Kevin, can you tell us what Pajaro is planted to? Pinot and chardonnay? Which clones? What sort of production are you expecting from this site?
Nice notes Alan, thanks for posting. We recently did a Horseshoe vertical and they showed very much as your described. I really like the '07 for being softer but complex with a good acidic spine.
Cheers,
-Robert
Still quite bullish on Rhys. With the exception of one bottle of '08 Bearwallow I’ve had that was not to my taste, I thought all the wines I’ve tried have been excellent.
Rama,
We have planted the vineyard with about 11 acres of Pinot, 6 of Chardonnay and an acre each of Riesling and Chenin Blanc. The Pinot clones are a mix of Heritage and Suitcase and most of the Rootstock are 420A and Riparia Gloire. The Chardonnay is primarily Hyde field selection.
I’m quite surprised at the number of people stockpiling Rhys who say they havent liked it much. I haven’t opened many bottles but I’ve tasted lots at the pickup events and the wines have been great. If I had not done that, I would either be opening more to try or not buying, and if I didn’t like what I was tasting I would certainly not be buying. With limited funds and storage it really doesn’t make sense to stockpile wines you aren’t quite confident in.
It is an interesting phenomenon, isn’t it? I think it is a function of the rave reviews with consensus among critics not otherwise known for hyperbole or grade inflation, the desire to maintain one’s allocation particularly with access to wines such as the Sky and ST, the consensus view that the wines will be long agers and not be all that forthcoming within the first several years (and thus when do you crack open one of your two bottles of ST?). And then you turn around and realize you have 9 or 10 cases in the cellar and may have only tried 2 or 3 bottles! I am not saying it makes sense, but I find myself in that same situation. I guess it is time for a big tasting.
Robert, thats me.
I have a lot (by my standards) and keep buying, never hardly drinking any. I think I may have consumed a total of 5 bottles now.
I believe I have gotten to the point where I know what I like, and can tell that these fit in my collection.
I also very much buy into the vision Kevin has, and want to be a part of it. Lots of guys can make good wine, Kevin somehow makes you part of an experience.
!!!
Yeah, but still no cabernet! ![[swearing.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/8a0d3f3461d40641d294442fc2be78039bf94d19.gif "[swearing.gif]"){kind=small}
This wanting to know and pull back the curtain is the reason we have done 2 Offlines with the wines in the past 6 months. There is a growing body of work here with the winery, and starting to now see some age build onto some of these to get a sense. Rhys has done an excellent job of creating a customer culture, which is what Mark cited in his comment–I do agree, as well.
I’d encourage people who have some desire to lead and organize, to put an offline together and get people with bottles to surround the table and pull corks, have discussion. We have a winery here that is cutting a path and agitating (pro and con) on a # of cool fronts–sites, quality, pricing, customer culture, to name several. It’s great when our community of passioned palates comes together and creates discussion about the wines (and we avoid letting the critics be the definer of what the wines are, can be). Keep posting guys, for the benefit of all of us, and to support the work and provide feedback to inform the winery, as they do listen.
While I cordially dislike the '08 Bearwallow over the years I was amazed that a recent bottle was drinking very well. Never thought that would happen.
If it weren’t for taking the absolutely amazing customer service into account I probably would have said “I have enough” earlier. But that combined with the quality of the wine has always convinced me to place “one more order”.
Indeed. Remember, Kevin, a bit of RS with both.
Well, Kevin has good taste.
Seriously, his sites seem to be chosen to complement hich acid grape varieties. That excludes cabernet.
But nebbiolo would be interesting.
Indeed!
There’s a vineyard on Skyline where Cab Franc shines. Crest level, but somewhat protected. I suppose excellent virgin Cab Sauv sites could be found high up on the lee side. A lot of known great sites were lower down in Saratoga, Cupertino and Mountain View and have lost way to housing.
[quote="maureen nelson"Well, Kevin has good taste.
Seriously, his sites seem to be chosen to complement high acid grape varieties. That excludes cabernet.
But nebbiolo would be interesting.[/quote]
He had Neb at Alpine, but it had trouble ripening. The site I mentioned with Franc had Neb (Ascone Vyd), but it only ripened one in 3 years. The barrel sample I had was excellent, though. (One of the best young Sangioveses I’ve had was from there, too.) Fogarty has a couple Neb vineyards high up on the lee side. One is just a bit below the winery and had a few issues which they’ve been addressing. The “before” from there was good, but I think the upside for the site was huge. Should be trying a newer version at the NEB5 event. Their other site, Gist Vineyard, has much more, planted more recently. It’ll be interesting to see how that is. I think the potential is even higher, and it should be warm enough to ripen every year.
Chardonnay or the Pinot Noir?
Hope you are right…on two fronts.
Have 50 bottles from before 2010. Would like to start drinking them in the near future.
And, I hope you are around as we are the same age.
Pinot