WTN Farella-Park Orchard Block Merlot 1995, 2001 Barolo, and Ridge.

Tasted at the very nice, low key, and delicious Uva Trattoria in Napa with a broad range of foods.

1995 Farella Park Merlot Splash decanted. No obvious sediment in this wine.

Well...the Vintage wine shop guys in Yountville were right. A very, very nice wine indeed! Dark in color, with no obvious bricking. Nose was a bit funky, but not as strong as the wine shop warned. Flavors were definitely "old world" in character. Funky, earthy, leathery, savory. Yum. Still-nice Napa blackberry fruit. The vineyards are immediately east of Napa City in the soon to be ???? "Tulocay" appellation. Somewhat cooler climate than up valley. This is the second "Tulocay" wine I've enjoyed this past 12 months. WOTN for almost everyone ****

Also: 2001 Mauro Segaste Barolo. Ruby on the edges but still inky black. The wine didn't show as well tonight as last summer -I'm guessing it was somewhat closed as my decanting was only in the restaurant. Still-I enjoy this wine quite a bit, and it tastes like nothing else. **

Ridge 2003 Geyserville Zinfandel. Ordered off the wine list (very fairly priced-150% or so of retail. Uva rocks!) Wanted something a little more fruit forward after the more austere pair above. A quite nice Zinfandel. Definitely a lot of fruit and a lot of alcohol, but still remains very balanced. Not really a "claret-style" Zinfandel, but still impressive. Solid ***.

[Jenise]

Funky, earthy, leathery, savory.

Ah, the joys of older wine. Yeah, hang on to that L'Evangile a little longer. [quote][/quote]

Yep. Especially as Mike Farella still has bottles of the 1995 available-at a cheaper price than the wine shop. The L'Evangile can wait!

(I honestly thought that winery retail prices and wine shop retail prices are reasonably close-they have been in my limited experience. This wine shop marked the wine up by $15 over the winery's price! )

I also picked up a younger Cab Sauvignon/Cab Franc blend that is tasting quite mature. 2000 William Harrison "Rutherford Red" Very Bordeaux in character (while still having the Rutherford dust and nice blackberry fruit). I really like this winery-it's a tiny one (I think they released 85 cases of their 2003 Rutherford Red) but their wines do very well if you wait. Heck, their 2003 version improved dramatically over six months!!!!