David Shaw

9.0

Revisiting an old favorite — a year ago

Ely Cohn

9.1

Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young. Name of an old tune and a pretty little Hill Country pet nat of Touriga Nacional with a swinging stopper cap.

The heady beery foam is in no hurry - sticks around for a minute.

Spiced orange coriander Christmas ale. Peaches and soft pink cantaloupe. — 4 years ago

Tegan Marriott

9.1

Tasty dry complex organic Vermont hard cyder w/ a" y "to distinguish it from the others. +So the children don't consume. From an orchard with 89 different varieties of apples! Highly recommended! — 4 years ago

Isaac Pirolo

9.5

Riverain is Steve Nordhoff and Dean & Laurie Gray’s label that produces just a few hundred cases from some select vineyards in Northern California, including a Tench Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Gamble Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc.

According to Dean Gray, Riverain is a historically French term meaning “local & friendly people who reside near the river.” @Greg Ballington deserves credit for the reco, and while I’ve had a handful of Syrahs from the Cardiac Hill Vineyard in Sonoma County’s Bennett Valley, this is my first that’s made by Thomas Rivers Brown.

Screams old world, particularly Northern Rhône. Loved it from the get-go, but the acceleration at 90 minutes open is significant. Campfire grilled meat, finely ground pepper, black olive, and creosote, with a core of savory black fruit, and a beautiful secondary combination of cedar and lavender. There’s a distinctive combination of balance, purity of fruit, and savory structure that’s hard not to recognize. — 6 years ago

Shay A

9.1

I’ve been wondering when to open this wine, and when a local group decided to do a Pinot theme blind, I thought this would be a fun contender.

My second time with this wine in the last year, and I remain impressed at how this 13yr old Alsatian Pinot is holding up. Translucent ruby in the glass. Doesn’t seem to show much bricking, actually. Aromatically, it’s bretty…smells more Bordeaux like than anything else. Leather, herbs de Provence, underripe black cherries. The palate shows a small bit of carbonic character (not with the bubble gum vibe, but more of that cru bojo wintergreen profile). The fruit shows a faded/muddled profile due to the age, but there is plenty of dirty raspberry, black cherry and a savory red clay like note. Good acidity still. While this is on the downside, I’m hard pressed to say this is way over the hill. It’s actually a really fun and delicious wine to enjoy over an evening (especially with food). — 2 years ago

Chris Fiscus

9.1

Mostly still dry cider. Medium mouthfeel. Slight tartness. Would be good with hard cheese like white cheddar. — 4 years ago

David Kline

9.0

Key Lime Pie and Lolita? Hard slap of apple cider riding high on waves of apricot and cinnamon stick that is cheating with apple in Pickleville. Asian spices shimmer alongside. Real tart briny lime plays nice with Old Key Lime House-made pie. Bing cherry bringing the cringe from the fringes to the face cave! Sugar-olive dichotomies. The push and pull cancellations have me imagining pickled persimmon existences, dried, spiced Asian plum, banana pepper, potpourri woods, candied ginger, and bite after bite the palatal assault assuaged by lime and sugar and graham cracker. Bittersweet tang for the twang thang. — 5 years ago

Stephen Sutton

9.6

Hard and hoppy. Damn delicious and one of the most original hard apple ciders I've enjoyed. Yum! — 7 years ago

Delectable Wine

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9.5

The 2020 Old Hill Heritage Wine shows why this site is considered one of the very best in all of Sonoma. The pedigree is evident. A wine of volume, textural depth and intensity, the 2020 is a showstopper. Black cherry, chocolate, licorice and dark spice lend tons of complexity to this statuesque Zinfandel-based field blend. All the elements come together so beautifully. It's hard to fully capture the Old Hill with words, as it really transcends descriptors. But when you taste it, you know. You know you are tasting a wine from a very special place. (Antonio Galloni, Vinous, January 2022)
— 2 years ago

David T

Independent Sommelier/Wine Educator

9.4

Nose reveals beauty & grace. Sweet & just sour lemons, lime candy, green dominate apples with shades of golden, cream, vanillin, ginger, ripe squeezed pineapple flesh, grapefruit with pith, touch of apple cider, salted caramel, cream soda, sea fossils, sea spray, light volcanics, marmalade fruit, Stone fruit with yellow & spring flowers flowers set in mixed greens.

The palate is very full, round, waxy, rich with excellent viscosity. Beautiful mouthfeel. Great time for a bottle. Sweet & just a sour lemons, lime candy, green dominate apples with shades of golden, cream, vanillin, ginger, ripe squeezed pineapple flesh, grapefruit with pith, touch of apple cider, salted caramel, cream soda, healthier honey, sea fossils, white spice with the perfect depth & heat, sea spray, reductive, melted molasses, light volcanics, wet stone, elegant flintiness, marmalade fruit, stone fruit-apricot, nectarines, white & yellow peach with yellow & spring flowers flowers set in mixed greens. The acidity is like a cool stone filled stream. The long, round finish is; waxy, round, lush, with excellent balance fruit & earth, gentle white spice palate heat that persists endlessly. On the long, longboard set, I get soft subtle cream notes of whiskey/scotch w/o any heat. It Hoovers center mouth.

Photos of; one of Dauvisst Cru vineyards, staff caning in the spring, Vincent, Dauvisst and photo of a vineyard that shows every bit of reason why White Burgundy tastes the way it does!

Some producer notes I read. Vincent started helping his father René in 1976 and, during the last decade, has gradually taken control of viticulture and winemaking. For him, the ultimate goal is to harvest healthy grapes that are fully ripe and concentrated which, he declares, can only be achieved consistently by hard work in the vineyard. His passion for wine enables him to put this work ethic into practice with real vigour - close pruning the vines (40 years old on average) during the growing season to restrict yields, hand harvesting at vintage time and ruthlessly discarding any rotten or split grapes. His vinification and maturation methods see him join the small band of Chablis producers who employ oak. The wines are vinified and aged in a mixture of steel vats and 6-to 8 year old wooden barrels. The wood is old and therefore doesn’t stamp any oak flavour onto the wines but does give them an extra depth of flavor and density of body, whilst still retaining their unique identities. These are intensely terroir-driven, mineral wines of such concentration that they take longer than most to reach their best, though they are every bit worth the wait. — 4 years ago