by Tom Hill

A self-admitted wine geek, Tom lives in Northern New Mexico and works as a computational physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory doing numerical neutron transport & large scale code development. He has been tasting wines since 1971, participates locally with a couple of large tasting groups in his area, and is practically a fixture at most California wine festivals, such as the Hospice du Rhône, Rhône Rangers, and ZAP. Other interests: Tom is heavily into competitive sport fencing (foil & epee), biking, cooking, basketball, skiing, backpacking, mountain climbing.

1. Kalin Cellars Livermore Valley Semillon (12.8%) 1991: Light gold color; slight herbal strong stony/olive/figgy slight earthy some toasty/oak nose; tart/lean/hard olive/figgy/herbal/ stony slight metallic young/primary flavor; long figgy/olive/stony tart/hard finish; very much in the Oz-style of Semillon; hard & lean and probably needs much age yet.
2. McWilliams Mt.Pleasant Sauternes Hunter Valley Semillon 1981: Dark gold color; rather oxidized/sherry nose at first but has it warms becomes very intense/grapey/orangy very caramel/butterscotchy/old cream sherry slight oxidized very exotic very complex fragrant/perfumed nose; fairly sweet strong caramel/butterscotchy/toasty very ripe/ grapey/orangey some oaked slight oxidized exotic very complex flavor; very long/ lingering sweet caramel/butterscotchy grapey/figgy/orangy finish; made in a slightly oxidized style but incredible exotic complex character; amazing wine of a genre no longer made in Oz or Calif.
3. Montevina Ruby Cabernet (14 1/2%) 1978: Very dark color; strong green olive bit herbal rather pungent/smokey fairly complex nose; bit hard/tannic green olive/herbal/Cabernet fairly pungent/smokey/charred/licorice/tarry/asphalt bit dried-out/astringent flavor; long bit hard/dried out strong tarry/licorice/green olive/herbal finish; very interesting tarry/herbal/Cab nose but a bit dried out on the palate.
4. Montevina Ruby Cabernet 1977: Dark color; strong charred/burnt/oak bit tarry rather briary/blackberry/Amador/dusty/licorice little Cab nose; soft/round/smooth briary/ bramble/licorice/AmadorZin some charred/burnt/oak flavor; long soft/lush/smooth briary/Zin/blackberry rather charred/burnt/oak finish w/ light tannins; much less Cab character and less interesting but very attractive on the palate.
5. Heitz Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Martha's Vnyd 1975: Dark color; somewhat musty/funky/ adhesive bandage bit minty/eucalyptus nose that clears somewhat to a mostly minty/ eucalyptus slight blackcurranty/Cab complex nose; bit hard/tannic/dried-out rather minty/eucalyptus bit earthy/musty flavor; long rather hard/tannic somewhat eucalyptus/ minty finish; bit too funky & musty for my tastes & lots of eucalyptus character.
6. Torre Muga Rioja 1998: Dark color; strong Am.oaked/lush/spicy very forward/grapey/ strawberry/cherry classic/new style nose; soft/lush strong Am.oaked/vanilla rather grapey/strawberry/cherry flavor; long very lush/soft loads of oak rather lush/cherry/ strawberry flavor w/ light tannins; attractive/lush Spanish red but bit too much oak.
7. Villa Ilie Garassino Barbera d'Alba (13%) 1998: Med.dark color; very dusty strong spicy/Italian sausage/Barbera fragrant nose; tart/lean very spicy/Barbera rather dusty/ earthy some oaked flavor; med.long quite spicy/Barbera tart/hard fairly oaked finish w/ some tannins; bit international in style but lots of spicy/Barbera character.
8. Shenandoah Vnyds Mission del Sol AmadorCounty/EschenVnyd (16.2%) 1977: Med.dark brown color; interesting very grapey/fragrant some toasty/oak/toasted coconut little oxidized nose; soft/flat rather grapey/simple/sweet slight toasty/coconutty flavor; med.short quite grapey/simple finish; lots of simple grapey character w/ little oxidation but not much development or complexity; bit on the dull side.
9. Calif Shenandoah Vnyds Calif Old Cream Muscat (15%) NV: Med.dark more browning color; somewhat oxidized/sherry/madeira bit more complex somewhat alcoholic little Muscat nose; sweeter some coconutty/oak soft rather Madeira-like/oxidized rather alcoholic some complex flavor; med.long Madeira/oxidized slightly sweet bit complex finish; some nice Madeira character to this wine.
10. Shenandoah Vnyds Amador County Black Muscat (18%) NV: Med.dark bit browning color; quite alcoholic slight Muscatty/perfumed/grapey little oxidation bit complex nose; off-dry slight Muscatty/grapey/perfumed rather hot/alcoholic flavor; med.long fairly hot/ alcoholic light muscatty/perfumed/floral bit complex finish; little signs of oxidation and light muscatty character.
11. Quady Elysium Calif Black Muscat (15%) 1983: Med. some browning color; very strong grapey/Muscat/violets bit Kansas/new-mown hay/Kansas feed-store little complex nose; quite sweet floral/violets/light muscatty slight Kansas feed-store quite grapey flavor; very long very grapey/light muscatty/floral/violets finish; quite sweet & primary.
12. Corti Bros. Red Table Wine (12%) 1974: Dark bit browning color; slight cedary/pencilly/ oldCab slight herbal rather old/tired nose w/ little complexity; soft rather pencilly/ cedary some dried-out/astringent/tired no fruit slight herbal flavor; med. tired/dried- out/no fruit some cedary/pencily/oak fairly astringent finish; some interesting oldCab character but pretty much on its last legs.
13. Montevina Special Select Amador County Zin (16%) 1975: Very dark color w/ sloght browning; attractive/strong cedary/charred/oak/pungent somewhat licorice/tarry bit complex nose; off-dry bit dried-out/astringent tarry/charred/burnt/oak slight brambly/briary/blackberry/ licorice bit raisened/alcoholic flavor; med.long interesting tarry/charred/burnt/oak slight blackberry/briary finish w/ ample tannins; interesting tarry/licorice nose but rather dried-out/astringent on the palate; pretty shakey condition.

1. Montevina Ruby Cabernet: When Cary Gott started up Montevina Wnry in the early '70's, he planted a number of varieties other than the traditional Zinfandel. This included Nebbiolo, CabernetSauvignon, Ruby Cabernet, SauvBlanc, Barbera, and a few others. The Montevina CabSauv was never a particularly good wine. He resembled ShenandoahValley Zin more than anything w/ it's briary/bramble character, but harder & leaner & w/o the lushness of his Zin. I actively disliked his RubyCabernet as being rather herbal/ vegetal and pretty tannic & hard, atypical for Amador. So these shunned btls were buried in the dark parts of my cellar, awaiting the proper time to unload them. Since I was showing Darrell some of my relics from his store, this seemed like the right time to unload them. Surprise, surprise....they were in remarkably good condition and had blossomed into amazingly good old/mature wines. The '78 showed much more Cabernet character than the Montevina Cabs ever did, with a terrific tarry nose but a bit dried out on the palate. The '77, which I expected to be the better of the two, was more akin to an old Montevina Zin w/ much less Cabernet character. But it was round & smooth and much more attractive a wine on the palate than the '78. RubyCabernet was, of course, an Olmo cross betwixt Cabernet and Carignan that was developed to produce "quality" Cabernet-like wines from hot climes like the SanJoaquin Valley. So not surprising that it did well like this in Amador. Probably the best of the Calif Ruby Cabs is Bill Dickerson's ones made under his label. Darrell related that Dinny Webb's widow has a complete set of RubyCabs that Justin Meyer made for him from Dinny's backyard RubeCab vnyd, going back to the '50's. Darrell's hoping to put together a complete tasting of these wines sometime down the road, along w/ those of Bill Dickerson's.
2. Corked: The Heitz Cabernet had a distinct musty/damp earth/Kansas root cellar smell when it was first poured, leading to immediate pronouncements that it was corked. Yet I thought the mustiness was a bit different from the TCA-wet cardboard character I mostly find in corked wines. And it seemed to disappate w/ time in the glass, unlike TCA-infected wines. Darrell pointed out that in older times this was exactly the type of mustiness in corked wines for which they started using chlorine bleach in the cork production treatments to remove. The chlorine led to the onset of TCA-smells in corked wine that we've, alas, become all too familar with. Thus, we were probably smelling, Darrell speculated, old-time corkiness, rather than TCA-type corkiness of this modern/ improved day.
3. Shenandoah Vnyd dessert wines: Lee Sobon has always been very interested in sweet dessert wines and has been making them regularly from the very start. I have, of course, followed them from the very start. However, all of these I'd not tasted since their release in the early '80's, so I didn't quite know what to expect. Since they all three were sweet wines, I had expected them, at 20+ yrs of age, to have turned into marvelous/complex/old dessert wines. That expected complexity had not shown up. They wre just sweet wines that were there and had not seem to have gone anywhere. Probably I suspect it was their low acids that was the culprit. The BlackMuscat was easily the most interesting of the three because of its delicate/floral muscat character. Not bad wines...but wines that were just... there (unlike Oakland).
4. Quady Elysium: Same story here, a 20 yr old dessert wine..that just had not gone anywhere. The Elysium and Essencia are made primarily like Angelica/ratafia and have loads of intense grapey character in their youth. But there seem little point in aging them as they don't seem to develop any complexity you'd expect in old dessert wines.
5. Corti RTW '74: This btl was the last one out of BlairSwartz's archives he wanted to share with us. It was, in fact, the first Montevina CabernetSauvignon produced and Darrell bought it in its entirity (undoubtedly for a song) and sold it cheap (about $3.25). It was a pretty tasty/delecious wine in its youth. It's youth has passed and now it's on its last legs.
6. Darrell had been invited to NewMexico by Bruce&Sue Noel of LosLucerosWnry there just North of Espanola. The hook was that Darrell would do a seminar/event for the SantaFe Convivium of SlowFood on the glories of wild asparagus. In the apple orchard in from of their winery, the wild asparagus runs rampant and so this would be a great opportunity to have wild asparagus in several guises and learn from Darrell. Has luck would have it, we'd had repeated frosts in the morning for the last several weeks...so no/little asparagus. Sue had brewed a wonderful asparagus soup using some of last yr's frozen aspargus and some fresh she'd harvested. The SlowFood crowd foraged thru the orchard and did manage to find some stalks. So these and a batch of boughten (Chile?) aspargus were boiled until al dente and served w/ a lovely olive oil and a home-made Aioli. The contrast in flavors betwixt the two aspargi were striking, the boughten tasting much more bland (how can asparagus be bland?) than the wild. As he has been known to do, Darrell gave a highly educational talk of an hour's length. He could have gone much longer & not lost his audience, but Darrell was ready to taste some wine. The talk was much about the ancient history of asparagus and many of the special ways it has been prepared over the yrs. Incredibly informative... as I knew it would be. As noted an authority on almost any subject as Darrell is, he's always in the learning mode himself, and that was one of his raison d'etre's for coming to NewMexico, to learn has much as he could. And learning about NewMexico wines was one of his goals on this trip. He was probably the first to sell NM wines in Calif w/ the St.Clair wines from Deming. He probably had the first Gruet for sale in Calif as well, and has sold it from the very start. He had the chance to try their CuveeGilbert (still) PinotNoir and was quite taken by it. He plans to lean on Laurent to get some for his store in Sac. So Bruce organized a tasting of NM wines for Darrell's benefit, soliciting two of each wineries best wines. So we all (6 in number) sat down this afternoon and tasted thru 49 on NM's primo wines. Alas, some were not so primo. I must say, however, that the amateurish/inept/flawed winemaking you used to find in NM wines some 15-20 yrs ago have pretty much been eradicated. In fact, my worst wine of the afternoon was one of the ringers Bruce had put in... the Honig Napa Valley SauvignonBlanc. I detested it for its diaper pail nose. Darrell, and most the others, really liked the wine, however. There were a few surprises. The Syrahs of Herve Lescombes (Deming) and Tularosa Wnry were actually quite good. I'll take these to HdR this year I think. But probably the best wine of the bunch was the St.Clair (sweet) Malvasia Bianco. Darrell was convinced that it was a NM Gewurztraminer. In point of fact, he grows a fair amount of GWT and I wouldn't be surprised if some were therein. But a lovely/delicious wine it was.

   TomHill