Country: | United States |
Region: | Virginia |
Winery: | Willowcroft |
Grape Type: | Merlot |
Vintage: | 2014 |
Bottle Size: | 750 ml |
Michel Rolland, Pomerol vintner and consultant to many of the world's top wineries, teamed with Washington State wine visionary Allen Shoup to produce this limited release wine.
With its intense color and inviting aromas of dark berries, licorice, baking spice and a hint of smoke, the Pedestal is a bold wine that leaves a lasting impression. Dark fruit flavors integrated with sweetness from the barrel and richness from the tannins come together seamlessly, lingering across a structured mid-palate and lengthy finish.
Winemaking: Hand-harvested grapes were double-sorted to remove green material that might impart harsh tannins, then most of the lots were cold soaked to build richness and flavor before undergoing whole-berry fermentation in 55L upright French wood tanks. This, combined with gentle pump-overs throughout fermentation, enhanced the wine’s color, texture and mouthfeel. The finished wine was aged 22 months in 85% new French oak barrels.
Review:
"I loved the 2014 Pedestal Merlot and it’s 81% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Malbec and 2% Petit Verdot. It offers a downright voluptuous and incredibly sexy style in its ripe black currants, toasted spice, chocolate and licorice aromas and flavors. Broad, expansive, layered and pleasure bent, with ripe tannin, it's a knockout Merlot that's going to have 10-15 years of drinkability. - Jeb Dunnuck"
- Robert Parker's Wine Advocate (Issue #231, June 2017), 95 pts
Stags Leap Wine Cellars S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars stunned the world in 1976 when its 1973 S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon bested some of Bordeaux’s first-growth wines in a tasting in Paris. It was the winery’s first commercial vintage, a wine produced from young, three-year-old vines. While the “victory” over the French in “The Judgment of Paris” continues to be hailed throughout the world – and the winery is still humbled by the achievement – Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars enters its golden anniversary year with a commitment to producing more complex and age-worthy wines. No resting on laurels, no autopilot, no complacency, but rather a drive to ensure the next 50 years are even more glorious than the first 50.A step back in time puts Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’ current and future plans in perspective.
The estate was founded in 1970 with the purchase of orchard land in what is now the Stags Leap District AVA in southeastern Napa Valley. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes replaced the prunes and walnuts, and the winery was built in 1972. A wine was made there in that year, but it was the 1973 S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon that impressed – and shocked – a panel of experts on French wine. In the 1976 Paris Tasting, a blind tasting, they chose S.L.V as the finest red wine in the group, without knowing its provenance. The outcome brought international recognition to the infant Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, the nascent Napa Valley wine region, and the entire American wine industry and put all on a path to worldwide renown.
S.L.V. Vineyard S.L.V. soils are predominantly volcanic in nature and contribute multilayered structure, concentration and spicy intensity, often referred to as the “fire-like” elements. S.L.V., also known as Stag’s Leap Vineyards, is the winery’s first vineyard. Planted in 1970, this vineyard achieved international fame when three-year old vines from the 1973 harvest produced a Napa Valley wine that triumphed over some of France’s greatest Bordeaux in a blind tasting among French wine experts in Paris. This history-making Stags Leap District vineyard continues to produce wines with complex black fruit and berry character, spicy intensity, excellent structure and complexity, promising long life and ageability. Today, the property encompasses roughly 35 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon and 1.5 acres of Cabernet Franc. The vineyard soil is volcanic and alluvial with good drainage, and benefits from warm afternoons and cool evening breezes.
Review:
All from the estate S.L.V. Vineyard in Stages Leap and aged 21 months in 90% new French oak, the 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon S.L.V. sports a deep purple/ruby color to go with a Saint-Julien like notes of blackcurrants, damp earth, tobacco and lead pencil. With medium to full-bodied richness, ripe, sweet tannin, beautiful purity and a great finish, it’s another terrific wine from this estate that can be drunk today of cellared for 15+ years.
-Jeb Dunnuck 95 Points
is made from 74% Malbec, 13% Cabernet Franc, 12% Petit Verdot, 1% Merlot
Vineyard Notes
Alain de la Treille Merlot is made from 100 percent Merlot.
This Merlot has a deep red color. On the nose aromas of red fruits with a herbal note and spicy scents.
Alain de la Treille Merlot is made from 100 percent Merlot.
This Merlot has a deep red color. On the nose aromas of red fruits with a herbal note and spicy scents.
Arzuaga Gran Reserva 95% Tempranillo, 4% Cabernet Sauvignon and 1% Merlot.
Presenting a ruby red color, this wine has a wide range of aroma of ripe fruit compote, toast, and leather. Fine, complex, and attractive with a great balance. Silky and pleasant in the mouth with a bit of spice detected in the finish.
Serve with red meats, roasts, or game dishes. Its flavor is enhanced with cured or fatty cheeses.
Review:
This deep violet colored wine has a bouquet of cherry pie, vanilla and baking spices. It is round in the mouth with plush tannins and flavors of raspberry, blackberry, chocolate covered caramel, coffee bean and butterscotch. There is a nice note of coffee on the finish. Mike DeSimone
-Wine Enthusiast 94 Points
Willowcroft Merlot is made from 85% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Medium-bodied Merlot with smooth plum & currant notes.
Harvested from Greenstone Vineyards on Sept 29th 2014 (brix 22.1).
Cold maceration and delestaged (rack-and-return method)
Malo-Lactic fermentation.
Fermented and aged for 12 months in Oak barrels.
It was slightly filtered before bottling.
CELEBRATING 31 YEARS OF WINE MAKING EXCELLENCE.
Willowcroft boasts breathless panoramic views of Loudoun Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Willowcroft’s personal attention to detail, both in the vineyard and the winery, has resulted in national award-winning wines, time after time. In the 1800s the slopes were recognized for their potential and were planted to orchards. Today vineyards, which have replaced the fruit trees, yield superior grapes. The rustic beauty of the winery, housed in the old red barn, and the award-winning wines, will give you reason to return to this peaceful spot.
Exceptionally aromatic with aromas of violets, hints of blackberry, blackcurrant and black plum on the nose. There is some spice that is balanced with fresh acidity and minerality. A long finish with ripe but firm tannins.
Dow's Senhora da Ribeira can be enjoyed anytime and pairs wonderfully with chocolate desserts and soft cheeses like creamy Stilton or Roquefort.
Review:
Rich and fruity, this wine is packed with intense black-currant flavors. It is perfumed, ripe with a good tannic background. The density of the wine and the firm structure point to a long aging process. Drink this beautifully structured wine from 2026.
-Wine Enthusiast 93 Points
Winemaking:
Senhora da Ribeira has one of the most advanced specialist wineries in the Douro, combining the best of traditional winemaking practice, evolved over centuries, and the latest state-of-the-art automated systems. Three granite ‘lagares’ for foot treading are complemented by three ‘robotic’ lagares, designed by the Symington family and installed in the quinta’s winery in 2001.
It has long been recognised that traditional treading produced some of the finest Ports, but there are some drawbacks involved in traditional treading; temperature control is difficult, there is a limit to how long people are willing to tread and they need to sleep. The winemaker’s options are therefore limited, he or she cannot order treading at different times through the night, or pull people off the picking team at will. Furthermore, emptying the traditional lagar takes a long time; in the meantime the fermentation process is accelerating away. A further handicap arose over recent years, when an increasing scarcity of labour obliged producers to look for less labour-intensive vinification solutions. The Symingtons opted to devise a mechanical means of replicating the proven method of foot treading. The result was the Symington ‘robotic lagar’, an automated treading machine which exactly replicates the gentle action of the human foot and which has revolutionised winemaking in the Douro Valley. This equipment is very expensive but the results have been so good that an increasing proportion of Dow’s finest wines are now made in these automated lagares. Approximately half of the wines for Dow’s much praised 2003 Vintage were vinified in them.
The Senhora da Ribeira’s Quinta Vintage Ports have amassed a highly impressive number of awards: three Gold Medals at the International Wine Challenge, (2008, 2006 and 2001, for the 2005, 2002 and 1999 Vintages, respectively) as well as seven Silver Medals and two Gold Medals at the International Wine & Spirit Competition (London, 2008 for the 2005 Vintage and 2002 for the 1998 Vintage). In September 2006, Jancis Robinson MW wrote, “One very exciting new bottling is Dow’s Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira 2004...this single quinta bottling demonstrates superb quality with wonderful vibrancy. Great wine in any context - not that unlike some California reds! This is definitely a wine to look out for when it is released.”
Wine Profile
The very hot climate through the summer at this vineyard results in highly complex and concentrated wines but very low yields. Colours of the musts in the fermentation tanks are always purple-black due to the very high skin to juice ratio. The old vines add further to the intensity of the wine as they make up a very large percentage of the vineyard. The resulting wine can be described as being the essence of Vintage Port, with powerful wild red-fruit flavours, leading into rich black chocolate notes, the whole balanced by complex, attractive and peppery tannins.
One of the Douro’s most beautiful vineyards, Senhora da Ribeira is located 24km (15 miles) upriver from Quinta do Bomfim in the remote Douro Superior. The vineyard commands a magnificent north bank position, overlooking a broad sweep of the Douro, directly opposite another famous Symington owned vineyard: Quinta do Vesuvio. Senhora de Ribeira was built close to an ancient river crossing, guarded by two 12th century castles on either side of the river built by the Moors during their centuries long occupation of Iberia. A small chapel dedicated to the ‘Lady of the River’ (literally: Senhora da Ribeira) has stood here for centuries and gave the quinta its name. Travellers would pause here to ask for a safe river passage and onward journey.
Senhora da Ribeira’s wines are some of the finest in the Douro and they complement those from Bomfim in the composition of Dow’s classic Vintage Ports. The quinta’s high proportion of old vines (45% are over 25 years old) is of critical importance. The old vines are very low-yielding, producing on average less than 1Kg of grapes each, giving intense and concentrated musts which are ideal for classic Vintage Port. The remainder of the vineyard was replanted as follows: 21% in 2001 and 34% from 2004, the latter involving mainly Touriga Nacional vines. This grape variety - very important for Vintage Port - now represents almost exactly a third of the total planted at the quinta. The entire vineyard has the maximum ‘A’ rating.
As with Bomfim, the consistency of the climate plays a key role, although the rainfall is only half of that experienced at Bomfim: 448mm is the 10 year average. This more extreme climate, hot dry summers and cold, equally dry winters results in wines with unique depth of colour and complexity.
As with Quinta do Bomfim, the best Ports from Senhora de Ribeira are used to make Dow’s Vintage Ports in the great and rare ‘Declared’ years. In the good year’s when Dow’s does not ‘declare’ a Vintage, the best wines of ‘The Lady of the River’ are bottled as Dow’s Quinta de Senhora da Ribeira Vintage Port. They will tend to mature a little earlier than the very rare ‘Declared’ years, but can be every bit as good as some other Vintage Ports.
Ricudda Chianti Classico Riserva 100% Sangiovese.
Deep ruby red color.
The wine shows an intense and persistent bouquet, with notes of berries and spices such as licorice and black pepper. Well-harmonized hints of oak.
In the mouth, it is well structured and balanced, complex, persistent with notes of red fruits and spices such as black pepper and licorice.
Pair with grilled red meats, steak, game of hair and feather, stewed and roasted, aged cheeses hard like pecorino.