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Goose45

Best Ever:
Heitz 1990 Cabernet Savignon

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Recent Tasting Note

Wine Tasted:
Orin Swift Cellars The Prisoner 2003
Tasting Notes:
Blends the lushousity edge of Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, the brusque structure of Petite Sirah, etc: the flesh of all life rolled into complexity and trapped, like unto a "Prisoner"? I fully expect Swift Cellars to issue forth a wine named "Enigma" ..though love that this aspect is also in this art filled, exquisitely crafted blend. I am not one to buy for a label (other than the 1973 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild Pauillac ode to Pablo Picasso label: simply the finest on the finest -well not the best vintage I hear), but this label did catch mein attention, and then the more I knew, the more I wanted to? So after buying 3, and waiting as long as I could, is not so much mystery, though I could've sworn a sea smoke mist fog drifted around enveloping the neck of bottle like a John Carpenter film after easing out das cork? This very straight forward artful blendola is 50% Zinfandel, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Syrah, 9% Petite Sirah, 2% holy exotica Charbono, and a smidge of 1% Grenache as clean-up crew. Clean layered it is, swirl for darkest magenta colours, initial fruit whiff of black berry-currant, to an in the glass nose includes a tad of cocoa, and licorice tart cherry in black coffee scents, if that's possible. Smooth as a glacier this moves across the mouth med. weighted layers of flavor revealed include a spice that is shackled and controlled to carry out a most if not soft, very pleasure enhancing finish. Bravo Senore Phinney! (Cellaring the other two now for another year & waiting for the correcto moment mitt great anticipation!) Allineare un lavoro di arte dei vintner viventi in decadence e nell'lush-esclusività trattenuti facenti male...or Truly a work of living vintner’s art in aching restrained decadence and lush-exclusivity. Wild life in der bottle, yes.
Wine Rating:
92

From Chardonnay to Pinot Noir: Brice Cutrer Jones Discusses the Evolution of a Winemaker

By Brad Prescott

Brice Cutrer Jones is virtually synonymous with California Chardonnay (Hint: Sonoma-Cutrer Chardonnay). The logical assumption is that the topic de jour of any interview with him would be Chardonnay. However, I recently sat down with Cutrer Jones to discuss - of all things- his foray into Pinot Noir. After 25 years as a renowned producer of fine Chardonnay, Cutrer Jones has done an about face and is now applying the same passion, skill, and marketing savvy he and his team used to become world class makers of Chardonnay, into making what he refers to as Noble Pinot Noir.

After 25 years of making outstanding Chardonnay at Sonoma-Cutrer, you sold Sonoma-Cutrer and switched from Chardonnay to Pinot Noir when you started Emeritus. What inspired the switch?

We had begun a Pinot experiment at Sonoma–Cutrer (SC) beginning in the mid-90’s, and by the time I sold the company we had a small experimental Pinot winery in an old barn, 150 acres of Pinot planted and a use permit to build a winery for 25,000 cases of Pinot. I sold SC in 1999 because by then I had over 100 stockholders, and most had been invested for 20-plus years and wanted their money back (what a concept!), one way or another. I could have gone public, but didn’t believe then, and still don’t, that public companies should be in the wine biz. Brown-Forman (BF) was a public company, but mostly run and controlled by the Brown family, said they wanted to learn about fine wine, and made all the right sounds about long term investment. Well, we live and learn...might as well have taken it public myself.