Lady Souverain

Chateau Souverain 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon (Alexander Valley) – Club-fisted and ham-handed cabernet of acceptable quality. It hasn’t done anything I’d identify as “age,” but has instead just gotten older; drying out, turning from dark berry to dried herb and green tobacco, and dusting everything with slightly stale black pepper. That may be harsher than the wine as it exists deserves, because it’s a fair expression of grape and, to the extent that such can be discerned, a vague sort of place, but unless I’m very wrong (which would mean the wine’s just in a closed stage, though its general fulsomeness suggests otherwise), I don’t think it’s going anywhere more interesting anytime soon. Or not soon, either. (9/11)

...r and dancer

Dashe 1999 Zinfandel Todd Brothers Ranch (Alexander Valley) – 15%. Extremely oaky, in the soupy vanilla/milk chocolate/coconut fashion of a young zin in the Ridge mold, and with few other signs that the wine has aged at all…other than a noticeable reduction in what was its youthful tannin. This clearly needs more time, but watch that lingering wood. (1/10)

Marinovich

Dashe 1998 Zinfandel Todd Brothers Ranch (Alexander Valley) – 14.5%. Tiring, and though it still clings to remnants of its dusty, dark fruit days, those days are firmly in the past. It’s not yet in an imbalanced stage, in which the structure overwhelms the remnants, but it’s getting there. (12/09)

Palindrome

Rodney Strong 2004 “Symmetry” Meritage (Alexander Valley) – The lushest wine of the tasting, with better aromatic complexity than anything I’ve yet sniffed. Mixed chocolates and a rush of upfront fruit are promising (though I’d prefer less of the former), the structure arrives and announces itself…and then the wine rather abruptly absents itself from the conversation. Just: poof! It disappears. A high-priced void. (2/08)

Worf's son

Rodney Strong 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon (Alexander Valley) – A blend of French and American oak. Minted dark chocolate, leafy dark chocolate, and flatness. No generosity. Pretty insipid. (2/08)