Tree Kilpatrick

9.3

Classic label. Spooky vine. Color is vinous blood, ruby red. Blood in the bag. Mom’s borsch. Aroma: Berry compote, beets, earthy, stream bank. Flavors are complex and rich. Long and astringent with the mineral limestone stuff of nice Shiraz. Plenty of sarsaparilla and cola within the sugars. Balance is awesome. Has something for most everyone. Complex, but not over the top. This is a great wine that makes everyone feel good about Clarksburg red. — a year ago

Tree Kilpatrick

8.9

Lots of history to this varietal from this place. It’s not a very common grape. And it’s name checked in the Shakespeare opera ‘Don Giovanni’. Says so on the label. Dark colored grape makes a dark colored wine. Almost black. It’s supposed to smell like violets according to my research. Not sure I know the smell of violets enough to place that. I’d say berry cobbler. And maybe blood orange. Mushrooms? Flavors are dry, simple and elegant. Reminds me of some good Southern Italian stuff I’ve had. Plenty tart. Lower alcohol at 12.5%. This is interesting and strange stuff. Thanks Grocery Outlet for bringing stuff like this to the masses. — 4 years ago

Naboth van den Broek

9.2

Brilliant accompaniment to a poor man’s/weekday chicken with mushrooms in cream/wine. Slightly oxidative, beautiful nose of nuts, salinity, lemon rind (?). The stuff that makes you like a regular Thursday evening. — 5 years ago

Chad Brewer

9.3

Everything went into the Rosso in 15, this wine has the stuff that makes a great wine great. — 6 years ago

Ely Cohn

9.2

Clemens Busch makes about the best entry level Riesling I could ask for. All his wines are biodynamic and organic and he designates the soil type by color of the foil top - grey slate here. It’s golden unfiltered, extraordinarily dry and high acid at only 10.5% ABV. There are ripe tropical fruits like guava and pineapple that find their way into salty lemon smoke and dill. Insane stuff. — 6 years ago

Daniel M

9.2

Champion's league final wine.
Strawberry, green pepper, black pepper and some mineral stuff like pencil lead. The palate is wonderful. Strong acid backbone, strawberry all along, a strong grip on the sides, firm tanins, a long peppery, fruity finish and some bitterness in the end. This is glorious. So much craft put into making sure that every part I have described is well articulated and makes sense. Like reading a good crime story — 7 years ago

Aaron Tan

9.9

Picking Abtserde in 2017 was an absolute pain. It was affected the worst by hail. Took us an entire day to sort and pick just one row, granted they were long rows. And not to mention the wasps... Devil spawns... these creatures. Thank God 2018 didn't see this problem.

Anyway, rant aside... This wine blew my mind... Again. Maybe I'm biased... But it's just so pure... So fucking pure... Mineral hedonistic crystalline precision! If that even makes sense. Explosive pleasure! In short, heavenly 🤤

NB: I rated this 9.9 just to differentiate it from the sheer cacophony of flavour in the G-Max. In comparison, the 17' Absterde's a little closed atm. But still... Great stuff. Really great stuff. — 8 years ago

Daniel M

8.9

The nose is made of lemon zest, pear white flowers, a petrol thing too. I could have mistaken it for a Riesling somehow. When tasting it there is no way to mistake it for Riesling. This is dry Yes, but there is a viscosity too it, a matter, that could be only encountered is a very sweet wines. Some lemony, zesty and pear notes, a good width, that cushiony, viscous mouthfeel that makes it very soft, a good acid drive too, yet not that strong but taking some momentum to power some freshness into the finish. This is good stuff! — 4 years ago

Scott@Mister A’s-San Diego

9.4

2018 vintage. This is the red. Bright cherry and menthol in the nose. Light medium bod. Cocoa powder makes a cameo appearance early in the closing palate but that menthol is the stuff of good, classic horror movies. Chock full of pursuit und relentless. Best showing/vintage of the respective decade for this juice and that's saying something. — 4 years ago

Kurt Schuster

9.2

My introduction to and one of my favorite St. Estephe.  at first blush is incredibly tight, tannins coat your entire younger, this wine is just tighter than a three legged cat in a dog pound. Give it a good hour or so in then tannins fade, it’s like it’s enough good structure to be able to enjoy the wine but you get wonderful flavors of fresh rose and chewing on green herbs that go into beef Bourgogne and all of that fun stuff. The tannins fade into velvet, not Lou Reed in the velvet underground, but an iron fist with a velvet glove. There’s a solidity behind it that smacks you in the face with delicious plum and green herb and just floral flavors that would make Monet slap himself in jealousy. Drinking this wine after giving it time to decant makes you realize that you actually have lost that loving feeling and need to drink more wine. — 5 years ago

Matti Jokelainen

8.9

For me this ticks all the boxes for good quality GV. It's fresh, pure, varietally accurste with the nice peppery bite on the end. This has slight sweetness from the fruit that might not fit the purist view but for.me it just makes this more food friendly. Good stuff! — 6 years ago

Paul K

9.3

Dust, floral, and cherries on the nose. Milk chocolate covered cherries with just a hint of forest floor. This is awesome right now. There is a hint of tertiary stuff going on. It blows off, but adds to the experience if that makes sense. Tannins start up front and make a pucker throughout. We’re loving this! Grab a few bottles if you can. I’m going to. Let it breath for an hour tho. — 7 years ago

Alex Lallos

Owner No Limit Fine Wines, Private Wine Consultant

9.4

I adore this wine in every way. It takes a while to open up but when it does wowie!!!!. It’s hard to believe that this is a ‘second wine’ or sorts to chateau gracia (albeit it does come from a completely separate parcel and is not a barrel selection)... loaded with dark fruits, leather, coffee (fresh ground), and earth. Limestone backbone provides freshness for days. Fresh but massively built on the palate. Silky and soft up front with some grip towards the back. This is just starting to hit its stride and I suspect it will evolve nicely for at least another 15 years. Side note: I tasted this wine in 2011 in Bordeaux at their micro chateau. The owner was charming and his wines are sublime. This place could not be more minimalist. The guy makes a minuscule amount of wine but he is turning out the best stuff imaginable. — 7 years ago

Steve Goore

8.9

There’s 2% Gewerztraminer here and it adds a drop of sweetness that makes the wine even more accessible. Good stuff on a hot summer day. — 8 years ago

Adriana Fabbro

9.0

Pra Soave was calling to me from the back of the fridge and I heeded that call.

Like a really well crafted pop song, this wine is effortlessly enjoyable on a superficial level, but when I stop and think about it, there’s a lot underpinning this wine’s effortless enjoyability. Chablis like on the nose - intense minerality (limestone, but also that flinty volcanic stuff), lemon curd, pear, a hint of chamomile & blanched almonds. The texture is what makes it though - crisp but with gracefulness to it. Lively acidity in perfect balance with leesy bass notes.


— 4 years ago

Palmer Emmitt

Owner/Winemaker Judge Palmer

9.0

I still have quite a few wines like this from my early days of wine collecting - stuff that was highly rated or recommended in the $15-30 price range (this was $18 from Wine Library in 2009). Wines that could provide a great quality for the price, but that no one, including me, ever expected would spend a dozen years in my cellar. Many people would assume wines like this one to be hopelessly past prime, but over and over again I’m surprised how well so many of them - from both the old and new world - hold up. At first this wine seemed to be over the hill, with some brownish tinge to the color, balsamic aroma and leathery mouthfeel, but the longer it’s in my glass the more I’m enjoying it. The sweet and intense red cherry fruit is sightly raisiny in character yet still somehow bright, the tannins are integrated but still firm, and the acid is balanced and mouth watering. Pretty classic Grenache-Carignane that would hold its own against Priorats costing several multiples of its price. Sometimes wine makes you smile (most times). — 5 years ago

Ely Cohn

9.7

Raul Perez, Mencia wizard and human garden gnome, makes some of the most innovative and highly allocated wines from anywhere. I don’t often drink stuff this good. Sometimes you need to be reminded that average and good wines are made for relaxation and enjoyment and that extraordinary wines are art.

La penitencia could be the best thing I’ve ever opened at home. It’s elegant and bootlegged. The front label probably designed in an Internet cafe, the back label looks like it was cut and glued by a five year old. These things make it lovable because it’s so bad and it’s so good.

Pours a browned purple motor oil. The aromas fly. Perfumes of red and blue colored berries, clove, spice, leather. Like a brand new catchers mitt that needs some oil and some love. Feels of plush berry fruit and flavors of prunes and macerated strawberries and boxed raisins that seem to hang around for about as many years as I waited to open this thing. — 5 years ago

Daniel M

9.0

The nose is exotic fruits and lemon plus the chalky, crushed oyster usual stuff in chablis. From the nose you can tell it's Chablis premier cru and you know you are in for a ride. The palate is a model of balance with a nice and strong acid backbone showing off against a bright exotic fruit (pineapple and mango). A real presence in mouth with some width a soft touch on the sides. The mineral, chalky thing is there in the mouthfeel too that screams chablis all around. The finish is rather quick with lemon and pineapple and a chalky thread that makes of a fresh, delicious after taste. Good stuff, delivering right what it should be — 7 years ago

Isaac Pirolo

9.6

Proof that, indeed, there is truth in wine.

While Heidi Barrett makes her only Chardonnay and Spring Mountain Cabernet for Fantesca, my understanding is she will not make Pinot Noir. That responsibility falls on Fantesca’s Associate Winemaker Tony Arcudi, who also makes wine under his eponymous label in addition to consulting for Kapcsandy.

Fantesca’s 2014 King Richard’s Reserve is sourced from a selection of prime vineyards in Russian River Valley including Bacigalupi, Ulises Valdez, and Martinelli. Reminiscent of my experiences with Williams Selyem Pinot Noir. A rich, yet beautiful expression of Pinot Noir that juxtaposes lush raspberry and black cherry against a backdrop of herbs, flowers, and forest floor. The balance between opulence and restraint is where the beauty lies. — 7 years ago

Casey Curbow

Sales Associate Windsor Wine Merchants

9.3

Next level stuff that makes you question what you’ve done with your life. — 8 years ago

with Gerald