by Tom Hill

A self-admitted wine geek, Tom lives in Northern New Mexico and works as a computational physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory doing numerical neutron transport & large scale code development. He has been tasting wines since 1971, participates locally with a couple of large tasting groups in his area, and is practically a fixture at most California wine festivals, such as the Hospice du Rhône, Rhône Rangers, and ZAP. Other interests: Tom is heavily into competitive sport fencing (foil & epee), biking, cooking, basketball, skiing, backpacking, mountain climbing.

We tasted the other week (3/8/06) More Rhones:

1. Texier CotesDuRhone Brezeme (12.5%) 2001: Med.dark color; attractive/lovely cedary/green
olive rather roasted slight blackberry/Syrah perfumed nose; fierce/teeth-chattering/acid some underripe/green olive/tomatoey bit metallic some roasted/smokey/pungent flavor; long
fearsomely acid rather roasted/espresso finish w/ fair tannins; great nose but very searing
acidity on the palate; I suspect this will eventually (10 yrs?) age into a pretty terrific wine, but it's a gamble. $75/4pk
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2. Texier CotesDuRhone St.Joseph (12.5%) 2001: Dark color; quite spicy/peppery bit toasty/
roasted/cedary slight blackberry/Syrah earthy nose; tart but softer (than #1) pleasant
spicy/peppery slight cedary bit simple/Rhonish bit closed/tight flavor; med.short pleasant
peppery/spicy finish w/ light tannins; a nice/pleasant CdP-like wine but a bit underwhelming.
$75/4pk
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3. Tallulah Grenache DelRioVnyd/OR (15.0%; www.TallulahWines.com) SantaRosa 2004: Dark color; lovely strawberry/watermelon bit dusty/milk of magnesia light/toasty/oak nose; lovely spicy/berry/strawberry/Grenache light dusty/earthy fairly deep/rich flavor; long bright/cherry/
strawberry/Grenache light dusty/earthy finish w/ light tannins; a lovely/interesting Grenache
w/ some depth and structure; not just another pretty Grenache face. $25.00
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4. Margerum M5 SBCnty (#13342 of 13800; 18% Syrah/AlisosVnyd; 6% Syrah/Alondre de los Prados; 16% Syrah/ColsonCanyon; 16% Mourvedre/MaryBethVogelzang; 6% TablasClone
Mourvedre/ZacaMesa; 9% Grenache/Vogelzang; 4% Grenache/FirestoneFamily CrossroadsVnyd;
5% AlbanClone Grenache/PurismamTnVnyd; 5% Cinsault, 9% Counoise/StolpmanVnyd; 6% Genesis/ 3 co-fermented barrels of all of the above) 2004: Dark color; lovely blackberry/spicy/
strawberry/alpine strawberry fairly complex nose; tart attractive strawberry/alpine strawberry/
spicy slight blackberry smooth/lush flavor; med.long smooth/attractive strawberry/spicy finish
w/ light tannins; a very attractive/drinkable/interesting Rhone blend. $24.00
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5. Tallulah Syrah DryCreekVlly (14.5%) 2003: Dark color; slight licorice/pungent bright raspberry/
blackberry/Syrah very spicy light toasty/oak almost Zin-like nose; tart attractive spicy/
raspberry/blackberry/bright light oak Zinnish flavor; med.long bright/raspberry/blackberry/
Syrah very spicy light toasty/oak finish w/ modest tannins; an attractive/bright/vibrant red
that seems more like DCV Zin than Syrah. $25.00
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6. Tallulah Syrah SonomaCoast (14.5%) 2003: Black color; beautiful eucalyptus/minty/pungent
rather green olive/dusty/mocha strong spicy/blackberry/Syrah slight peppery lovely/complex
nose; tart bit rough/tannic slight minty/eucalyptus very strong blackberry/Syrah/peppery slight pungent/green olive flavor; very long tannic/rough light minty/eucalyptus very strongblackberry/ Syrah finish w/ ample tannins; loads of cold climate/Syrah fruit but acid & structure to age 2-6 yrs; terrific Syrah. $22.00
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7. Texier Hermitage (13%) 2000: Dark color; rather earthy/smokey/pungent light green olive/dusty very little roasted/NR fairly interesting but atypical Hermitage nose; tart bit leathery/
horsecollar/earthy slight roasted/pungent somewhat rough/tannic flavor; med. tart bit dusty/
leathery/earthy very slight roasted/pungent low fruit fairly tannic finish; an interesting red that speaks of CdR more than NorthernRhone; underwhelming Hermitage but interesting red.$75/4pk
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8. Texier CoteRotie VieillesVignes (13%) 2002: Med.dark color; very attractive roasted/smokey/
pungent rather low-key/C-R some complex/interesting nose; tart light roasted/espresso/mocha
bit earthy/dusty rather lean/austere some hard/tannic flavor; med.long hard/austere slight roasted/ espresso bit dusty/earthy finish; needs 2-5 yrs; interesting red but not very
distinctive C-R. $75/4pk
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9. Margerum Syrah PurismaMtnVnyd/SantaYnezVlly (#0316 of 1500; 14.5%) 2004: Dark color; very intense blackberry/boysenberry/plummy/ripe/Syrah rather cedary/toasty beautiful/complex
nose; soft very intense plummy/blackberry/Syrah/boysenberry/ripe light toasty/oak flavor;
med.long soft/lush/ripe blackberry/boysenberry/Syrah bit jammy/plummy/ripe finish w/ light
tannins; loads of ripe Syrah fruit and very attractive/drinkable Syrah. $29.00
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10. Margerum Syrah ColsonCanyonVnyd/SBCnty (#0292 of 2400; 14.5%) 2004: Black color; intense more complex blackberry/Syrah/boysenberry bit green olive/licorice rather smokey/pungent slight roasted/mocha complex nose; tarter/brighter licorice/blackberry/Syrah/boysenberry/green olive light toasty/pungent complex/lovely flavor; very long blackberry/Syrah/boysenberry/licorice slight green olive some taosty/oak complex finish w/ some tannins; needs several yrs; a lovely/beautiful Syrah. $29.00
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11. Novy SonomaCnty Syrah (14.7%) 2004: Very dark color; lovely loads of blackberry/Syrah/
boysenberry very fragrant/perfumed nose; soft/lush some pencilly/oak/Burgundian strong Syrah/
blackberry/boysenberry lush/ripe flavor; long soft/lush strong blackberry/boysenberry/Syrah light pencilly/cedary/oak finish w/ light tannins; a great drinking loads of blackberry fruit Syrah. $16.50
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12. Martinelli Syrah TioTonyVnyd/RussianRvrVlly (16.2%; www.MartinelliWinery.com) 2002: Black color; rather ersatz NorthernRhone very burnt/charred/toasty/forest fire slight blackberry/Syrah nose; hard/tannic very charred/burnt/oaked slight blackberry/Syrah flavor; huge/extracted/tannic
very burnt/charred/tarry/oaked light blackberry finish; what little fruit here is totally buried under overwhelmingly burnt oak; maybe age will bring this grotesque wine into something but I ain't gambling my money. $92.00
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13. BonnyDoon CigareVolant Calif RW (13.2%) 1991: Dark color; some toasty/oak bit aged/low fruit light strawberry/spicy some complex nose; light strawberry/spicy light toast/oak bit astringent/tannic/dried-out flavor; med.short light strawberry bit astringent finish; still some pretty Grenache fruit here but getting a bit tired. Sonny's mystery.
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14. AndrewMurray HillSideReserve SBCnty Syrah (13.5%) 1997: Black/murky color; quite volatile/fumey very AM-like quite bretty/unclean slight blackberry/Syrah nose; rather hot/fumey/volatile quite bretty/unclean flavor; quite a flawed wine that time has not been kind to. Steve's mystery.

1. The 4 Texier wines were on sale from NorthBerkeley at $75/4 pack. Seemed like an absolute
steal to me, given I've really liked Eric Texier's wines in the past. At $19/btl, how could
you go wrong?? Alas, it wasn't the steal I was expecting. OTOH, I'm keeping the remaining
4Some to see what they'll do with age and will probably rue not buying more in 5-10 yrs
I suspect.
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2. Tallulah: This was a totally new producer for me. Winemaker Ben Davis has occasionally posted
on the wine boards w/ his URL in his Sig line, so I took a look see, and things looked pretty
interesting. So we ordered a 6pack. Smart move on my part. The wines were dynamite, particularly the SonomaCoast Syrah. And very reasonably priced for their quality. Another Rhone producer to follow from the very start.
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3. Martinelli Syrah: Never had one of these, so when I saw it on the shelf at MarcheBacchus/
LasVegas; I couldn't resist, even knowing it was probably overpriced from the mailing list.
I had low expectations about liking it, but had an open mind. It was one of the most grotesque
aberrations of Syrah I've ever had in my mouth. Absolutely laughable. Maybe w/ age it will
evolve into something you can choke down, but I'm not that big a gambling fool.
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4. Margerum: Doug's wines sem to keep gitting better and better. I particularly liked the Colson
Canyon. The kitchen-sink M5 Rhone blend was great drinking and one of the better Rhone blends
around. When you mix so much "stuff" together, the wine can often come out tasting a bit "gray"
and bland. This one was not.
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5. AndrewMurray '97: This was back when Andrew was making some very flawed/volatile wines, "Aussie in style" was his assertion and that they were intentionally volatile. Recently, his wines have been drastically better than what he was making back around '97-'98.
Tom