Oak-K

Domaine de la Terre Rouge 1999 Syrah Sentinel Oak Pyramid Block (Shenandoah Valley) – This is really singing at the moment. Very early maturity, but still enough maturity to have made it worth the wait. The wine is brown. Not in color, but in tone and aroma. There’s lingering purple, but mostly it’s brown. Baritone. Incipient autumnal. Late afternoon. I’m glad I have it in quantity, though the dozen bottles I wasted over the years hoping for the slightest bit of development…well, I wish I had them back. (10/11)

Guard do-tree

Domaine de la Terre Rouge 1999 Syrah Sentinel Oak Pyramid Block (Shenandoah Valley) – 14.5%. I bought a pretty fair quantity of this wine, a long while back, from a store that was closing (well, moving) and clearing out full cases of whatever it didn’t want to move at pretty extraordinary prices. This was one of the offerings, and I acquired it for a song. That song, however, has been playing the same tune over and over for about a decade, to the point where I had almost given up on the wine ever moving from its highly primary and decidedly uncomplex starting point. Well, things have changed, and in a hurry (at least based on this bottle). Wonderfully mature, though early in that period, with smoke and dust eddying bacon, dried quince, and hedgehog mushroom aromas into a low-atmosphere helix of deliciousness. The structure has not fallen away, but is well-resolved enough to really let these lovely aromas through. I have little confidence that the rest of the bottles will be identically expressive – that’s how bottle (really, cork) variation works – but there is, at last, a glimpse of this wine’s delicious endgame. (10/11)

West

Easton 1998 Zinfandel “Estate” (Shenandoah Valley) – 15.1%. I drank through a fair quantity of this in lingering disappointment, as it never seemed to budge from its youthful expression of fulsome, arboreal fruitiness no matter how many years passed. Well, I think I’ve found the magic number, or at least this particular bottle has. Well into a developed stage of autumnal arbor, with meat and herb waving from the horizon. It’s still fruity, but the wild black juiciness is tempered by an encrustation of black pepper. And frankly, the alcohol is virtually unnoticeable; so much so that based on organoleptic evidence alone, I’d have guessed something much lower (looking at the wine’s adhesiveness to a glass tells a different story, but that’s cheating). This is a lot more interesting now than it was. (5/11)

Butterfly coal

Easton 2008 Cabernet Franc Monarch Mine (Sierra Foothills) – Fairly generic California wine, in style: big, brawny, laden with dark fruit, and yet not quite tasting entirely of fruit as such. A hint of greenness to the significant tannin is the only sign of real differentiation from the norm. Maybe (much) time will help this, but it’s tedious to the extreme right now. (3/10)

Hoyas

Easton 2008 Pinot Noir Duarte-Georgetown (Sierra Foothills) – 14.2%. Despite positive verbiage on the label and the accompanying tech sheet (this is a free sample from the winemaker), I’m dubious. OK, pinot noir may have a history in the Sierras, but I suspect there must be a reason it doesn’t have a present. Certainly it would be an easier sell than the ubiquitous syrah, wouldn’t it? Well, anyway, first impressions don’t challenge my predispositions, with a vinyl, overworked quality to the sappy red fruit. There’s acid, and there’s minerality, but neither one works pleasantly towards a pleasant wholeness. So I leave the bottle alone for a while. One day becomes two, and two become three, and then I revisit. At which point I’m forced to walk back some of my criticisms, because the plastic element has disappeared, the structure has integrated, and the fruit is far more appealing than it was on the first day. There’s still minerality, and now there’s balance, and so now one wonders if there might be ageability. Is it a great pinot? No. Neither the Russian River Valley, nor the Central Coast, need quake in their boots (I’m not sure the Anderson Valley, for all its qualities, can quite afford boots yet). But it’s interesting, it’s markedly different, it’s from a trustworthy producer, and…well, who really knows? Worth a revisit, but mind the pop-and-pour mentality, because it doesn’t work here. (2/10)

Amador, not a bricklayer

Easton 2006 Zinfandel (Amador County) – 14.5%. Leans more to the blueberry and plum side than is typical for Amador zin…there’s not quite so much of the thorny, wild-vine iconoclasm as there has been in other vintages. Perhaps this is what leaves the tannin and acidity a little more exposed, as well. Some time (not a lot) might help knit these elements. Not a bad wine, but not the best Easton’s produced. That said, it’s still one of the highest-quality zins to be had at a non-premium price these days, which is saying something at least. (10/09)

Onwest

Easton 2006 Zinfandel (Amador County) – Forward fruit with some stick and tack, its berries redder and a little more syruped than might be expected (the wine isn’t heavy, though it is big), its structure mostly hand-waved, its finish a diminuendo of simplicity. It’s zin. It’s very, very, very cleanly-made. It’s good, but read between the lines. Or, read the lines themselves. Either’s good. (4/09)

Violinville

Easton 2002 Zinfandel (Fiddletown) – Deeply infused with the aromas of the pine forest, both the cold, airy soil and the resinous overgrowth. The fruit, dark as always, has contracted a bit, losing none of its intensity but a measurable quantity of its breadth and roundness. And there’s pepper, too…black, almost Tellicherry-esque pepper. This is a wine with something to say, and the story it’s telling is about where it’s from. (4/09)

Easton 2002 Zinfandel (Fiddletown) – More subdued than the previous bottle, with a leathery and very nearly buttery pressure on its fruit that never quite relents. It’s good, but it doesn’t speak as clearly as its predecessor. I set it aside for a day, just to see if there’s low-level TCA, but if anything it expands on day two, yet still without delivering the full expression of its fruit. (4/09)

London arenas

Domaine de la Terre Rouge 2003 “RO₂X” (Sierra Foothills) – An interesting tribute to the partially-oxidized style of wine one can find all over Europe, but rarely (except by accident) here. The grape is roussanne, and its Californian interpretation is most definitely on display here, as despite relatively restrained rancio there’s a great deal of lush golden fruit of an intensity not usually found in its old world models. This upsets the balance somewhat, but that could just as easily be a matter of expectations. I find this wine most enjoyable, and wholeheartedly support further experiments in this direction. Plus, anyone who loves a good pun as much as me has to like the name. (1/09)

When it was 2006, it was a zinfandel year

Easton 2006 Zinfandel (Amador County) – Upon first opening, a huge rush of bubbles and massive volatility seems to indicate an in-bottle refermentation. I put it aside and open something else. Two days later, it’s still a little prickly. A full week later, at room temperature – something I would not generally recommend – it has come into full form, shedding some of the wood along with the volatiles and knitting itself into a far more cohesive and more “winy” wine, full of dark, wild berries and that pine bark-edged touch of pruniness, twisted and sauvage, that so often seems to mark the region. I’m not sure what was going on at first opening, though. (1/09)

Go Ouest, young man

Domaine de la Terre Rouge 2005 Syrah “Les Côtes de l’Ouest” (California) – Big and pleasantly blundering. The roasted coffee overlay isn’t too dominant, and the stew of sun-baked red fruit underneath is quite pleasant. It’s neither long nor particularly complex, but then that’s not really the point. (1/09)

Hershey

Easton 2002 Barbera (Shenandoah Valley) – 14.5%. Receding under a looming shark bite of coconut and vanilla, and though the neon red fruit holds for the moment, it’s not getting any better, and soon there’s going to be maraschino and heat left in its wake. So drink up. (12/08)

Barbera-ella

Easton 2002 Barbera (Shenandoah Valley) – 14.5%. Massive fruit, perhaps too dense for its structure, with a bit of nagging volatility and a brief, angry snarl at the end. I’m not sure where that’s coming from, but all doesn’t end well with this wine. And certainly, it’s unrecognizable if one’s lens is Piedmontese barbera, though it fits nicely into the dominant Sierra Foothills expression. Maybe it’s just a little bit too old? (10/08)

Easton down, Easton down the road

Easton 2006 Zinfandel (Amador County) – 14.5%. Suave zinfandel, carrying its weight with ease, and dressing up its usual tangled-vine Amador gnarliness in a fine, tailored suit…which it wears well. Those for whom differential character in zins is the primary goal will be slightly disappointed in this wine, but it’s very hard to criticize it from any other perspective, as it could hardly be more sluggable. (10/08)

Easton exposure

Easton 2006 Zinfandel (Amador County) – Comes in columns, with separation and little integration, of sweet black fruit, pepper-spice, wild-eyed – almost olive-like, though the wine doesn’t taste of olives – brininess, and minor structure. The finish is shorter than usual, and there’s a significant final chord of vanilla. This might just need a little bit of time to knit, but I think it’s not quite the wine it has been in recent years. (7/08)

Veterans' Administration

Easton 2006 Zinfandel (Amador County) – Perhaps an off bottle. If not, a rather dramatic stylistic left turn. The nose is quite volatile, then a breath of coconut precedes a crisp, light, tangled and gnarly palate of thin vines and biting, early-picked acidity. I like it (once that volatility blows away), but it’s certainly not what I expect from either Amador or Easton. (4/08)

Amadoration

Easton 2006 Zinfandel (Amador County) – Reliably fruity and vine-y, its twisty palate a result of grapes that have been goofing around rather than studying Dadaism. There’s very little a zin should have that’s not present here, and while it’s fairly straightforward, it holds on to a varietal purity that grows increasingly rare in these days of tricked-and-tarted volume wines. (12/07)

Sierra smile

Easton 2005 Sauvignon Blanc (Sierra Foothills) – Big and aromatic…is that a little creamy leesiness?...with a surplus of ripe gooseberry and some fat to the texture. The cream and its accompanying butter are deceptive, as the wine doesn’t go through malo, but the ripe greenness reasserts itself on the finish. It’s like sauvignon blanc aromatics wedded to a viognier texture (though with the heat that so often plagues the latter). Interesting, and unmistakably New World.(5/07)

The Sentinel

Domaine de la Terre Rouge 2003 Syrah Sentinel Oak Pyramid Block (Shenandoah Valley) – Surprisingly hollow at first sip, this very quickly fills out, showing blueberry and blackberry with a sharp bite of tannin. There’s oak, but it’s very nearly overwhelmed by the fullness of the fruit. Very structured, yet juicy and appealing, with a long life ahead. (5/07)

I long to see you

Domaine de la Terre Rouge 2003 Viognier (Shenandoah Valley) – There’s a metallic edge here, along with more typical peach skin and apricot. Surprisingly, the acid is prominent…not something one always finds in viognier, especially from the New World. The finish is shy, showing only a little thyme honey. It all seems a little less than it should be, so I try moving the wine to a bigger-bowled glass. This does make a difference, bringing out more of the floral aspects and seemingly expanding the wine’s overall profile. (5/07)