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Another real big winner from Macphail… and by real big I mean Real Big. This is a balls-to-the-wall Pinot that’s got everything you ever wanted from a Pinot locked and loaded.And it fires off a big fat round of fruit right up front. Hits you right upside the head with it, like an angry wife with a rolling pin, who then lays you down and wakes you back up with a BJAC. Shit. I’m too loaded for witty commentary. Fuck it. That’s all there is. Good stuff. Even hundo, points-wise.

Oh man, if I could fart the nose of this Pinot, I’d live my life with my head up my ass. That is, assuming my head isn’t already up there, which is a big assumption.

I think, on the 8th Day, God ate grapes while admiring His creation. On the 9th morning He crapped, and these vines emerged from the compost. When Jesus made water into wine, all the prophets sipped Kosta Browne Kanzler Pinot and said “aah, excellent bouquet, perfect tannins, please pass the bagels and latkes.” And when God tasted the results, He decided to create California and fill it full of wine snobs so that someone would appreciate the fruits of his First Shit.

This is the perfect Pinot. Period. If it gets better than this, I hope I live to see it, and I hope I have a healthy allocation, an understanding wife and a fat bank account, ’cause that’s the only way you can really get it. I don’t really know what to say– this is the Pinot that sets the bar for California Pinot Noir. Balanced. Nuanced. Hearty but warm. Fruity but complex. Older than its years. This is the 5th grader that gets bumped up to University and ends up lecturing in Campbell Hall on the merits of small-batch wine production. Set it next to a 20 year-old top-end California Cab and see who wins (besides you).

The only thing lacking from this wine is that it’s not able to reach down, unzip your pants, pull out your junk and rub one out for you.

This review was written on New Years Eve 2006/2007. We’re guessing that it’ll be even better in a year or two–there’ still a good dose of tannin here. It’s not peaking yet- I just wish we had another bottle so we could come back and review it a year or two from now, because we suspect it’s still on an uphill run towards the top of the hill. This baby’s got another few years in her, at least.

Wow, another outlandish Pinot from MacPhail. These guys know what to do with good fruit?– they just stay out of the way and let it whap you upside the head like your grandma’s frying pan after you cussed.

I’m getting ripe fruit out of this one, with a hint of alcohol in the nose. It’s bigger than the Kosta Browne, and less delicate. It’s a pinot that walks into the room wearing a big pink feather cap and just looks around the room daring anyone to say anything about the hat. It knows it’s the shit and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about much of anything else.

I’m getting ripe black cherry here, with less spice than the ‘03 Kosta Browne Sonoma Coast we sat next to it (but no less excellent) but with the distinctive Russian River terroir, (i.e. cola). It?s a fruit-lover’s pinot: darker in the glass, thicker– actually really thick for a pinot, a lot of bang for a fair amount of buck.

Holy shit, the 2003 is ready to go right now. It’s peaking like I was on that mushroom trip through the wildflowers on the beach trails behind Isla Vista in college.

Big and colorful, with intense spice and lots of ripe fruit in the nose. More complex than a bisexual shrink with erectile disfunction, though much less confused and much more purposeful.

Layered like a multicultural fleshpile at the Erotic Exotic ball in San Fran, this is a sexpot of a wine with real tits, not silicon ones. It’s unbelievable that this is Kosta Browne’s cheapest wine– it’s like paying for a single lapdance and having the stripper show up with 2 friends and powertools. Provides the impetus to get a better job in order to afford to drink Kosta Browne on a regular basis. If you haven’t made the list, forget about drinking these wines at a decent price. 100 points, minus ten points for lack of availability, plus twenty points for evoking the power tool reference.

Takes 2 steps back with a classic Pinot nose, then runs straight at you, socks you in the face with early-harvest strawberry and/or raspberry, then settles back down again with a nuanced finish.

Bear in mind that I’m fairly shitty at the time of this writing, because we’ve just finished reviewing the 03 RR MacPhail and the 03 Sonoma Kosta Browne. Yeah… we don’t spit, and we like to review ridiculous wines back-to-back like this.

It needed a lot of air–we left it open for 3 hours prior to sucking it down. Air hits it like a pot brownie hits a bully: it creeps in, but over time it mellows the bully considerably, into something that’s really nice to hang out with. It’s light in color–looks like cherry soda in the glass, but if I were a Hobbit–and we all know Hobbits come from New Zealand–I would lay this up in my hole for a couple of years and then crack it open with some Gouda cheese and a big bowl full of Old Toby; then I’d lay back and dig the fireworks. And there are a lot of fireworks at work here. It’s a spicy glass for a pinot– but I’m gonna come back to this one in an hour or two and see if she lays down a bit and sheds some of the acidity. After drinking this wine, it is not hard to believe that New Zealand can become a major player in the Pinot market. At $18.99 at Costco, a steal.

An hour or two later:
Uh… I’m way too loaded to comment. It’s pretty fucking good. Where’s the pizza?

This poor girl had the misfortune of being opened on the same night that we opened the Kosta Browne 03 SC and the Macphail 03 RR Pinots. She’s Ms. California in a lineup with Ms Universe and Ms America.

She smells like a winner for sure, she’s a little tight but she loosens up with air, but she drinks like a California Syrah: kind of hot and sexy and looks good on your arm at a black tie affair, though not as refined as the woman you’d choose to marry and sire niños with. This is Backdoor Betty right here: while the old man’s leavin’ by the front door, she’ll be coming in the backdoor.

She’s pretty fruity and fresh, a bit in-your-face, kinda hot and bothered. Really interesting, great in the sack, but not really who she says she is. She’s got an extra surprise down there that she’s been keeping tucked away in reserve. You go down on a Pinot and come away with your face glazed with Syrah. It’s a good Syrah though, and she says Thank you, so it’s definitely worth the trip downstairs. On any normal night, this would be a giant score, so I’m gonna give this little hussy 150 points, then deduct 60 for bad luck and another 2 for the warts I got on my tongue a week later.

Puckered me up so much that it made my cat’s ass look like she’d just had a Botox shot…I am normally a fan of Rodney Strong Wines. Over the years I’ve found many of their wines to be good, trusted standbys in the $15-$20 range. Usually well-balanced and rich, though falling short of outstanding, but always drinkable and sometimes remarkable.

This is not the case with their 2002 Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon.

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Bonny Doon Vineyards routinely churns out no nonsense wines that usually taste pretty damn good without whalloping you over the head with the price tag. The Cigare Blanc 2004 ($19.99) is a knock off of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape blancs that are dominated by the roussanne grape and usually include a smidgen of grenache blanc as well. This wine is 73% rousssane and 27% grenache blanc.
Let me go ahead with a couple of disclaimers: (1) I have never tried a single Chateauneuf-du-Pape blanc in my life. (2) I am exteremly picky/finicky when it comes to drinking white wines. If it’s white, it better not beat around the proverbial wine bush, it better offer up somethin special or I would just as soon drink a cab in 110 degree heat with my seafood. (3) Being self diagnosed as selectively palate disabled, I frequently plagerize the tasting notes of people drinking with me. We can move on now, or you can choose to stop reading.

The Cigare Blanc started off optimistically with a whiff of pineapple out of the glass. It seemed to go downhill from there. While the Bonny Doon people speak of flavors of “white peach, honey dew, and lemon blossom,” I encountered an overwhelming midpalate of blubbery blah that left my mouth feeling like I was drinking olive oil. This must be what the snobs refer when they talk about a wine being flabby?! Usually when I have a wine experience like this somebody else blatantly calls me out, implying I just don’t understand the wine (or some other jibberish, back-pedaling, ball-less, contrived comment). On this night nobody rescued the Cigare Blanc, comments included “fruit flavored rubbing alcohol with butter,” and “particularly foul wine. Finish sucks.” Hopefully this was just a shitty bottle! 2/100 points on the Booze Reviews scale, one point for containing alcohol, and one point for being cold/initial smell of pineapple.

Nothing shows yo mama that you truly appreciate her more than cracking open six bottles of high alcohol zinfandel on Mother’s Day and proceeding to get the immediate family shit stupid drunk. Being the thoughtful sons that we are, my younger bro and I gathered together a collection of higher end Zins (6), brown bagged ‘em, and set up a six person blind tasting. The six beverages imbibed were: (1) Seghesio Home Ranch Zin 2003 , (2) Rosenblum Carla’s Zin 2003, (3) Rosenblum Rockpile Road Zin 2003, (4) Rosenblum Rockpile Road Zin 2002, (5) Ridge Spring Mountain Zin 2002, (6) Beauregard Beauregard Ranch Zin 2002.

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Alright, the winemaker’s a friend… but seriously… this is some unreal Chardonnay. Really.

Picture a Chardonnay.

Whaddaya think of?

Lots of people think of a white loaded with oak. Some people think of fish. Some people think of half-naked blonde women wearing little other than gold jewelry on a summer evening. (don’t ask).

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