As I rummaged thru my stash, I came up w/ this wine last night:
1. Idlewild Cortese FoxHillVnyd/MendoCnty (13.8%) 2014: Deep golden/burnished bronze color; very strong phenolic/ViniMacerati/resiny/skin-contact rather honeyed/honey grahams/honeycomb slight oxidative quite complex nose; quite tart/tangy very strong VM/phenolic/resiny bit oxidative very honeyed/honeycomb light earthy quite complex flavor w/ light tannic bite; very long/lingering strong VM/resiny/phenolic slight oxidative quite honeyed/honeycomb rather rich/textured complex finish that goes on&on; a bit on the austere side & slightly oxidative but very complex & a bit like a Sercial Madeira; quite a lovely/complex/fascinated VM that reminds me some of an old Stekar or Kabaj Ribolla; a unique/world-class Cortese.
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A wee BloodyPulpit:
1. Sam makes his Cortese from FoxHill in an unusual fashion. The south-facing side of the row which gets a lot of sunshine he harvests first and makes it as a skin-contact/VM wine to extract the phenolics present in the skins. The north-facing side he makes as a direct-to-press wine. And then blends the two together.
This wine has rally changed a lot since it was released. It originally had a more subtle VM character and a fair amount of Cortese floral fruit, but was pretty austere/tannic on the palate. Now the VM character has very much came to the forefront and the fruit as nearly vanished. But the tannins have greatly subsided & it's not nearly as austere as at release. Quite a good example of how a VM can evolve.
Tom