Dave and Pat,
Glad to see that you are staying on the cutting edge, while maintaining
your old world priciples. The theater and pool table in the eclectically
(appropriate word?) decorated tasting room, the harvest diary and the futures
program, and now the forum, certainly are not mainstream, but sure
add to the fun of knowing you and enjoying your wines. And, of course,
the old world principles get back to labor intensive hard work, hand sorting,
good old
fashioned tried and true low tech winemaking (O.K., maybe an exception
for the dried ice), reasonable prices and a great result in the bottle.
As I open more '95s, '96s, and '97s in the future I'll make it a point to drop in with a tasting note. Hopefully, others will do the same, and people can make better decisions about what to open and when.
I will mention a couple vignettes from the past year which were
memorable. The first was sitting in an upper floor hotel room overlooking
the Toronto skyline, with our friends Terry and Linda Hagan, during a long
weekend in
Toronto. We decided, in advance, to have a mini taste-off between
a '96 Coffaro Carignane and a '96 Carignane from another noted and respected
Sonoma County producer. The ambiance was terrific and there was no question
as to the
wine with the greater richness, intensity, depth of color, and complexity.
O.K., you guess which one.
The second occurred at a "Bring a Bottle of Your Best" party that Deborah
and I hosted here in Michigan last spring. Guests brought classified growth
Bordeaux, reserve California Cabs, hearty Rhones, and a variety of top
name
Zins. We filled in the blanks with a variety of wines, including
a '95 Estate Cuvee. That bottle generated more comments as a favorite wine
than any other!
Although the harvest is now finished, I sure hope you will use this forum to keep your loyal friends and customers (an unnecessary redundancy?) posted about the progress of the '98s.
In Vino Veritas,
Mike Brenton
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