todd10

Stags' Leap Winery Petite Sirah 2018, Napa Valley

I feel bad giving this at 89 when I see so many great scores. This is a nice tasting wine, but to me it was very typical of a nice red. Good dark, fruit, a little peppery, firm tannins but not too much. It was good. The 89 is because I did not get the complexity that many others did. The wine did not evolve throughout the evening either. I like when I can taste a wine evolve is it breaths.
Still good though.
Tasted June 2023

Sartori Corte Brà Amarone Della Valpolicella Classico 2011, Doc

As I was smelling the aromas of the first glass , I was not able to pinpoint the unique aromas that I was getting. I then read the expert reviews, I agree with a few that what I was getting would be described as black tea and cherry cola. I was tasting dark fruit. I found the wine very balanced. At this point I was giving it a 91. That was until about an hour later. The aromas seemed to disappear but the taste.....oh my. The flavors of cherry but not to tart or sweet. It was like candy without the sweetness. I fell in love ....Tasted Sept 2019

Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc 2021, Marlborough, South Island

I loved all the flavour and aromas popping from this wine. Mostly grapefruit, but some flint too. Perfect crispness that I would expect from a Sauvignon blanc. I enjoyed this wine a lot, would have loved it more on a warm day on the patio.
Tasted September 2023

Tornatore Etna Rosso Trimarchisa 2016, D.O.C. Etna

This wine had an interesting nose. I was getting aromas of soya sauce and black tea leaves. I enjoy when wine have unusual character like this one.
This wines balance was good and pretty good length too with taste of cherries.
I like the back ground story of these grapes only growing on the slopes of Europe's largest active volcano, Mount Etna.
Tasted August 2022

Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc 2020, Marlborough, South Island

This wine good wine, but after reading my review for the 2019 vintage, it is not as good as that one.I did get dill, and tropical fruit on the nose. The taste was fantastic with nice tropical fruit flavours and perfect acidity. I want to give this 92, but I feel 91 is more accurate. As we know, 91 is a great score, so this wine is great, it was so much closer to being even better. Perhaps serving temperature may be the key factor...not too cold.
Taste October 2022

Culmina Hypothesis 2014, Golden Mile Bench, BC VQA Okanagan Valley

The wine had aromas of tobacco leaf and raspberry. The grippy tannins went well with food, in my case , salami. I would not suggest to drink this wine without food. Over the course of the next two hours, the wine opened a little but not enough to make it worth to decant. The wine was good, but I feel could it could use 2 more years of cellering to bring out more charactor.
Tasted January 2021.

Martinez Lacuesta Gran Reserva 2010, D.O.Ca Rioja Alta

Aromas of oak, and molasses and bay leaf. Nice grippy tannins. I enjoyed what I could best describe as a "cigar box flavor" on the finish (you will see what I mean).
Tasted August 2023

Le Clos Jordanne Le Grand Clos Chardonnay 2019, VQA Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara Escarpment

I purchased this when I saw that it won Platinum. It was a nice wine with some complexity. I started drinking this wine at 10C. At that temperature, I was getting aromas of butter, with a hint of lemon and stone. Of course while this cooled down it lost some of its complexity, so I would suggest serving this at 10C to 13C.
Nice balanced wine. Medium finish and medium bodied.
Tasted August 2022

Le Vieux Donjon Châteauneuf Du Pape 2015

This wine had one of the best aromas that I have had in a long time. Beautiful scents of cherry and plum were so easy to detect that even my wife that always tells me that all she smells is "alcohol", this is the first time she could smell the cherry. Taste of fruit with a nice balance. I loved the finish. The tasty wine seemed to linger on my tongue for a while. A little heat on the finish, but I enjoy a bit of heat so I am not complaining.

Tasted May 2020

Urbina Reserva 1998, Doca Rioja

The was my first wine that I had that was over 20 years old. I realized right away that all the almost all the primary fruit flavors are gone. I was getting hints of tobacco and leather. At this point I was happy. As the night progressed, the wine did not get any better. The wine was good at the beginning, I loved the secondary notes of leather, tobacco and oak. But as the night progressed, the already very light tannin's seemed to get even light taking the balance out of wack. I would suggest do not decant this and the faster you can drink this (share with friends) the better.
Tasted Feb 2020