How was the Cain Five?

752bro4 said:

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Letting this decant for 4-5 hours. I bought 6 of these a few years ago as a gift to my wife (to me, from me, if we're being honest). We agreed to open them up only on monumental occasions.

The first was when she sold her practice and retired. This is the second. A new chapter begins for our family begins tomorrow at 9:00am, and very much looking forward to it.

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Awesome! All the best tomorrow…and moving forward.

carl spacklers hat said:

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How was the Cain Five?

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I've had that same vintage recently. I really like Cain Fiibe for its earthiness and complexity. It's the anti lush fruit bomb over oak wine. I ordered two cases. Phenomenal house wine for $40!

Stellar scores in cellar tracker and Vivino. How much was it?

$109 and free shipping

aggiedata said:

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$109 and free shipping

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Morlet is really good stuff. Really like their BTK as it's usually about 75/25 CabSav/Franc blend

WestUAg said:

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Celebrated my wedding anniversary last week.

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Very nice. Haven't had the 06. Notes?

Happy anniversary, yall!

QBCade said:

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aggiedata said:

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$109 and free shipping

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Morlet is really good stuff. Really like their BTK as it's usually about 75/25 CabSav/Franc blend

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I really enjoy his whites, too.

Thanks. 06 was more advanced than I expected it to be. Feel like the fruit was showing the start of bruising flavor. Wife loved it, so that counts too!

Champs and chicken. Perfect combo! Congrats on the new job

Excellent choice there

jh0400 said:

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Fried chicken and biscuits night at home after my first week in a new job.

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New job? Bad ass. Different role, same employer? Same stuff, different employer? Or something new altogether? Either way, I hope you kill it, my man! Congrats.

And yes…champs and chicken is the jam. Hell, you may have inspired tonight's dinner.

jh0400 said:

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I led a sale process at my last company and then took about six months off. It's a similar role at a different company. I hope to sell that one in the next two years and then spend my days drinking like West U.

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Sweet. Knock it out of the park, man. I've got a change coming up, myself. Consolidation in the industry has made my job harder so I'm going to be marketing a different product line. There will be some long days ahead. But first, some summer vacations!


And we all aspire to drink like WestU!!! I hope to be him when I grow up.

HTownAg98 said:

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there are places in texas which have terroir every bit as good as the best in france, you just have to know where to look.

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Maybe, but the climate is bass ackwards. The soil profile in regions of the High Plains is almost an exact copy of Barossa, Australia. However, you can't grow syrah in the High Plains that comes anywhere close to what they can grow in Australia. Part of the reason is that it is way too damn hot in most of TX to grow cabernet, syrah, and a lot of other grapes. Some of the warmer weather grapes like tempranillo, aglianico, tannat, and viognier show some promise because of their thicker skins and ability to deal with those warm nights. Another thing is we aren't near a large, cool body of water to help cool things off at night. Those cool nights are absolutely essential to produce world class wines.

Texas doesn't have a problem with getting fruit ripe; the problem is getting it to maturity. You can run the juice on a Texas grape, and it will be around 25-28 brix, which would indicate it's ripe. The problem is the seeds are still bright green, and when you press off that juice and leave the seeds in, you get a whole lot of tannin and green bell pepper flavors, which aren't good. Plus, there's no acid left in the fruit, and without acid, you don't have any age-ability, so you either have to acidify or drink it soon.

Another problem is trying to make a wine with new world flavors in a climate and soils that are 100% old world. It can't be done, and everytime someone tries do it, it's a massive failure.

Texas can produce some good, high quality wines. Becker's Viognier, Torre di Pietra's Petite Syrah (which fooled a lot of people at a recent tasting I attended), and most of the Inwood wines are pretty good, and show what you can do given the hand you've been dealt. To think that we can make a Napa cab in Texas, or a Bordeaux blend in Texas because we have the right soils is a bunch of poppycock.

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I went back to the beginning of this thread... I like Inwood wines also. Note that he is producing qualty Bordeaux blends in Texas.

austinag1997 said:

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HTownAg98 said:

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there are places in texas which have terroir every bit as good as the best in france, you just have to know where to look.

Maybe, but the climate is bass ackwards. The soil profile in regions of the High Plains is almost an exact copy of Barossa, Australia. However, you can't grow syrah in the High Plains that comes anywhere close to what they can grow in Australia. Part of the reason is that it is way too damn hot in most of TX to grow cabernet, syrah, and a lot of other grapes. Some of the warmer weather grapes like tempranillo, aglianico, tannat, and viognier show some promise because of their thicker skins and ability to deal with those warm nights. Another thing is we aren't near a large, cool body of water to help cool things off at night. Those cool nights are absolutely essential to produce world class wines.

Quote:

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Another problem is trying to make a wine with new world flavors in a climate and soils that are 100% old world. It can't be done, and everytime someone tries do it, it's a massive failure.

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Texas can produce some good, high quality wines. Becker's Viognier, Torre di Pietra's Petite Syrah (which fooled a lot of people at a recent tasting I attended), and most of the Inwood wines are pretty good, and show what you can do given the hand you've been dealt. To think that we can make a Napa cab in Texas, or a Bordeaux blend in Texas because we have the right soils is a bunch of poppycock.

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I went back to the beginning of this thread... I like Inwood wines also. Note that he is producing qualty Bordeaux blends in Texas.

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Those climate issues are inaccurate. You can modify vineyard techniques to accommodate any weather that has sufficient heat/sunlight to ripen the grapes and sufficient water to grow them. The chemical properties of the soil are immaterial. There are only about 12 (7 according to some sources) nutrients necessary to grow vinifera grapes, and all of those can be added to the soil when needed. Any soil that can successfully grow the grapevine can produce excellent fruit. The physical properties of the soil, principally water retainage or draining are very important. At the extremes too much clay and the water won't drain or too sandy and the water won't hang around the roots long enough.

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Another problem is trying to make a wine with new world flavors in a climate and soils that are 100% old world. It can't be done, and everytime someone tries do it, it's a massive failure.

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Again absolutely and demonstrably untrue. The primary difference in new world and old world flavors is ripening, really phenolic maturity. Traditional harvest times in BDX are much earlier than traditional harvest in Napa due to rain. However by yielding lower, that can largely be mitigated. Optical sorting also allows only the ripest grapes to be sorted if so desired. Also, there's so many decisions in the winery, including yeasts and enzymes that do a huge amount to determine the final taste of the wine. Throw in micro-ox and there are absolutely old world wines that are indistinguishable from their new world counterparts.

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Texas doesn't have a problem with getting fruit ripe; the problem is getting it to maturity. You can run the juice on a Texas grape, and it will be around 25-28 brix, which would indicate it's ripe. The problem is the seeds are still bright green, and when you press off that juice and leave the seeds in, you get a whole lot of tannin and green bell pepper flavors, which aren't good. Plus, there's no acid left in the fruit, and without acid, you don't have any age-ability, so you either have to acidify or drink it soon.

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Sorry, but this is massively untrue. Sugar level levels off well before senescence, with patience and appropriate yields grapes can be phenolically ripe grown in Texas as they can be anywhere. We regularly measure the phenolics for maturity and the lab reports them phenolically mature as anywhere.

As this chart indicates, yes, many Texas growers are impatient and harvest way too early, but that's a human problem. The chart is from ETS Labs, the annotations are Inwood's.



Note that the C5 sugars indicated after senescence are unfermentable, one reason many Napes wines have a sweetness not found in most BDX wines.

Please note this post is in response to HTown's comments, not austinags post. And sorry, I guess, for the strident response, it just gets a little old combating the same old tropes.

Dang Cecil, I only made 1 comment on a post from the 1st page....

So sorry! It's in response to HTown, I was too lazy to go to his original post, so I just clicked respond to get his quotes. Didn't consider it showing as a response to you.

LOL, fun reviewing that first page. That was two years before I first walked into Inwood. Wow.

I'd be curious to see if HTown's views have changed over the last 15 years! Lots of good TX wines have been made since then…

cecil77 said:

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So sorry! It's in response to HTown, I was too lazy to go to his original post, so I just clicked respond to get his quotes. Didn't consider it showing as a response to you.

LOL, fun reviewing that first page. That was two years before I first walked into Inwood. Wow.

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Yeah, I used to go to Florence for the tasting room that was near his house back then. That was a bit closer than Fredericksburg. Dan had a small vineyard in his backyard back then.

You never know what you're going to find in Taipei….

Champagne tasting flight and some nice burgundy.

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Dan had a small vineyard in his backyard back then.

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The last year of production of the Dallas backyard Chardonnay was a few years ago. The vines are 25+ years old and it just wasn't worth it. The last vintage of the City of Dallas Chardonnay is just about sold out. It was such a cool story. Montrachet style Chardonnay grown in the middle of Dallas. Dijon clones. Had to be the hottest Chard vineyard on the planet. Harvest late July or early August in Dallas.

Are those restricted to club members, or can anyone off of the street buy one? I'd like to have one for the novelty if possible.

Champagne flight was $140 and they have full pours. One of
The best lists I have seen in a long time. Justin's Bistro and Wine Bar in Taipei.

jh0400 said:

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Are those restricted to club members, or can anyone off of the street buy one? I'd like to have one for the novelty if possible.

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For sale to the public.

https://inwoodwines.orderport.net/product-details/0311/2022-chardonnay-city-of-dallas

How is it? (2022 wasn't a Dallas smoke year that I recall ) I have the same novelty interest, had no idea there was ever any production grapes from the heart of Dallas.

Back in the day we would pour it straight up against Montrachet and it compared very well. As the Vineyard got older there were fewer and fewer grapes produced, so I have not sampled the 2022 vintage. I think it is priced probably a little high but that's accounting for the collector value. There's never going to be anymore of it so there's that. I think there's a case or two left.

The vineyard achieved a sort of urban legend status in it's heyday.