| Country: | United States |
| Region: | California |
| Winery: | Bonny Doon Vineyard |
| Grape Type: | Grenache Blanc |
| Vintage: | 2017 |
| Bottle Size: | 750 ml |
After working with the fruit for over a decade, Turkey is proud to present the first single-vineyard bottling for Turley from the Del Barba Vineyard. Contra Costa is a delta where the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers meet, and these head-trained vines are planted in deep dehli blow sand, made up of decomposed granite coming down from the Sierra Mountains. The resulting wine embodies the best the delta has to offer: silken textures, ultra fine tannin, and dark saline fruits.
Review:
"The 2023 Zinfandel del Barba is ripe, boisterous and super-expressive. Floral overtones and bright acids run through a core of red/purplish fruit. Sandy soils confer lovely aromatic presence to this pure Zinfandel. This is an especially accessible offering from Turley."
-Vinous 91-93 Points
Opaque color. Very rich, dark chocolate aromas with some black cherry and mature fruit coming through. There is also a pleasing freshness to the port originating from its floral and cistus (rockrose) bouquet. The Quinta de la Rosa Vintage 2017 is a powerful wine with much potential but at the same time elegant and generous on the palate. Full of flavors, very complex with fine tannins that gives the wine a nobility and persistence. A great vintage made to give pleasure now and in the next few decades.
Review:
The 2017 Vintage Port was bottled a few weeks before tasting after spending 18 months in used tonels. It is a field blend, mostly Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca, coming in with 98 grams per liter of residual sugar. Wonderfully aromatic and filled with flavor, this got plenty of aeration and didn't blink even a little. It was still vibrant and expressive. Aeration only made it more tannic. It is also delicious. This is potentially a great Port, and it seems like the best I've seen from La Rosa. This is sort of approachable in the near future, but it really needs (at least) a decade of cellaring. It has a lot of muscle and should age well.
-Wine Advocate 95 Points
Very floral in profile, with violet and lilac accents leading off, followed by a decidedly red-fruit spectrum of raspberry, cherry and red currant coulis flavors that race throughout. Has grip, but this is more reliant on acidity, showing a nearly piercing feel as the tightly focused finish zips along, leaving a mouthwatering impression. Delightfully idiosyncratic. Best from 2033 through 2050. 112 cases imported. — JM
-Wine Spectator 95 Points
This is a rounded Port, showing layers of black fruits, ripe tannins and spice. At the same time, it does have a solid structure that will allow it to age. The acidity comes through at the end. Drink from 2028.
-Wine Enthusiast 95 Points
The Grade Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Winfield Vineyard is made from Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
“This wine expresses a focused balancing act of dark, rich black fruit, and a fine tannin structure, illuminated through the core with a laser-like acidity. The wine displays a deep purple-red hue with a cranberry halo. Aromas of cassis, cinnamon, citrus oil, roasted meat, and lilac swell from the glass.
“The palate is marked by a wave of jet-black brambly fruit up front, followed by an exotic spice mid-palate and a long, complex finish that lasts and lasts expressing notes of flowering jasmine, and oolong tea. The silky tannins hold everything together and will certainly allow this wine to evolve in the cellar for at least 7-10 years.” - Thomas River Brown
Review:
The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Winfield Vineyard is an absolutely gorgeous wine that conveys a striking interplay of richness, power and nuance. Silky and restrained for this site, the Winfield offers up a compelling melange of red fruit, iron, cedar, tobacco, rose petal and dried herbs, all in a mid-weight style that is incredibly appealing. The Winfield is a selection taken from Blocks 1, 4 and 5.
-Vinous 94 Points
All older vintage wines have been purchased from a single collectors cellar. Pictures can be requested before shipment.
All older vintage wines have been purchased from a single collectors cellar. Pictures can be requested before shipment.
The 2021 Shafer Hillside Select is crafted exclusively from grapes grown on Shafer's rugged hillside vineyards, where steep, rocky soils push the vines to produce low yields of intensely concentrated fruit. The unique terroir, combined with Napa Valley's hallmark climate of warm, sunny days and cool nights, contributed to a vintage with exceptional structure, lush tannins, and deep, vibrant color. The 2021 growing season exemplified these conditions, allowing the grapes to mature beautifully by early September, resulting in a wine with refined, pure aromas and flavors that reflect the richness and elegance of the vineyard.
“Such a beautifully balanced wine with tremendous staying power and expressive Stags Leap ironstone minerality with heady sagebrush and conifer notes with white pepper and walnut husk. The wine has an impressive depth of red-toned fruit on the mid-palate framed by tannins that practically dance across the palate, exuding length, tension, and power. Huckleberry and black cherry fruits, black truffle, dried violets, graphite, and salted dark chocolate are all framed by racy acidity, which keeps everything fresh and lifted. The 2021 releases mark Elias Fernandez's 38th vintage as Shafer's winemaker. He was hired by John Shafer in 1984, two weeks out of UC Davis.”
-Decanter, 99 Points
“The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select was tasted as a barrel sample. Deep garnet-purple in color, it charges out with powerful notes of creme de cassis, plum preserves, and juicy blueberries giving way to an undercurrent of tar, candied violets, and star anise. The full-bodied palate is concentrated and impactful, delivering a firm, grainy texture and well-knit freshness to support the generous black and blue fruits, finishing long with loads of mineral and exotic spices sparks. This is impressive!”
-The Wine Independent, 98-100 Points
“As always, the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon that will spend 28 months in new barrels. Its deep purple hue gives way to a behemoth of a wine that has incredible cassis, black raspberry, and even blue fruits to go with loads of camphor, minty herbs, graphite, and darker chocolate. It's full-bodied, concentrated, yet pure, flawlessly balanced, and has a great finish.”
-Jeb Dunnuck, 97-99 Points
Bonny Doon Vin Gris de Cigare is made from 57% Grenache, 18% Grenache Blanc, 9% Mourvèdre, 6% Roussanne, 5% Carignane, 5% Cinsaut
No oak.
This wine is quite emblematic of the great sea change that has occurred at Bonny Doon Vineyard since the sell-off/ draw-down of the Ginormous Doonamath, whereby we have essayed a most sincere effort to make “quieter” wines in a more natural, less manipulated fashion. As such, this Vin Gris is made from bespoke grapes and is not a byproduct of red wine production, per se. We harvested at the appropriate ripeness level for its style. The essential principle here is that less is truly more. The wine does not overwhelm one with fruitybombasticity; it’s charms are seductively subtle. An extremely elegant and complex Vin Gris de Cigare.
The ’17 Vin Gris is a return to form from recent vintages, and a true expression of a proper Vin Gris, which is to say a pale pink wine made with the scantest skin contact. As a result, the wine is somewhat lighter and more delicate on the palate with minimal astringency and perhaps more of a floral aspect than doonright fruitiness. The perfume of this wine is subtle, haunting, not vulgar or tawdry, like some of the louche rosés de la nuit. Enfin, this wine is all about elegance and restraint. Rosehips, cassis, fraises de bois, citrus rind, with a wonderfully austere stony finish.
The wine does not overwhelm one with fruity-bombasticity; it’s charms are seductively subtle. An extremely elegant and complex Vin Gris de Cigare.
The Grenache for our Vin Gris came from bespoke sections of the Alta Loma Vineyard, harvested at the appropriate maturity level for this elegant style of wine. About 24% of the wine is composed of traditional white Rhône varieties in substantial part from the Beeswax Vineyard in the Arroyo Seco district of Monterey, adding a surprising richness and foundation. We also employed the practice of postfermentation bâtonnage—the stirring or re-suspension of yeast lees—to give the wine a certain creaminess of texture.
Varietal Blend: 57% Grenache, 18% Grenache Blanc, 9% Mourvèdre, 6% Roussanne, 5% Carignane, 5% Cinsaut.
Appellation: Central Coast
Vineyards: 41% Alta Loma, 13% Beeswax, 11% Bokisch Ranch, 8% JD Farming, 6% San Miguel, 7% Cass, 5% Gonsalves, 4% Scheid, 3% Wente, 1% Rancho Solo, 1% Ventan
Alcohol by Volume: 13.2%
TA: 4.5 g/L
pH: 3.42
This wine just begs for oysters or stone crab.
Review:
- Wine & Spirits Magazine (June 2018), 90 pts, BEST BUY - YEAR'S BEST ROSES
Paul Hobbs Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon.
Grown on the west side of St. Helena, this distinctive cabernet sauvignon clearly displays its origins with a rich garnet hue and sophisticated aromas of cacao bean, crème de cassis, and sweet tobacco on the nose. Layered, with a superb structure, the wine offers impressions of blueberry coulis, black raspberry, and savory herbs like Herbs de Provence. The weighty mid-palate unveils anise spice and a graphite mineral note that combines with a fresh acidity that extends the long finish.
Review:
Needing plenty of air to show at its best, the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Vineyard is a sensational, gorgeous Napa Valley Cabernet that delivers the goods like only this region can. Pure Cabernet magic on the nose, with deep blackcurrants, smoked tobacco, lead pencil, and a kiss of spring flowers as well as a beautiful Pessac-Leognan-like scorched earth character, it hits the palate with full-bodied richness, silky tannins, no hard edges, and a great, great finish. It's one of those wines that builds incrementally on the palate and it's only after the second or third sip that you realize how special this wine is. It also offers that rare mix of power and elegance that's the hallmark of all great wines. It needs a couple of hours in the decanter if drinking any time soon. Hats off to Paul Hobbs for an incredible Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
-Jeb Dunnuck 100 Points
Ceretto Barbaresco DOCG is made from 100 percent Nebbiolo.
If we could sum this wine up in a single word, we wouldn’t hesitate to define it as “classic”. As tradition suggests, this Barbaresco is the fruit of the assembly of several parcels of land, coming from some of our most beautiful vineyards. The idea is that of naturally obtaining balance by harmonizing different expressions, often contrasting ones. The result is a liquid expression of a terroir, tempting and typical, a synopsis of one Langa, that of Barbaresco, which moves in the glass, alternating between structure and elegance.
Review:
This is a really solid, meaty and mouth-filling Barbaresco that offers vivid red fruit with floral and mineral nuances and hints of licorice and cedar. Medium- to full-bodied with compact, velvety tannins that form the backbone of the wine, showing impressive concentration and length. Drink from 2027.
- James Suckling 93 Points
Bright, brightening ruby garnet. Appealing and finely drawn nose with notes of strawberries, blood orange and sealing wax. Very juicy on the palate, fresh, precisely defined fruit, opens up with fine-meshed tannins, very tense, with a cherry finish.
-FalStaff 93 Points