Wine Reviews

This white comes from precious stock: old Wente Chardonnay clone and Hyde Vineyards budwood, for example. This is Rowen Wine Company’s first vintage of this variety, aged in half French oak and half stainless-steel egg, the fruit is borne off a vineyard at 1800 feet in elevation off the ruggedly steep, red-soiled Cooley Ranch in unincorporated Sonoma County. Feather light, with a sleek mouthfeel, notes of lemon sorbet and white flower petals melt across the palate, while marzipan and peach blossom persist aromatically. You can smell and taste the salty air that blows through the vines.

A study in contrast, there is fresh fruit and savory earth: heft that remains buoyant. This is a wine of elegance and substance that beckons for food, yet with a flutter of playful zip lest we forget this is rosé.

Perky passionfruit and ripe juicy honeydew peak the senses. On the palate is a fruity mélange of guava, juicy pear and a whisper of white pepper. This white is vibrant and refreshing with a chef’s pinch of satisfying salinity.

Black plum and black cherry mingle with caramel, new leather, and sandalwood on the nose and palate of this medium-bodied Cabernet, which is relatively (and likably) soft though textured by juicy acidity and coffee-ground tannins.

The senses are awakened by flavors that are brooding, sultry and obviously…dark. Teeming with cherry pie, leather and mocha, this blend is flagrantly seductive. Composed of Petit Sirah, Petite Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon and aged in 50% New Oak, it is supple and firm and sinfully satisfying.

A nectar of peach and lychee maintains weight on the palate for this medium-sweet white. A low abv of under 10% makes it an easy drinker, and its frame of stony minerality bathes in a generous wash of Key lime and crisp apple. There’s a hint of beeswax on the honeyed finish.

Deep, dense color, nearly opaque at the core, possessing wonderful black fruit, cassis, and blackberry aromas. Weighty and full on the palate, the fruit is ripe and expressive, nicely layered and nuanced with a dark chocolate characteristic. The oak is pronounced, but it’s very well integrated into the wine, the tannins are evident, but ripe and not the least bit course, with a fine extended finish. The wine develops well with aeration. Produced from 87% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Cabernet Franc, 4% Merlot, 3% Petit Verdot and 1% Malbec. 270 cases were produced.

California Grenache is often tasty but simple in its overt fruitiness, but this exemplary rendition shows remarkable complexity even in its first year. Red and black fruit tones are fully evident but are joined by savory and briary notes as well, and even the texture is layered, providing a sense of inviting softness as a first impression but then firming up with well-measured grip from ripe tannins and a touch of oak in the finish.