Tried these two RuthLewandowski wines over the weekend:
1. Ruth Lewandowski Feints Cuvee Zero (11.8%; U/U; FoxHillVnyds: Arneis/Dolcetto/Barbera/Nebbiolo 10 day carbonic macerated coferment; www.RuthLewandowskiWines.com) Geyserville 2023: Light garnet/bit browning/rather hazy color; quite natty/funky/mousey/unclean bit floral/cranberry bit Nebb/floral/lilacs rather earthy/dusty/loamy slight spicy/Barbera fairly perfumed nose; quite natty/mousey/funky/unclean some metallic fairly earthy/loamy light floral/cranberry rather sour not very pleasant flavor w/ some bitey tannins; med.long sour quite natty/mousey finish; quite sour & way too mousey/natty; a thru&thru natural wine w/ all the problems those wines share; virtually undrinkable. $26.00 (KK)
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3. Ruth Lewandowski Feints Cuvee Zero 2023: Next Day:: Light cranberry/spicy/earthy/strawberry rather attractive nose w/ no signs of mousey/natty/funky character; rather tart/tangy bright cranberry/earthy/loamy rather sour flavor w/ slight hint of low-key natty character and quite sour bit oxidized character far in the aftertaste; not a particularly attractive rose but it really cleaned up after itself from the natural wine character; marred by a very sour & bit oxidative finish; still not a good rose but at least not undrinkable, more or less.
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3. Ruth Lewandowski Angelica Cuvee Zero Lot 1 FoxHillVnyd/MendoCnty (19.8%; Aged in Solera; U/U) Geyserville NV: Light reddish/bit browning/old VintagePorto color; strong alcoholic/Porto-like rather complex some grapeybit oxidative interesting young Angelica nose; quite sweet rather hot/alcoholic very grapey/youthful some RubyPort-like rather alcoholic flavor w/ light tannins; very long grapey rather alcoholic/fumey/burningfinish taht follows flavor; not much like an Angelica w/ no oxidative character at all; very much like an aged Ruby Port but not as grapey;needs more time in the Solera for an Angelica character;no signs whatsoever of being a natural wine; still a rather interesting dessert wine. $31.00/500 ml
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More zipplefrick from TheBloodyPulpit:
1. RuthLewandowski is a hard-core natural winemaker to her very core. She primarily dakes grapes from FoxHillVnyd...maybe even owns it now. FoxHill is a vnyd primarily devoted to Italian varieties that SamBilbro/Idlewild as made with much success.
Ruth makes some very interesting wines. But they are hard-core natural wines and frequently show all the problems those wines have. The P&P of this wine was so mousey/natty that I found it pretty much undrinkable. I left the remaining half btl out on the counter/corked up, just to see what happened. I was not too surprised that it cleaned up after itself. Still not a very attractive rose, but at least not undrinkable. I find many/most of her wines are pretty flawed/natty/mousey in character byt, nonetheless keep trying the. Guess I'm a pretty slow learner. Always have been from MissMoffat's first grade.
The Angelica was a rather interesting dessert wine but atypical of Angelica. Angelica is generally made from the Mission grape and I doubt there was any Mission grape in this wine, given its FoxHill origins.
Tom