cecil77 said:

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Finally opened the '07 Maybach Materium last night at dinner with Dan & Rosemary Gatlin.

Sadly, it was past it's peak. Good fruit, but tannins were completely gone, to the point the fruit (almost) gave a whisper of sweetness. It was good wine and we certainly drank it all, but I think would have been better two years ago when I should have opened it. Dan opened a 2008 Ridge Estate Cabernet (not Monte Bello) and it was much better to me.

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I think I predicted that happening to those '07s several years ago.

Anyone picking up some of the Myriad Cabernet offer?

Just did!

Yup! Dropped another $1k...which is not hard to do.

nclawson said:

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Yup! Dropped another $1k...which is not hard to do.

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Yup. Actually kinda hard not to.

HEB "Cabs for Dads" through Tuesday. 10% off most cabs plus additional 10% for 6+.

I hit the mid range Napa cabs pretty hard: Chateau Montelena, Chappellet/ Nickel&Nickel/Inglenook/etc

Some notables that I didn't buy:n (prices includes discounts and are approximate from memory)

2011 Shafer Hillside Select $251

2009 Caymus SS $140 (2013 also, I think Boerne store may be the only for 2009)

I missed the Myriad release. I may email to see if I can get some Empyrian but I need to go a year or two without buying too much, and I already bought the Elysian. We'll see...

In other news, Schrader sold to Constellation Brands. Seems like a logical fit (sarcastic face)

Constellation already owns a bunch of To Kalon through their ownership of Mondavi. So this is either their way of pushing more to Schrader, or to buy up as much of the To Kalon vineyard to control it. I'm going with the latter.

Schrader doesn't own any To Kalon, though. They are just buying grapes from Beckstoffer. Though I'm sure the contracts are locked up. They have to be to make this deal work.

I meant to clarify that this is through their contracts, not through their direct ownership of the vineyards. (I've been partaking of deep eddy Ruby red and topo chico since 3:00 today).

Hey Brad, I got a 3 pack of the Empyrian. In case Mike and Leah can't get some I'd be up for a 1 bottle trade?

BSD said:

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Schrader doesn't own any To Kalon, though. They are just buying grapes from Beckstoffer. Though I'm sure the contracts are locked up. They have to be to make this deal work.

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The Schrader contract likely has a due on sale clause in it, and Andy could easily cancel the contract if he wants to. Given his past lawsuits against Constellation, it wouldn't surprise me if he did. The other angle for Constellation is that if they are having trouble selling the Mondavi To-Kalon, they can now re-brand the Mondavi wine with the Schrader label, and sell it at a higher price to boot.

nclawson said:

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Hey Brad, I got a 3 pack of the Empyrian. In case Mike and Leah can't get some I'd be up for a 1 bottle trade?

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.

Cool, thanks. I'll let you know.

HTownAg98 said:

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BSD said:

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Schrader doesn't own any To Kalon, though. They are just buying grapes from Beckstoffer. Though I'm sure the contracts are locked up. They have to be to make this deal work.

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The Schrader contract likely has a due on sale clause in it, and Andy could easily cancel the contract if he wants to. Given his past lawsuits against Constellation, it wouldn't surprise me if he did. The other angle for Constellation is that if they are having trouble selling the Mondavi To-Kalon, they can now re-brand the Mondavi wine with the Schrader label, and sell it at a higher price to boot.

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You're on to something there. Roy Piper was opining that they'd use their own To Kalon fruit and move along that rebranding line. They still buy half of Macdonald fruit so they have a good base to start with. I just hope the rest of their To Kalon isn't planted like the Opus One vineyards...way too tight for mass production, not quality.

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way too tight for mass production, not quality.

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Depends. Tight spacing along with shortened cordons can actually facilitate lower yields and higher quality.

Not in this case, Cecil. I hear what your saying though. And it's not just the spacing, they don't drop fruit either. Among other things. that said, I had the 2007 Opus out of a mag last year and it wasn't bad. Not $600 good but it got me thru my steak frites.

I had the 2007 last June while on the north fork of Long Island and thought it very good.

Curious how you know they do not drop fruit

A quick and simple estimate of their yield :

25,000 cases per year is 1,000 barrels of wine. A barrel of wine is half a ton of grapes, so that's 500 tons of grapes. Using 169 acres is 2.95 tons per acre. That's on the low end of normal Napa floor yields. I suspect 2015 was 40% less than that. So I guess I disagree that the tight spacing isn't for high quality.

Of course it's from their web site, but there's this:

Quote:

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At higher densities, the vines produce smaller berries with higher skin-to-juice ratios and more intense flavors and aromas.

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Let's just say I know things...

But seriously, this is from just one specific block of To kalon. They have several in the area. From the up close view I had of this block and the discussion of their vines that followed, I was led to believe that it wasn't as healthy as it has been before the recent replant (can't remember when but within last decade). You can increase density and yes, that is great, but at some point you push too hard. As a whole, many people have noticed a downward trend in quality as production has increased. Opus has the name, it doesn't need as high as quality anymore, it needs the margins...which it gets.

As far as Schrader, a discussion last night confirmed that this is indeed a move to the Mondavi vineyards. There may be some Beckstoffer bottles left for nostalgia, but this purchase is to promote their own grapes. So that leads me to wonder, who gets those Beckstoffer blocks????

And to clarify, I thought my 2007 was very good or I wouldn't have chosen it with my steak frites at Bouchon (it was their "wine glass of the day" and I got a taste before the pour)

Whoever is willing to pay for it.
They are still replanting parts of the vineyard, and I've heard that Andy plans to honor those contracts for those smaller producers. So I'm guessing they will be getting it.

But again, yield is an good metric for phenolic development. If they are maintaining 3 t/a or less, they should be fine. If you design your vineyard properly, you don't need to drop fruit, as the vines will produce your target just from vineyard architecture - of course subject to the vagaries of the weather that season. And of course you can get too tight, too loose as well, that's why grape growing still is an artistic process even though the science is continually getting clearer. It's just not "magic" like the French (and some Napa growers) would have use believe.

From what I've read, 2015 yields were down 40% in Napa, so many 1.5 to 2.0 ton/acre production rates were common, which allowed desired phenolic development even though harvest was early, i.e. less hang time.

Lastly, these large conglomerates look at vineyards as raw materials, wineries as factories, and labels as marketing vehicles. They can mix and match at their whim. At a much lower price point, but look at a $45 bottle of the iconic Duckhorn Merlot. It now says "vinted by"... Duckhorn doesn't even make Duckhorn Merlot now.

I really don't care what they do with their vineyards, as I'm not a buyer. All I know is that it's not worth $300/bottle!

HTownAg98 said:

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Whoever is willing to pay for it.
They are still replanting parts of the vineyard, and I've heard that Andy plans to honor those contracts for those smaller producers. So I'm guessing they will be getting it.

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Simple, but true. I'm just hoping some Mike Smiths of the world get a shot at To Kalon grapes!

The interesting thing about Schrader is that he got to pick from the very best rows of Beckstoffer To Kalon and then made specific bottles from those rows. He didn't mix or blend, mostly. That's how he got all of those perfect scores. Without those grapes, it won't even be Schrader to me.

The more I'm around it and the more I learn, wine growing is a fantastic artistic process, based in science.

And I agree about Opus One and their name. However, the same "name recognition premium" applies to To Kalon as well. The name is worth more than the grapes. There are now fantastic grapes grown lots of places, and the (up to) $35,000 per ton that some of these Napa grapes are getting is (quite frankly) ludicrous. But just like the $300 wines, if someone will pay it, more power to them!

And scores (particularly Parker's) may ultimately have done more harm than good. Look at the Micro-ox that Bordeaux has been doing. Thankfully they seem to be dialing it back some. A Bordeaux that used to just be coming into it's own at ten years nowadays is on the way downhill after 10 years. Why? Because Parker comes in when the wine is young and rates it, and that rating stays with that wine forever. So many purchasing decisions are based upon ratings, that the Bordeaux Chateaux have tried to do whatever they can to get those higher ratings when the wine is young - and micro-ox has been the result.

We could discuss this stuff for hours over some wine, but I think one thing that's a result is that many modern techniques (micro-ox, flash, cryo) are over extracting and (just like if you over drive an amplifier it can "clip") the phenolics in many wines are becoming more and more similar, i.e. so the range of flavors in the big red wines we like so well is becoming "compressed" - i.e. more and more wines are beginning to taste more and more alike.

yes, cecil, the conditioning of wine is making it lose its character. frankly, the cabernet grape is the least exciting of the all the famous grapes when it comes to variations and flavor characteristics. Many franco-philes don't love the more modern Bordeaux wines as compared to a couple of decades past. the wine making makes all the wines taste so similar, the various growths and aoc's are losing their defining individual character (per some).

I definitely think there is a homogeneous nature to too much of the Napa fruit and the 100% napa cabs. Too many taste too much alike, per experts.

BSD said:

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The interesting thing about Schrader is that he got to pick from the very best rows of Beckstoffer To Kalon and then made specific bottles from those rows. He didn't mix or blend, mostly. That's how he got all of those perfect scores. Without those grapes, it won't even be Schrader to me.

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so '16 will be the last Schrader made without Constellation interference or will they blend the wines already sitting in barrels?

Yup, in pursuit of "perfection". Take optical sorters only choosing the very "best" grapes. It my be that much of the character (and vintage variations) were due to the contributions of a few "inferior" grapes - e.g. less riper (having more pyrazines) or whatever.

OK. The devil (or y'all) made me do it. Just picked up a 2011 Hillside Select at HEB. Sale is still on.

cecil77 said:

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We could discuss this stuff for hours over some wine .

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Someday, Cecil. Someday...

I may have won the award for Best Cheap Wine. I drank a 2016 Domaine de Pouy Vin de Pays de Cotes de Gascogne. It is $8.75/bottle. It is f'ing delicious. I don't want to share the bottle. It is bright, crisp, extremely well balanced, with honeysuckle and lemon on the nose, with a palate of melon, nectarine, and slate. Did I mention that this costs $8.75/bottle? Where I bought it I can get a 15% case discount, it comes to $7.43/bottle. I'm going back tomorrow and getting a case of it.

I'm in Mexico right now and have been drinking Mexican wine for the first time. I've been pleasantly surprised at how good it is.

Same here a couple of years ago. Pleasantly surprised.

This is the press release for a seminar that Dan and Spencer are holding in NYC tomorrow. I didn't have a link to the pdf, so sorry for the poor formatting. It gives a good idea of Dan's philosophy on wine after a lifetime in wine. I've tasted all of the wine. The new cab clones are going to really surprise some people. The blends were blended against a 1st growth (Lafite) and a 2nd growth (Chteau Loville-Barton). They are both very, very good. From cabernet grapes grown a few miles west of Fredericksburg.

====================================================================================
Tempranillo Symposium featuring Texas' Premier
Producer, Inwood Estates, with comparisons to Spain's
Termanthia and Vega Sicilia

Also included, one of the first public tastings of revolutiory new
Cabernet Clones 412 and 169 grown on American soil

Rated as one of America's Top 101 Wineries out of 9000 by The Daily Meal (#50
in 2016), Inwood Estates Vineyards has established itself as one of the
preeminent Tempranillo producers in the U.S. Winemaker Dan Gatlin, now in
his 37th year of growing grapes, draws heavily on his career experience as a
professional wine buyer with extensive experience in France, California and other

Mr. Gatlin is also well-known for his provocative wine education efforts. In
contrast to the traditional "terroir" belief that soil and climate make flavor in
wine, he presents a compelling case for plant physiology, specifically how
polyphenols, their formation and accumulation, account for true flavors in wine.
He believes that today's best science supports this view and that it will someday
become common knowledge, superceding the "terroir" theory. The wines chosen
for the tasting have been selected to illustrate this discussion.

Like many emerging areas, Mr. Gatlin's wines are rarely seen outside their native
space and are no longer in distribution due to high demand. Together with son
Spencer, the winemakers have offered to bring this hard-to-find product to NYC,
presented in a class/symposium format together with other famous Spanish and
French wines.

Inwood makes no claims or comments about the Spanish wines, but speaking
solely for Inwood, it's wines are not micro-oxed. Nor are they subjected to many
other forms of high technology or excessive additives. While they are less
extracted than their counterparts, they also offer a direct window to see and
experience the natural polyphenols achieved in the vineyard. The Spanish wines
are offered to provide another barometer of high polyphenol wine in the
marketplace.

Also included, a preview of their exciting work with the newest Cabernet clones,
tasted individually and tasted as prototypes blended into traditional Bordeaux
styles. The winemakers believe that Cabernet 412 and 169 will revolutionize
American Cabernet generally and become the next great story of the California
wine industry. As a warmup, a tasting of Inwood Chardonnay (Dijon clone)
alongside Chassagne-Montrachet will be enjoyed.

This event is sponsored solely by Inwood Estates at their own expense and is not
a sales presentation, as Inwood Estates is not seeking distribution in NY. The
winery does however, ship to NY in the event an individual wanted to purchase
limited quantities for personal collection.

This event is held solely for informational and educational purposes
and is extended by invitation only. There is no cost to the qualified
professionals who receive this invitation.

Tasting Menu

Reception
2015 "Mericana" 100% Cabernet Sauvignon

Comparison Tastings
2015 Inwood Chardonnay Dijon Clone
2015 Chassagne Montrachet

2011 Inwood "Magnus"
2008 Vega Sicilia Valbuena 5

2011 Inwood "Colos"
2011 Termanthia

Preview Tastings
2015 Bordeaux Blend 2 (2nd quality)
2015 Bordeaux Blend 1 (1st quality)

Component Tastings
2015 100% Cabernet Clone 412
2015 100% Cabernet Clone 169

I ended up getting some Myriad, an Empyrian and 2 Napas. I also ordered Roy Piper's '14 and '15. Hopefully I won't have any more purchases for a while. I don't have the room.