WTN: Margerum

[Jenise]

Doug Margerum, the former owner of the Wine Cask in Santa Barbara, a wine store known well throughout the wine community, started his own label way back when and this is one of the early bottles.

2005 Margerum M5 Red Rhone Blend
This bottle is a blend of 17 small lots of various Rhone grapes from various vineyards. A kitchen sink blend that doesn't taste like one, that is it doesn't taste unfocussed or messy. It's actually quite lovely, and if it were presented to me blind, I'd never guess it was 12 years old. Dark raspberry fruit with a boatload of spice, fronted by white pepper and backed up by clove, caraway and fenugreek. A bit of passion fruit (we didn't decant) from some Grenache pops out toward the end of the bottle. It was a cellar orphan, and I'm quite sorry about that--wish I had more.

Only Margerum wine I have tasted was his Sauv Blanc from Westerly Vyds..All gone, wish I had bought more..tasted and purchased at the Wine Cask, don't recall the vintage but it was most likely at least 10 years ago. on a trip to Santa Barbara and Santa Rita wine country with our daughters Highlight of the trip was a BBQ/wine tasting at Clos Pepe..

[Jenise]

Only Margerum wine I have tasted was his Sauv Blanc from Westerly Vyds..All gone, wish I had bought more..tasted and purchased at the Wine Cask, don't recall the vintage but it was most likely at least 10 years ago. on a trip to Santa Barbara and Santa Rita wine country with our daughters Highlight of the trip was a BBQ/wine tasting at Clos Pepe..

Is that the one he called Sybarite? We've enjoyed that one a lot, too.

Speaking of Clos Pepe, did you know Wes is no longer at the vineyard? It's been sucked into a bigger operation that Robert Hall wines are part of.

Jenise: Sybarite doesn't sound familiar so probably not..Just discovered the other day that Wes was now a 'consultant".whatever that means..I have been enjoying Hall's Sauv Blanc for a number of years, it is an annual buy whenever I find it on local shelves..Not that familiar with the rest of their portfolio tho some of their cabs seem to be well thought of