6 TNs from last night: OLD Hanzell Pinot Noir, Vilmart and a few others

[John_Glas]

[quoteTodd F r e n c h wrote: ↑
Thu Jul 11, 2019 7:56 pm
Where’d you get those old Hanzells?? What a treat
Sean bought them from my buddy that sold me the DRC for $20 each. I think he paid $25 a piece the Hanzell? Really neat stuff, I’ll get my notes up. The only thing tougher than tasting blind is tasting blind with some age. I had 3 guesses and wasn’t even close. I thought they were old Ridge Monte Bello because of the oak/dill. Buzzz!!!

From that cellar, there’s a few more treats lurking as Seiber, Sean, and I purchased about 3-4 cases of fun stuff.

So far, only one bad bottle, a late 1990’s Mt. Eden Chardonnay that showed obvious signs of stress but purchased anyway on a prayer.

We are all regretting not buying more but who knew…][/quote]
Brig what is the ruling on the avatar?

[Richard_Albert]

Not clear on whether Fu’s 1974 Hanzell was part of this tasting or not, no tasting notes.
Was it like the other Hanzell PNs, or ?
I am sitting on a perfect one also from the Davis Cellar as is Dr Glenn, curious regarding traits and longevity.

[Chris_Seiber]

That K Vintners wine was a really outlying one. It was around 14% alcohol, but it smelled and especially tasted like it was 12% or less. Severely lacking in ripeness and body, very gamy and lean.

I think it was mostly grenache, and I know it can be more difficult (though not impossible, depending on the site) to get grenache ripe at lower alcohol levels.

I’ve never had those Charles Smith wines, and I had always rather assumed they were big modern ripe wines. I don’t know if this was an outlier, or if my assumptions about Charles Smith wines were incorrect. Also weird that this wine got high critic scores, which you might not expect for a severely underripe wine.

Hell, maybe we just got a weird bottle or something. Though it didn’t have any indication of a flaw that any of us could tell.

Were all the bottles PnP?

I would be curious to see if this wine picked up structure or how it changed on Day 2 - or later in the evening if you had a chance to compare and contrast.

I find oftentimes that my grenaches can change radically given air time . . .

Cheers

It’s possible. Sean Kennedy could answer the question better, but I think he at least opened it early afternoon to check on it, not sure if he double decanted or anything.

I think it was a little better at the end of the dinner than it was when first poured, but still not good.

[brigcampbell]

Brig what is the ruling on the avatar?

That, my friend, you will have to Google.

Personally, it’s in the cup.

[Jason_Jardine]

I wouldn’t be surprised if those Hanzels saw 100% stem inclusion. That could explain the tannic structure and various spice and odd green (like dill) notes that can throw you off from thinking it’s PN. I had a similarly mature CA PN last week that had some people commenting it didn’t seem like PN (it did to me) because of all its glorious spices and structure.

Two of our brown bag wines yesterday turned out to be Burgs with 100% stem inclusion. Only one out of about 14 people called them as Pinot. The people who brought them couldn’t guess the other. We were doing one wine at a time, so even after a reveal, no more people guessed Pinot on the second. (Huge contrast between a wonderfully showing Dujac and a good, but rustic Trousseau-like Maranges.)

Hi Wes,

No whole cluster back in the day. Bob did start experimenting with Whole Cluster in the mid 80’s to combat some of the tannins but he never made it a significant % of the program. All the Pinot went through what I call today the grape grinder. It was one of the first “destemmers” ever made. Super tight stainless steel rollers that must have totally macerated the stems, seeds, etc. I believe the volcanic soils, dry farming, bay trees, fermentation temps, and grape grinder which extracted A LOT of seed/stem tannin all contributed to the tannin and unique profile of those older vintages. But, the structure is also what partly drove the slow aging curve of those wines. With all that said, the 1969 Hanzell Pinot is probably my favorite PN ever tasted new or old. And that’s with tasting a lot of wines and no bias:)

Hey, Jason.

Have you tasted the 79/80? Your thoughts as to so many people being stumped? Do other older vintages taste similar?

And I’m not knocking it, nice wine, just didn’t scream “california pinot” and with some age, I have very limited experience.

Also, what was behind the switch from Sirugue?

I don’t have any personal notes on '79/'80. Unfortunately, Hanzell has a very small library of back vintages so I haven’t tasted many vintages. Most of the pre '90’s wines have been shared with me by our collectors from their cellars. But, in general, a lot of the pre '90’s have reminded me more of older Barolo than CA Pinot. Hanzell wines actually get darker with age which is oddly unique too. The structure is more reminiscent of Italy than CA also.

In 2010, Hanzell asked Sirugue to test our barrel lot staves for TCA prior to shipping from France. They refused to do the additional tested so we had to break from an incredibly long relationship and tradition. We now use 5 different cooperages who all follow our TCA testing guidelines. DAMY being my favorite all around cooper and now Taransaud for our Cab program.

[John_Glas]

John Glas wrote: ↑
Wed Jul 17, 2019 8:08 pm

Brig what is the ruling on the avatar?
That, my friend, you will have to Google.

Personally, it’s in the cup.

I would count it!

[Sean_Kennedy]

That K Vintners wine was a really outlying one. It was around 14% alcohol, but it smelled and especially tasted like it was 12% or less. Severely lacking in ripeness and body, very gamy and lean.

I think it was mostly grenache, and I know it can be more difficult (though not impossible, depending on the site) to get grenache ripe at lower alcohol levels.

I’ve never had those Charles Smith wines, and I had always rather assumed they were big modern ripe wines. I don’t know if this was an outlier, or if my assumptions about Charles Smith wines were incorrect. Also weird that this wine got high critic scores, which you might not expect for a severely underripe wine.

Hell, maybe we just got a weird bottle or something. Though it didn’t have any indication of a flaw that any of us could tell.

Were all the bottles PnP?

I would be curious to see if this wine picked up structure or how it changed on Day 2 - or later in the evening if you had a chance to compare and contrast.

I find oftentimes that my grenaches can change radically given air time . . .

Cheers

It’s possible. Sean Kennedy could answer the question better, but I think he at least opened it early afternoon to check on it, not sure if he double decanted or anything.

I think it was a little better at the end of the dinner than it was when first poured, but still not good.

All the still wines were opened at 3:00 and dinner started at 6:00. And Larry nailed it. I had a bottle of K Vintners a week earlier and on the second day it was showing better, for sure. Didn’t seem as lean. Maybe I’ll sneak it in blind again with more air time.

[Mark_Thompson]

I picked up a ‘76 Hanzell Pinot in a mixed lot from this weekend’s HDH auction. Looking forward to trying it after reading these notes.