Featured Wines - July 2002

An old-fashioned California Cabernet Sauvignon, the 1996 Rosenthal Malibu Cabernet Sauvignon is a formidable, highly structured wine that hearkens back to the early days of the California wine Renaissance of the 1960's and early 1970's. The sixth Cabernet release from Rosenthal's Malibu Hills Vineyard, the cepage is 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Merlot, resulting in a deeply colored potion of extreme depth as well as powerful ...

The deep garnet, purple imbued 2000 Dominio de Tares Mencia Bierzo is a delightful red wine from one of our favorite Spanish wine regions. El Bierzo's geographical isolation, ringed by mountains with an Atlantic influenced climate and high altitude, gives rise to a distinct terroir of great nobility, which is readily evident in this debut offering from Dominio de Tares. Produced entirely from old vines of the medieval Mencia variety, a grape that...

An ethereal, enchanting cachet of spice combines with clean, pure minerality in the bouquet of the lovely, golden-tinged 2000 Freie Weingartner Gruner Veltliner. The words racy, refreshing, and elegant are the descriptors most often used to describe the flavor of this restrained Chablis style of Gruner Veltliner. On the finish the 2000 Freie Weingartner is as dry as any Chardonnay from Chablis or the Macon, dispelling the myth that Austrian wine ...

The 2000 Thibert Pouilly Fuisse bears the clean, seductive glean of the finest Pouilly Fuisse: a pale yellow robe that captures the sun, promising pleasure, refreshment, and never to disappoint. In the bouquet, this medium-bodied effort displays a complex combination of rich buttery components, without the excesses so often provoked in California Chardonnay by over zealous oakophiles. This wine's flavor is a refreshing combination of mineral and ...