**OFFER EXTENDED** Six Cloves Intro Offer-Elegant & Sophisticated Wines Crafted By A Japanese Woman Winemaker

THE OFFER IS EXTENDED UNTIL 11/20/21 (SUN) FOR THANKSGIVING DAY DELIVERY (ONLY IN CALIFORNIA)!!

Thank you for visiting the Six Cloves thread!! newhere

I’m delighted to present Six Cloves Wines to the Wine Berserkers’ folks for the first time on the NewbiePalooza!


My name is Sonoe, born and raised in Nagano, Japan by a family of sake and soy sauce & miso-makers who have been in the businesses for many centuries. While I was in NY, I chose an accounting career to climb a long corporate ladder in NYC. But l fell in love with the world of wine like many others who found passion in wine. Once I found out that I could pursue a career in winemaking, I applied for the winemaking program and crossed the continent, and spent four years studying winemaking in the small town of Davis, California.

Thereafter, I was very fortunate to apprentice with so many prominent producers in the past decade across the world, including Ted Lemon of Littorai, Steve Matthiasson, Hiro Kusuda in NZ, Andre Ostertag from Alsace working in Chile, to name a few.

Please click the below link to find out more about my story. [bye.gif]
https://www.sixcloveswines.com/


My winemaking philosophy follows the pursuit of what I learned from their principles in grape growing and winemaking: creating the most authentic wines, which reflect the site, people, culture, and history. As I continue to make wine over years, I came to realize that Japanese food culture had a significant influence on my stylistic choices. Like a great sake will be in harmony with great Japanese cuisine, all Six Cloves’ wines are meant to be enjoyed with great cuisines yet express their beauty in subtle ways.

I have been producing small lots of wine, just a couple of hundred cases every year since 2017, sold almost only at boutique wine shops and fine dining establishments in Japan until recently. This time, I’m so thrilled with this opportunity to share Six Cloves with the Wine Berserkers in California. I hope all of you enjoy Six Cloves with your loved ones during this holiday season!!


WINE BERSERKERS SPECIAL OFFER -SHIPPING IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA ONLY


Six Cloves Introductory Set-A set of 3 wines from 2019: $96.80 (20% off of $121 value), plus taxes and shipping


  • 2019 Chardonnay, Linda Vista Vineyards, Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley -13.2 % Alc
  • 2019 Magnolia Red Blend (Merlot/Cab Sauvignon: 50/50), Los Carneros, Sonoma - 13.3 % Alc
  • 2019 Primitivo, Benguerel Family Vineyards, Sonoma Valley, Sonoma - 15.2 % Alc

Click the below link to purchase Introductory Set [truce.gif]

https://www.sixcloveswines.com/product-page/2019-special-introductory-set

Vintage 2019 was my first year to achieve my goal of sourcing 100% organically grown grapes!!

Linda Vista Vineyard’s Chardonnay was carefully tendered by Steve Matthiasson, hands-down, one of the most respected viticulturists in Napa Valley.
Magnolia’s Merlot & Cab were grown by my classmates’ duo, Shaut & Deigo, the owners of Les Lunes Wine, who have been managing small vineyards & converting conventional farming to organic farming.
Primitivo was farmed by a young farmer, Ross Canard, whose family has been producing organic produce and providing them to Bay Area’s fine dining establishments such as Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA.

Please visit my home page for more details about each wine.

I am offering limited time FREE GROUND SHIPPING ON THE ORDER OF 6 BOTTLES OR MORE
Don’t forget to take this opportunity and place orders by November 21st (Sun) by 6 pm for the Thanksgiving Day deliveries to enjoy Six Cloves Wines!!

Cheers [cheers.gif]

Sonoe Hirabayashi
Owner & Winemaker
Six Cloves Wines

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All right Berserkers, grab your credit cards!

Honored to be a taster for this event and stoked at my selection of winemaker and wines. Sonoe hand delivered the wines and we spoke for a few minutes. A wonderful person whom I am excited to promote. I hope my notes do the wines justice. These wines are the real deal and should appeal to a broad section of the audience.

  • 2019 Six Cloves Wines Chardonnay Linda Vista Vineyard - USA, California, Napa Valley, Oak Knoll District (11/16/2021)
    Pale yellow/straw color. Faint green apple, lemon pith, white nectarine and the first rain on concrete come to the nose. A little washed out on the front of the palate. Very light bodied. The mid-palate expands with Granny Smith apple, quince, saline and almost bracing acidity.
    Very lean winemaking style, great shellfish pairing. On the second day the front of the palate filled in a bit but this is an easy drinking acid lovers wine. No butter on my popcorn. A style I don’t normally see from Napa, like the love child of Watson and Trout Gulch Vineyards. I thoroughly enjoyed it

Posted from CellarTracker



  • 2019 Six Cloves Wines Primitivo Benguerel Family Vineyard - USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Valley (11/16/2021)
    Pours ruby red. A whiff of fresh strawberries and raspberries wrapped in dried leaves with a touch of heat. The same fruit transfers over to the palate. Strawberry Jolly Rancher and raspberry liqueur with a carbonic edge. Crunchy red berries with a great bramble spice. None of the weight one would expect with a 15.2 abv. A classic old school styled Zin with a balanced acidity that pulls everything together in harmony and stretches the finish out nicely. Dusty tannins say drink me now yet tasting after 5 days from opening it still sings. Well done.


Posted from CellarTracker



  • 2019 Six Cloves Wines Magnolia - USA, California, Napa / Sonoma, Carneros (11/16/2021)
    Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend from Carneros. Why not? Pretty good right out of the gate but the nose improved after about 30-40 minutes in the glass. Traditional cassis, tobacco and cedar nose at a “relaxing on the back porch on a warm Summer evening listening to Traffic playing Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” volume. Like all of the wines I tasted from Sonoe there is nothing in-your-face here. Soft red currants, white pepper, a touch of mint and green bell pepper wrapped in a velvety blanket of fine grained tannins. Once again the acid structure pulls the whole package together with balance and precision. Cool climate Cab/Merlot, who woulda thunk it? Buy with confidence.


Posted from CellarTracker

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Nice Notes Brian.

For the Chard, kinda has me at “No butter on my popcorn”
The Zin, love this “Strawberry Jolly Rancher and raspberry liqueur with a carbonic edge.” + 5 days?
And lastly, “relaxing on the back porch on a warm Summer evening listening to Traffic playing Low Spark of High Heeled Boys”, well done

All should take notice here.

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It was very nice to see you in person and I can’t thank you enough for such great reviews about my 2019 vintage wines!!
Linda Vista is located on the western side of Oak Knoll, closer to the Cry Creek Rd. Steve has been farming this old Olmo clone vineyard, which used to be owned by Beringer. I have been making Chardonnay from this vineyard for 3 years in a row but always amazes me how consistent his grape’s quality is. It’s flagship citrus-driven acid is always there & shows its best after a couple of years of aging.
I have never tried Chardonnay from Watson and Trout Gulch Vineyards but would love to taste them side by side!

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Looks like Brian got Tuite before I could, but here is my modest contribution.

  • 2019 Six Cloves Wines Chardonnay Linda Vista Vineyard - USA, California, Napa Valley, Oak Knoll District (11/16/2021)
    Light straw colored, 13.2% alcohol. This is a lovely, understated, feminine style of Chardonnay. The nose brings faint aromas of pineapple, sweet lemon, and sea shell. On the palate, another light layer of marine minerals, white grapes, tart orange and orange zest, tart apple. The wine has light concentration, but still an abundance of flavor, complexity and character. There is no noticeable oak presence, allowing the vineyard’s voice to be heard.

This wine has a Chablis sensibility, but it speaks a little more quietly. I realize I am probably being influenced by knowing Sonoe’s background, but this did remind both me and my wife of the best Koshu white wines we have had from Japan. And for another observation made with the benefit of knowing a bit of background, I also think the wine reminds me of Matthiasson’s chardonnay from the same vineyard, which I’ve had several times but probably not in a year or two. Just going from memory, maybe this wine is a bit more cerebral and complex.

All told, I enjoyed it greatly.

Posted from CellarTracker


  • 2019 Six Cloves Wines Magnolia - USA, California, Napa / Sonoma, Carneros (11/16/2021)
    Bright, clear red/purple in the glass, 13.3% alcohol. At first impression, this comes off grapey and kind of like a barrel sample, owing to its youth, and the initial impression is a little overpowering and disjointed. So I dumped part of the bottle into a decanter and came back to it in an hour, and then tasted it over the next hour. It was a big and welcome transformation, allowing the young wine to start showing its stuff.

On the nose, now we get cool, fresh purple berries, a bit of pencil lead. On the palate, there is freshly-picked strawberry and blackberry, a notion of wild berry bushes in springtime, and some chalky mineral. The cool fruit gives way to a finish of chalky tannins and fresh orange. The wine shows no oak influence that I can discern.

This is a fun wine, probably a stumper in a blind tasting. It is certainly far different from your ripe, oaky styles of Napa and Sonoma cabs, but it also doesn’t really track too closely to old-school cabs either. It charts its own course in a cool climate, lower alcohol, and very lightly oaked style, really emphasizing the freshness and purity of the grapes. Like if you made a cab/merlot blend in Burgundy.

Posted from CellarTracker


We have a very young wine here, and the first impression is very high toned, tart cherry, raspberry, hard red candy, high orange acids. Sporty, but rather overwhelming, with acids poking out considerably.

I recorked the bottle, left it on the counter, and revisited in on the second day, and it had knitted together much better by then. Still the bright, jazzy red fruit but a little more in balance, a slight note of fresh earth appears, a suggestion of black pepper, big citrus acids on the finish. The finish almost tastes like you’re swallowing fresh squeezed orange juice. Despite the listed alcohol, there is no heat or overripeness at all, nor does oak take any noticeable role in the wine.

This is a wine for folks who like crunchy fruit and ripping acids, maybe such as folks who enjoy lightly oaked versions of Barbera d’Alba, Ribera del Duero or Priorat. It also reminds me of the most red fruited and tart zinfandels from Carlisle, like the DuPratt. If your palate runs that direction, this is a great choice for you, though give it some air due to its youth, or better still, a few more years in the bottle.

Posted from CellarTracker

Summing up, these are great wines if you’re looking for freshness, pure, crisp fruit, a light winemaking hand, and no oak influence. Sonoe has a signature style which runs through these three different wines, and which stands against the currents of commercial winemaking. It was a pleasure to get to taste through them, and to get to share my impressions with the group.

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The only modesty is in your feeling about your notes. Nice job! Looks like we kinda feel the same way about these. Funny, I had seashell minerality in my Chard note but when I wrote it was a good shellfish pairing I dropped it. I’d be interested in Sonoe’s impression of the old Ravenswood I gave her, that’s if she opened it yet.

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Only ships to California. :frowning: My brother in-law lives in California. Hmm… :slight_smile:

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This looks great! Very sad I am not a California resident for this deal.

Shipping issues can be overcome.

In for 2 packs.

My GF has a cousin in California but that’s the only thing I can think of…

I have a shipping store in my neighborhood that will send it for a small cost. Have Sonoe deliver the wines to me. I’m local for her.

I’m sorry for the shipping restriction outside of California. Please PM me if you like @ shirabayashi@sixcloveswines.com.
I’ll see if I can accommodate you!

I’ve got your order Brian! So kind of you!

That would be great… I don’t want to Sonoe to have to go through extra trouble just for me. I’m quite far located in Virginia.

Thank you so much! I’ll reach out to Brian and figure out if he’ll scam me :stuck_out_tongue: and drink all the wine I order.

[whistle.gif]

Thank you Chris for such a wonderful review!!

My Linda Vista is definitely different from Steve’s for sure. Chardonnay is the winemaker’s “playground” variety per se, such that the variety lets us express our style in however the way we want! I have used light toast French barrels and some Hungarian to let the grapes shine.
This wine is still tight & restrained but should open up down the road!

My Primitivo became such a fun project in fact. I fell in love with a whole cluster fermented Zinfandel made by some prominent winemaker many years ago. I wanted to give it try in my own way to let the grapes shine as well. We had such a hard time letting it ferment. I had my winery’s interns stomp and pitchforked grapes to get it to finish!! My good winemaker friends, Eiji (another Japanese winemaker in Napa) & Chris (a very innovative & fun guy, an owner of Bodkin) pitched in a lot of great ideas and helped me to make it happen!

Magnolia’s grapes were harvested at full maturity and they barely hit Brix of 22 degrees. I am proud to say that t is such a unique Bordeaux blend from cool-climate area that we won’t see much in the market!

Also to note, All three wines acids are natural, with no manipulation in chemistry unlike many other wines made in California [thumbs-up.gif]

Yes, 2019 vintage favors fish/shellfish over meat for sure, probably because it has higher phenolics than vintage 2018 & 2020.
Brian, Todd teased me why I am waiting to open your precious gift! I am anxiously waiting to open it this Thanksgiving!!