Daughters:
The second release of Daughters' chardonnay shows us that the little lady is growing up. A little less oak on the nose, more integrated. It is like walking into a French bakery and smelling the freshly buttered baguettes. Soft minerality on the palate and a finish that lingers. Will serve you well once the summer sun sets on a cooler evening, or paired with lobster and flakey fishes. Drink this wine without any guilt.
mrS.:Saarloos & Sons first jaunt into the Santa Rita Hills game, and boy did they do it well. Soft tannin, classic fruit edge with just a touch of acidity that will help this wine come into its own over the next 1-3 years. Believe you me, if you dive in now you won't be sorry. Have this one with bay scallops, light pastas with peso or butter sauces, or go classic and enjoy it with duck confit.
Extended Family:
Keith uttered a line to me as I tasted this wine that really stuck in my head: "This is the dress bought off the model even before she turned into the catwalk." The sexiest of sexy. Santa Maria Valley gets a light wind that keeps grapes in the valley happy during long warm days. That sexy wind really makes for sexy wine. Soft tannin, again, classic clove and burnt spices, garden herbs, and black cherry that will keep you begging for another sip. One of the sexiest wines you will put in your mouth this year.
Solo: "I'm all alone..." but is he? We are drinking Solo now with great abandon. 1 grape comprises this wine: Syrah. Picked in 2007, bottled in 2009. Black pepper, violets, cassis. A round nose with a hint of WWII Library Book. Enough fruit to satisfy the California lovers, and enough earth and "other worldly" elements to get the Francophiles stirred up. Solo has an integrated acidity that will taper in a few years and will drink beautifully from now until 2015.
1946 "Moon": The proportions of this wine. 60% Syrah & 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, are inspired by an old Saarloos Family Addage: "Give 60% but only take 40%." By now we really feel like we know the members of the family by the way they are immortalized in the wine releases. Brick color, tea leaf and herb garden notes. Less pepper, more juicy fruit with a lot less oak than you would expect. The wine could have handled more oak, but it's nice to get beyond the vanilla notes and really delve into what Santa Barbara County Syrah/Cabernet Sauvignon blends are capable of showcasing.
Brothers:4 brothers, 4 grapes comprise this wine. 44% Cab Sauv, 10% Cab Franc, 4% Petit Verdot, 42% Merlot. This wine delivers much like a Right Bank Bordeaux (i.e. Pomerol, St Emilion) with utmost finesse and integrated tannin that will serve at this wine's backbone for years to come. It reminds me of walking through a forest and stepping on blackberries while smelling all the surrounding foliage and garrigue. Brothers will make you forget you're standing in a tasting room in Los Olivos, California and immediately transform you to the Chateaux of Bordeaux. This could be dangerous. This could be fun.
All written by a man i call my friend.
he is opening a tasting bar in Lost Angles.
Holla