1991 was a spectacular wine.
Yep, totally different animal vs. The 2012/recent vintages.
What about '12 Special Selection? Is it as bad as the regular bottling?
Iām not defending this wine, which I donāt like personally, but I did note that the 2018 vintage came in at 13.9% and got scores in the high 80s from critics. So I guess itās not the same every vintage.
https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2864883#p2864883
There are tons of folks who dig this wine, including many on this board most likely. To each their own. . .
Normally you hear people talk about a wine as being a ābaby Shafer Hillsideā or some such.
Iād like to suggest that this is the ābig brotherā of Apothic Red. These typically have at least 8 to 10 g/l of rs (detectable sweetness), and their Special Selection isnāt far behind.
Just sayināā¦
PS - Iāve got no problem with winemakers leaving red wines lightly off-dry, so long as the producer includes the rs content on the label (most donāt), so I can avoid them. And for those who donāt understand the rub, hereās an article to check out (see Dave Rameyās comments about perceptibility of sweetness in California Reds)ā¦ Understanding the Role of Sugar in Wine | SevenFifty Daily
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Thank you for the insight and the link, my friend. My point is that the vast majority of people really like these wines. I understand what you are saying about winemakers stating RS figures - if that were the case, there might be some ācollectibleā Napa cabs that might surprise you . . .
Larry, I see this as a community serviceā¦ lots of wine drinkers donāt even realize they are drinking off-dry wines these days. So I see myself as a consumer advocate who is helping them realize that if they want big bold red wines with plenty of detectable RS and precious little nuance beyond big bold and sweet (since the sugar effectively obliterates any sense of grape variety or terroir), thereās no need to spend more than $30/bottle (and probably not more than $20).
Why would this be true of Cab but not of Riesling, champagne, Sauternes, etc. All wines with sugar which can maintain a sense of place. Not arguing here, just curious. Seems to me itās more likely that sweeter cabs have poorer grapes and winemaking, but Iām not sure that the conclusion to draw is that the sugar itself obliterates complexity.
I am not sure it is fair to jump to the conclusion that sweeter cabs have poorer grapes and winemaking. I see how that assumption can be made and sy it might be, but Iām not sure itās āfactualā . . .
I love how these lines time and time again keep coming up in these articles:
āWhile cumbersome German nomenclature is occasionally the culprit, more often the issue lies with consumer insecurity. People simply have a hard time predicting how sweet a Riesling will be just by looking at the label.ā
This implies thereās a way for an experienced Riesling-knower to know. Not even Terry Thiese can tell from the label. Wine writers and somms must stop and pretend there is a way to discern dry wines from sweet ones āif you just have more experience or know moreā. There isnāt.
I said more likely, not that they all had poorer winemaking. And I think thatās more likely than the hypothesis that sweeter wines themselves lack complexity because of the sugar, which is a hypothesis easily disproven by most high quality dessert wines.
I think this is more of a correlation. There are lots of inexpensive wines that leave RS in (Barefoot, Apothic, Meoimi, etc), which one benefit is that this may mask flaws. I wouldnāt necessarily say that Caymus is trying to mask poor grapes or winemaking flaws, although if I were Chuckles, I would source grapes to expand production considering his wines being a fixture at steakhouses and how much folks are willing to spend for his (pedestrian) wines. If quality suffers a bit, itās not exactly a big dealā¦ Iād guess that relatively few drinkers would be able to pick out minor flaws due to the gloss provided by the RS.
Yeah, but discussing that would be a different thread.
This is the first vintage since I got into wine 6 years ago that came in anywhere near 14%, and it really tastes nothing like the past yearsā¦its worse. It has a ton of oak without the extreme over-extracted fruit and huge body from the alcohol to stand up to the oak. Also very strange that this is the vintage that things changed, considering how good the vintage was in napa. I can only assume oak chips and watered down or less mega purple to try to counteract the āperfectā ripe fruit that they typically have to manufacture.
Given the size of production, can we assume there is a good possibility of significant bottle variation?
Have production volumes changed (increased) significantly since ~2000?
Does Coca-Cola have bottle variation?
Idk but the making of wine is a bit different than the making of soda.
Oh, just noticed thisā¦ Iād expect that winemakers or other industry pros could speak to this in more depth by diving into how things like acidity, rs, pH, etc, interact to create balanced wines. Having said that, my experience and perception is that white wines (particularly Riesling and Chenin Blanc) are much more flexible in terms of how they can create balanced, flavorful, and complex wines whether dry, off-dry, or sweet (as well as still and sparkling).
In contrast, to me the vast majority of red wines seem to fall off a cliff pretty quickly and start getting āgoopyā and often very soft with even modest amounts of RS. As a broad generalization, by 8-10 grams / liter of RS (if not sooner), I often find it quite difficult to detect specific varietal character from red wines. The glossiness of the RS becomes the defining characteristic of the wine. Many of these wines are also given heavy-handed winemaking treatment to round their tanninsā¦ and I also find that the RS makes tends to make these wines even softer.
This takes me back to the point about how RS is used to hide flaws. The same āsugar glossā that that obscures varietal character in red wines also can be used to hide winemaking flaws or amp up less than ideal organic matter (grapes).
An out of balance white wine might well suffer some of the same issues, and certainly the RS could obscure complexity or hide flaws too. But at least with whites like Riesling and Chenin, I think my comment above applies (that they are much more flexible than reds in their ability to offer balanced and nuanced wines along the continuum from dry to full on dessert sweet)
PS - Iām no wine pro, so entirely possible Iām wrong or full of it. 