2008 Ambyth Maiestas red blend (93 Poins)

DATE CONSUMED

Friday, September 07, 2012

VINTAGE

2008

WINERY/PRODUCER

Ambyth Estate

WINE NAME

Maiestas

TYPE OF WINE

Red blend

COMPOSITION

61% Syrah, 18% Mourvedre, 15% Grenache, 6% Counoise

SUBNAME/NICKNAME

VINEYARD DESIGNATION

Mark’s & StoneCross Vineyards

REGION/A.V.A. (American Viticultural Area)

Paso Robles, California

ALCOHOL CONTENT

12.5%

PRICE PAID

$45

WHERE/WHEN BOUGHT AND/OR HOW PROCURED

Bought at the winery in June, 2011.

BOUQUET

This wine has a gorgeous, floral nose!  The very first thing that leaps out of the glass is a bouquet of flowers (hence the term), along with suggestions of red fruit, earth, spices, and oak.

TASTING NOTES

Upfront disclosure: we visited Ambyth’s tasting room/home and it was EASILY the best wine tasting experience of our lives!

We bought tickets to Paso Robles’ “Pinot and Paella Festival” and decided to take my parents with us and to do a little wine tasting before the festival.  I made an appointment with Ambyth and arrived at the winery on a cold, blustery day.  The moment we parked my parent’s SUV and started to head towards the tasting room, Phillip (Ambyth’s owner and winemaker) came out of his beautiful house and said that it was too cold to do a wine tasting in their tasting room and that we should join them in their home for the tasting.  We went up the hill to their beautiful home and were treated to a FANTASTIC tasting of their estate-grown wines, olives, and olive oil.  Needless to say, the experience was unforgettable; the wines, olives, and olive oil were extraordinary.  Phillip and Mary’s hospitality was beyond belief and the entire experience was something that I will always remember until the day I die!

Ambyth’s wines/vineyards are biodynamic, dry farmed, head trained, unfined and unfiltered, utilizing native yeasts.  Their wines are purposely low in alcohol (when was the last time you had a California red blend at only 12.5% alcohol?!?!) and reveal a purity of essence that few California wines could ever hope to accomplish.

Thanks (at least partially) to a low alcohol level and being Demeter certified, the wine’s terrior shines through like few wines dare.  The first, most-noticeable trait of this fantastic blend is bright, pure red and black fruits like strawberries, cherries, raspberries, and blackberries.  There’s an unbelievably wonderful balance of fruit, spices like rosemary and black pepper, earthiness, and the PERFECT amount of oak.  This wine is absolutely, perfectly well-balanced; this blend exhibits fantastic acidity, the previously-mentioned low alcohol level, and a depth of flavor that most California Rhone blends would envy.

This wine is labeled “Maiestas,” which, in Latin, means “Majestic Dignity.”  Ambyth is a Welsh term for “forever.”  Based on both terms, I would imagine this wine would still be “Forever Majestically Dignified” a million years from now.  I will assume that I won’t live to be a million years old, but if a bottle of Ambyth’s 2008 Maiestas were to get lost in somebody’s cellar for a million years, I would assume it would probably taste “majestically dignified” even after all those years!

PAIRING SUGGESTIONS

We drank this beauty with lamb chops spiced with Kosher salt, black pepper, and Herbs de Provence.  The wine and lamb chops could not have gone better together!  This wine would also pair well with just about any other red beef dish, along with prime rib, grilled steak, and/or rack/chop/shank of lamb.

AGING POTENTIAL

This wine is drinking gorgeously right now, and although Ambyth doesn’t use sulfites (which most wineries add to their wines as a preservative), based on its structure (alcohol (or lack-thereof), acidity, sugar, etc.), this wine will probably continue to age beautifully and mature gracefully for another 15+ years.  Although still young and vibrant for a Southern Rhone-style blend, this wine will only get better (much better?) over the next five to ten years.  If I had the patience and willpower of a saint (believe me, I don’t), in a beautiful/perfect world we should have saved this bottle for another three to five years.  But it’s a beauty right now!

SCORE (on a 100-point scale)

93

Q.P.R. (QUALITY-TO-PRICE RATIO) (POOR, FAIR, GOOD, EXCELLENT)

GOOD – EXCELLENT

WINERY WEBSITE

http://www.ambythestate.com/

2004 Caparone Zinfandel (92 Points)

DATE CONSUMED

Saturday, September 1, 20012

VINTAGE

2004

WINERY/PRODUCER

Caparone Winery

WINE NAME

N/A

TYPE OF WINE

Red

COMPOSITION

100% Zinfandel

SUBNAME/NICKNAME

N/A

VINEYARD DESIGNATION

Estate Grown

REGION/A.V.A. (American Viticultural Area)

Paso Robles, California

ALCOHOL CONTENT

13.3%

PRICE PAID

Caparone prices all of their wines at $14 a bottle.  Because I bought a case of this wine, I received a 20% discount ($11.20/bottle) and ended-up paying $13.52 a bottle when sales tax and shipping were included.

WHERE/WHEN BOUGHT AND/OR HOW PROCURED

See above (bought a case directly from the winery (on-line) in July 2012).

BOUQUET

The aroma profile for this fabulous wine exhibits mostly red fruit along with suggestions of black fruit as well, such as cherries, raspberries, and plums.  There are also hints/suggestions of oak, earth, and savory herbs.

TASTING NOTES

Not being one to mince words, let’s get this out of the way: I consider this wine to be the best Zinfandel for the money that I have EVER tasted.  I absolutely LOVE this wine and consider it to be the Bargain of the Century!  I’ve drunk Zins that cost five to six times what this wine cost that weren’t one-quarter as good.  Hyperbole?  Exaggeration?  No!  Just the facts, folks.

This is a spicy, earthy, tannic, tart, delicious Zin that anybody who appreciates well-made, quality Zins should search-out and enjoy.  As the bouquet suggested, there’s an abundance of (mostly) red and (some) black fruit, such as raspberries, blackberries, plums, and black/sour cherries, along with a gargantuan amount of spices like black pepper and savory herbs (rosemary, thyme, as well as hints of sage and mint).  The wine also exhibits a mountain of earthy elements as well as the perfect amount of sweet, creamy oak.  This Zin drinks very similarly to a Grenache; if this wine were drunk blind alongside another dozen Grenaches, I would have assumed that this was simply a VERY interesting Grenache.  This is NOT your father’s Zinfandel (to quote an old Oldsmobile advertisement).

There’s an earthy quality to this wine that I have never quite experienced before; it’s almost as if a shovel or two of soil from Caparone’s estate vineyard were thrown into every barrel so that the grape juice could commingle with the dirt in order to exquisitely convey the utmost paragon of terrior.  You literally and figuratively can taste the soil in this wine unlike any other wine I’ve ever had.

The Caparones employ classic Italian/European winemaking techniques, which results in a red wine with VERY Italian traits, especially as it pertains to tannins and acidity (in the best possible ways).  This Zin is very well-balanced with fabulous structure, tremendous complexity, and a flavor profile that just doesn’t quit.  The finish is smooth and lingers for quite a while.  This is an extremely Italianesque wine; it showcases all of the best qualities that a Cal-Ital wine could possibly muster.  If you savor rich, tannic, earthy/viscous, interesting, and delicious-beyond-belief Italian wines, this wine was made for YOU.  If you prefer typical Paso Zin Fruit Bombs (15%+ alcohol, jammy sweet fruit, a one-dimensional flavor profile with almost zero depth), look elsewhere. 

Somehow/someway, Dave and Marc extracted every last nano-ounce of flavor from their Zinfandel grapes to assemble this gorgeous wine.  They age their wines for two years in oak and then bottle-age their wines for another year before releasing them to the public.  How they’re able to make such fantastic wines for $14 a bottle is beyond me (especially with all of that patient aging).  Their other Italian varietal bottlings are also fantastic (Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, and Aglianico).  But I believe the star of the show is this 2004 Zinfandel.  I’m as giddy as a 12-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert whenever I open one of these fabulous bottles!

PAIRING SUGGESTIONS

We paired this wine with ribeyes smothered in Kosher salt and a ton of freshly-cracked black pepper; talk about the PEFECT pairing!  This wine would truly just about go perfectly with any grilled steak, as well as chops/racks/shanks of lamb. 

AGING POTENTIAL

This wine is drinking extraordinarily well right this moment and because of its Italianesque qualities/structure will probably continue to drink well for another 20+ years. 

SCORE (on a 100-point scale)

92

Q.P.R. (QUALITY-TO-PRICE RATIO) (POOR, FAIR, GOOD, EXCELLENT)

EXCELLENT

WINERY WEBSITE

http://caparone.com/