Several weeks back, Tom and I played one last round of golf for the season and then headed back to his house for some lunch and a few bottles of wine.
2005 Inman Family Pinot Noir Olivet Grange Vineyard Russian River Valley. This wine sports a pretty nose of dried fruit, flower petals, tea leaves, mossy undegrowth and abundant spices that are echoed on the lighter-styled, clean and airy palate. The wine has very good lift, plenty of zesty spices and a pleasing berry fruit core, showing solid structure and acidity. It is a very fine Pinot Noir in a style I very much enjoy.
2002 Ladera Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley. This was a fantastic showing for this wine. First off, it really draws one in with the beautifully luscious, sexy and layered aromas of plums, cassis, spicecake, incense, charcoal, mocha paste and pencil shavings that are just gorgeous. It is wide open for business, really. In the mouth, it is also just kicking it right now, with a velvety texture, pillowy tannins and lush, broad flavors of plums, cassis, dark chocolate and all kinds of baking spices. It glides across the palate, but still shows plenty of grip and structure. It should hold, but my suggestion is to give it a try now.
2001 Ridge Monte Bello Santa Cruz Mountains. This was from a 375 ml bottle. The nose of this wine is quite ripe, almost a bit roasted in tone—with dense but kind of sexy notes of baked fruit, allspice, creosote and baked brownies in thick layerings of aroma. It is fun and impressive, just holding the line at this stage between ripe and perhaps overdone. In the mouth, though, there is no mistaking that this is a wine of serious intent. It is more dark-fruited in tone, with a huge and expansive mouthfeel that fans out to coat all corners of the mouth with its plush fruit flavors of black currant, black plum and toasted spices. It has a caressing texture in spite of the big structure evident and the youthfully pasty tannins that come in toward the finish. The push and volume of the wine are extremely impressive and bode well for the future, to be sure.
-Michael