Viscous oily bitter, weedy and hot–but a good hot, like pinepitch-hot or ginger-hot–floating on a musky inner tube over still, brackish water. No hi-density or super-charged fruit, only a pointed cassis which keeps popping up momentarily between swirls.
This is a fun brand with a tasting room above the town of Sonoma at the turn-off to Glen Ellen that I’ve enjoyed for years and I feel a lot of people overlook. There’s also a methode bubbly which is incredible and the winemaker has his own label to that he sells there which I’m blanking out on at this moment but which I quite enjoy.
In the mouth, exactly the opposite. Plush round cherry and almost-ripe pear grace a generous complement of tar and vanilla born of briar and tannin, but considerably fuller and sumptuous than I had predicted from the nose.
2012 MAYO FAMILY WINERY Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma Co. California 14.5
