Deux rell

Edmunds St. John 1995 Syrah Durell (Sonoma Valley) – Corked, I think. No obvious TCA on the nose, but it’s so muted and suppressed, despite an obvious surge of both structure and fruit somewhere within, that I can’t figure out what else it might be. This is the second bottle from the same stash that has been like this, so maybe the fault lies elsewhere. Whatever the cause, it’s a shame. (9/11)

Edmunds St. John 1995 Syrah Durell (Sonoma Valley) – Long believed to be a myth, a hoax, a legend, and yet here it is: a mature ’95 Durell. I never thought I’d see the day. Meat, soil, wilted muscle, and deep red light in a slow-moving whirlpool of…hey, does anyone remember that semi-horrid old Disney flick The Black Hole? Remember the special-effects visualization of said singularity? (No? Go Google it.) It tastes like that. But better. Much, much better. (10/11)

Tom the slasher

Ravenswood 1996 Zinfandel Old Hill (Sonoma Valley) – The lingering remnants of the time when Ravenswood made great wines are wending their way towards the great aquifer in the sky ground, and so they need to be savored on their increasingly rare appearances. Alas that this isn’t one. Volatile acidity (at Carlisle-like levels, mind), blackberry, dusty earth, and a whole lot of desiccation. Texturally anti-quenching, and beyond fully mature, even from the glacial cellar whence this comes. (9/10)

Durell hand cream

Edmunds St. John 1993 Syrah Durell (Sonoma Valley) – Glacially-cellared, and this was in mind as we opened the wine, because in retrospect I’m not sure I’ve ever had a Durell syrah that I thought was fully mature. This one gave its best effort, though, and is the closest I’ve come. Very masculine, all rippling muscles and five o’clock shadow, wrapping dark blackberry residue in leather and tarnished metal buckles. Lingers, a very long while. Very, very good. (8/10)

Durell hand cream

Edmunds St. John 1995 Syrah Durell (Sonoma Valley) – 14.4%. Such a deep purple it’s like drinking a Jon Lord keyboard solo. Still very structured, with fine balance but with its cards held very close to its chest. It takes about five minutes to unwind from a cranky and difficult opening, and then it just sits there, unchanging, for hours. And hours. A touch of volatile acidity eventually develops in the glass, but it’s minor and non-hyper-sensitives probably won’t even notice it. Five to ten more years, at least, are required here; it’s certainly not in a generous mood at the moment. (3/10)

The Bundschu is on the other foot

Gundlach Bundschu 2006 Gewürztraminer Rhinefarm (Sonoma Valley) – Quartz lychees, cashews in raw rather than oil form, and a little bit of leafy complexity. Short. A bit sweet, but in balance. (8/09)

Duke

Wellington 2004 Zinfandel (Sonoma Valley) – 14.8%. Dark fruit infused with dark chocolate and coconut oak; as basic a recipe for zin as has ever been attempted. As such, it goes down easy and in utter disinterest. (6/09)

A Cooke's tour

Ravenswood 1995 Zinfandel Cooke (Sonoma Valley) – 15.2%. Blackberry, pepper, and caramel (more a sign of age than something more sinister). The tannin’s slightly weedy. A hammer-blow, ultra-masculine wine, good but choppy and unwilling to be tamed. I’m not sure, given the tannin, there’s much of a future, either. Drink soon. (3/09)

Durell Owens

Edmunds St. John 1994 Syrah Durell (Sonoma Valley) – Corked. Holy crap, is this corked. It’s like an entire year’s worth of TCA took up residence in this bottle. (3/09)

Copain, no gain

Copain 2004 Zinfandel Arrowhead Mountain (Sonoma Valley) – 14.5%. $39.99. Not as heavy as it seems at first sniff, but ponderous, with a thick layer of oak that pretty much obliterates the sludgy fruit. Young Ridge tastes like this, and the wine is otherwise restrained, so it could very well age beautifully. It certainly isn’t any fun to drink now. And the price is…aggressive. But I’d hold it with cautious optimism, and for a while. (8/08)

A bundle of schu

Gundlach Bundschu 2003 Gewürztraminer Rhinefarm (Sonoma Valley) – Thick and sweet-feeling…sweet-tasting, too…with a light wisp of acrid nut that verges on armpitty, but doesn’t quite get there. This is fading rather than developing, and in another year or two it will just be watery. (7/08)

Gundlach Bundschu 2006 Gewürztraminer Rhinefarm (Sonoma Valley) – More sugary than it needs to be, with good nectarine and peach flavors, but lacking the verve of lychee or the spice prevalent in better versions. There’s some acidity, which is helpful, and the wine is quite pleasantly drinkable, but no more. (7/08)

That Kunde-do spirit

Kunde 2000 Zinfandel (Sonoma Valley) – I’d be surprised if this wine has changed much since its youth. There’s some spicy fruit, less concentrated than the wine deserves, with some obvious wood and a little spike of acidity (probably the only indication of age). Average. (7/08)

Parmelee for the course

Edmunds St. John 2005 Syrah Parmelee-Hill (Sonoma Valley) – The nose is mercaptan-dominated and difficult to assess at the moment, but what’s underneath seems to be nutty and dark, full of charred (not in a bad way) blackberries and chunky black soil. This needs time to be drinkable, and much more time to reach its peak, but it should be great in a decade-plus. (5/08)

Draperlate

Ridge 1995 Zinfandel Pagani Ranch “Late Picked” (Sonoma Valley) – Concentrated blackberry that narrows to a thin beam of acidity. Ridge’s late-picked wines are rarely my favorites, but for reasons (volatile acidity, mostly) not on display here. Rather, this is a wine that seems to be thinking about coming apart. It’s quite approachable, but it’s pretty much all approach, and no follow-through. (4/08)

Rocky start

Sonoma-Cutrer 2004 Chardonnay Les Pierres (Sonoma Valley) – Appealing for about three seconds, after which it turns highly synthetic. Aromas are all on the bright, sunny side, but I’m not sure any of them are identifiably from nature. It feels almost oppressively “worked,” and about halfway through a glass it requires an effort of will simply to take another sip. (3/08)

Say it three times fast

Gundlach Bundschu 2003 Gewürztraminer Rhinefarm (Sonoma Valley) – Soft but varietally true, with the fruit more in the spiced peach spectrum than the lychee/cashew realm. It drifts along pleasantly, neither demanding nor asserting, for a surprising length of time. A solid wine. (11/07)

Matthew, Mark, Luke...

Edmunds St. John 1995 Syrah Durell (Sonoma Valley) – Very primary and mostly monolithic, despite some hints of darkly brooding earth and slowly-developing roasted fruit. There’s still a load of tannin as well, and while the quality of this wine is obvious, it’s nowhere near being ready to drink, much less anything even vaguely approximating maturity. Do it (and yourself) a favor and put it back to bed before it hurts somebody. (8/07)