FREE Tasting
Saturday June 4th, 2011
2pm - until the wine runs out!
Our Favorite California Cabernet!
Featuring:
2006 Laurel Glen Estate Cabernet
2006 Laurel Glen "Counterpoint" Cabernet
2009 Laurel Glen "Reds"
2008 Laurel Glen "Terra Rosa"
Look, I don't expect you to like the wines I like. I think that my taste is the result of my upbringing, and of my own palate proclivities. Those proclivities include hypersensitivity to bitterness; most people aren't as averse to bitterness as I am. On the other hand, I've been doing this wine thing for more than thirty years, and I think that I've learned to adjust my natural tendencies to fall in line with what I believe to be a more common experience.
In other words, I've gotten used to bitterness. Once upon a time, I couldn't handle coffee, but now I'm addicted to espresso. I've tried to use my sensitivity to better (I can hope, can't I?) understand tannins, the bitter elements of red wine. Rather than simply register the amount of tannin (after all, tannin quantity is partly a function of youth), I try to understand the quality of the tannins.
Now let me acknowledge that, from a scientific view, talking about the quality and character of tannin is a bit weird, if not completely unsupported at this point in time. Maybe soon, we'll really be able to tear apart tannins (and catechins and other such compounds) in such a way as to be able to analyze these differences. But absent any mounds of supporting evidence, we can only talk about these matters from a sensory standpoint. And that's where I come in, me, Mr. Sensitive (don't ask my wife for her agreement).
I was once lucky enough to sit with Heidi Peterson-Barrett (winemaker of cult legend Screaming Eagle) through about 150 California Cabernets, though I must admit that I'm not sure what I really retained from the experience. With each wine, we talked about the character of the tannins, and I was fascinated, if a bit awed throughout. What I remember most is that one of the world's greatest winemakers had a laser focus upon tannin, and an ability to suss out when those tannins were balanced and integral to the wine's present and future, and when they were not.
After all these years of tasting, I won't pretend to believe that my ability to guess a wine's longevity and future is based upon anything more than guesswork, along with some negotiations between my mind and senses, and hopefully some well-founded experience. So like most wine reviewers, I can be persuaded by certain wineries that have proven time and again that they can age wonderfully. Those unnamed wineries have shown me that they understand balance, and when their wines appear to be built in similar fashion to their other, previous successes, well, then I believe that the wine will age as well as their earlier best efforts.
Have I offered enough caveats? Here's one more: some wines you just fall in love with, whether or not they represent the best. For instance, I love Laurel Glen Winery (just as I love Ridge Vineyards and a bunch of other wineries) because I love the way their wines taste, I love the style of their wines, and I think the owner and winemaker is brilliant and represents all that the California wine industry should aspire to be. Laurel Glen's 1985 Estate and their 1990 Estate aged as well as I could ever hope the best California wines should age. Seriously. Those wines were as elegant, as seductive, and as charming as any California Cabernets I have ever had, and most other vintages of Laurel Glen Estate have been close behind.
Which brings us to the 2006 Laurel Glen Estate. Let's (finally) be concise: great vintage, and one of the finest producers in California, working one of northern California's most compelling Cabernet landscapes on Sonoma Mountain. Drink now if you like your wines younger; drink later if you love the best that aged California wine can represent. I'm not a huge fan of bitterness, so I'm going to buy a lot of it and try to wait.
Happy tasting and we'll see you Saturday!
Doug Frost, MS MW
Master Sommelier & Master of Wine
No comments:
Post a Comment