Lovely and holding up like a champ. Fully mature but not flagging in the least. The bottle I had was nothing like the bouillons broth described by the previous reviewer.
Cork barely penetrated at all. Pours a lovely clear garnet with just the tiniest hint of bricking indicating age. The nose shows fruit forward characteristics of youth as well as some underlying tertiary notes of maturity; fresh raspberries, cherry cobbler, cinnamon and cloves, Luden’s cough drops, spearmint, Coca Cola, damp soil. Soft in the mouth, medium acidity, tannins resolved. Like the nose, it shows some flavors of maturity in the mouth but not at the expense of youthful fruit. Finish is medium in length and emphasizes some of the spiciness.
I really like this, and it’s an impressive showing for a 17 yr old Sonoma Pinot- especially for a producer that, when this bottle was made, was only 7 years old. I don’t see this improving much more in the bottle, but if you have a bottle that is as good as mine, it’ll last another few years at least.
Timely note as we opened a 2002 Flowers Keefer Ranch last night. Same thing with the cork, would have sworn it was in year three of bottling. Would have guessed the same by the way the wine showed. Lots of fresh fruit, almost too much, looking for some acidity to poke through. Lush strawberry, raspberry, cherry fruit but not over-ripe, just a bit flabby and not showing much structure other than the fruit. I have one more bottle in my cellar that will likely wait until 2027 to see if the fruit fades a little and it takes on some secondary flavors.
A vineyard from the past; totally forgot about this one. Are they still in business? Flowers supposedly has had a revival with two female winemakers and a tasting room on Westside Rd west of Santa Rosa. I was all in on Flowers in the late 90s, but the hype never materialized. Mine are long gone.
