumey nose. On the palate, this is smooth and silky, light and not dense, and a deft amount of oak lends a creamy edge to a wine that is mouth-wateringly tart, with the sum total being a delicious wine. While early in its window, this bottling is approachable and showing both nice sap to the fruit, and a touch of baking spice. This is a great representation of the Rhys style, in an appellation wine package, and tonight’s showing is even better than some Rhys SVDs have shown in the past. Even though this is the San Mateo bottling, this reminds me of some very good Anderson Valley wines - Copain Voisins or some of the SVDs, or Anthill Farms, with some signature Rhys characteristics. Quite a bit better than the 09 Santa Cruz Mountains bottle I opened recently. If the appellation wines were always this good, I could live without ordering the SVDs at all. (93 pts.)
I loved the mushroomy, earthy, loamy complexity of this wine. My wife was put off by the green notes and sappy fruit; she prefers a less dense wine, and is very sensitive to any vegetal tastes or aromas. I’m hoping time will bring this to a point where we both enjoy it. She liked it better on day 3, but still not her fave.
I had this tonight, and although I enjoyed it overall quite a bit, there was a ?green or is it a stemmy quality to it that is a little off putting to me. Other than that, quite lovely in terms of concentration and balance. I was wondering whether this characteristic was from the stems or green from underripe fruit though that seemed less likely to me. I have cases of Rhys put away but have very little experience tasting at the upper levels as I have been saving them until closer to maturity based on the tasting notes I have read here. I am hoping this quality, if due to stem inclusion, is not characteristic of their other wines and I am just more sensitive to it than many other tasters. Thoughts?
Stemmy and green are two very different things. Given the care that team Rhys puts into these wines it is highly unlikely that the fruit was not properly ripe. But if you don’t like the signature of stems in winemaking then you had best sample some bottles ASAP. Rhys may not be for you.
I think your suggestion to sample ASAP is a good one! I did think that the ripeness of the stems used could also affect whether the wines appeared more or less from herbaceous-stemmy to unattractively vegetal-stemmy. I have not perceived this degree of what I would consider vegetal or at least to me off putting steminess in Burgundy whose producers I thought used a fair degree of stems, including Dujac, Leroy, etc.
I would be interested in hearing from those who have tasted and loved a fair amount of Rhys and who may have tasted the 2010 San Mateo whether they felt this character of steminess is indicative of house style, somewhat more pronounced in this bottling, whether this changes with age, etc. Although I have seen reference to stem inclusion in regard to Rhys, I am not remembering seeing tasting notes that emphasized how pronounced and “not to everyone’s taste” this characteristic of these wines may in general be, and certainly not read about it in any of the wine writer’s glowing reviews, which is why I am wondering whether this bottling is showing more of the “darker side” of this characteristic than usual.
Having had the 2010 Mateo a few times, I didn’t find an under-ripe stemminess. Checking on some notes from a number of folks I respect on CT (including Matt Latuchie and Keith Levenberg) the most “green” comment I see is a mention of herbs, and that was from 1 person.
I did see several references on CT to green, and several to steminess, though these were from people I am not familiar with. I have not seen any references to steminess in the reviews of any Rhys wines in Tanzer, Burghound, or Gilman, which, if this was a pronounced house style, I would have expected to at least see mentioned. Again, ultimately I need to pull out some Single Vineyard wines from different vintages and check things out.
Out of curiosity, I opened a 2010 San Mateo to drink tonight and tomorrow. There is definitely a moderate green element to the wine, but it doesn’t really dominate the wine for me and I get more of a herbaceous/piney character overall. For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen this much of a green element in the single-vineyard bottlings. Perhaps those were just a bit more ripe and the stem inclusion meshed better with the fruit, creating that extra bit of lift that seems possible in the right whole-cluster wines.
I have to disagree with Alan’s final point-- the single vineyard wines are in a whole different class beyond this wine. I’ve had some stellar bottles of Alpine from '07 and '08 that are still super young with great potential and an '06 Swan Terrace that was just incredible last month. The '10 San Mateo, while certainly enjoyable, can’t compare to those wines. (not that I’d expect it to!)
I’ll check in again tomorrow and see how it does after a day of air.
2010 Rhys Pinot Noir San Mateo County- USA, California, San Francisco Bay, San Mateo County (6/14/2016)
– opened approx. 4 hours before initial taste –
– tasted non-blind over 1 – 2 hours –
NOSE: expressive; tart red berries; savory (stems).
BODY: medium-light bodied; slightly hazy – lots of superfine particulate matter present; blood red color of medium depth.
TASTE: high acidity; tart; red-fruited; savory; light hints of leather and dried herbs; open, and drinking well now; very good.
Lovely nose of orange peel, sandalwood, rose petals and white pepper. Nice sweet cranberry/raspberry fruit on the palate with good balancing acidity. Very good wine for the price, but lacks some of the stuffing of the single vineyard wines. Not sure how much more complexity this will pick up with age, but should drink well for at least another 5 years.