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The Bernard Roth Archives

The Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium presents notes of Bernard Roth who always has something to say, particularly about wine and food.

We are happy that Bernard, who has sampled so many wines, has shared his notes with us. We do have, or have had for sale a few of the wines Bernard writes about, and we include a link to our stock page whenever it is a producer we carry (but since the stock page is kept up-to-date and the wines are sold, don't expect any but the newest of wines to show up in our stock!). Mostly though, since we specialize in County of Santa Barbara Wine and Central Coast Wine, we don't carry a lot of the wines Bernard writes about. But we think it is important that you be able to have an idea what they're like in case you are planning to buy some somewhere, or have them in your own collection. Enjoy.

Here are Bernard's notes from November 15, 1997:

96+ Tasting

Todd Serota's 96+ tasting consisted of 20 wines rated 96 or  higher by Robert Parker. All the wines were in the Cab/Bordeaux  or Rhone style categories. It was already 3 pm and the Hotel staff  was anxiously pacing hoping to get us out of the room by 4 pm.  We almost obliged. The 20 wines were served in 3 flights, blind.  The wines were known in advance. To speed things along, after  each of the first two flights of 7 wines, the bags were removed  to reveal the wines. By the 3rd flight of 6, it was pretty clear  which wines were which, so some of the blindness was lost. 

Nobody had enough time to carefully take notes. Mine are sketchy  and the ratings are almost impressionistic. I used the same 20 pt.  scoring system as in the Turley Zin tasting, only here my  expectations were higher. I'd say that a 12/20=88, 14=90, 16=92,  18=96, 19=98, 20=100. 
 
Flight 1:  
  • 93 Phelps Insignia--Closed floral nose. Smooth dryish tannins.  15.5/20 
  • 92 Groth Reserve--Tight, luscious. Earth and leather. 14.5/20 
  • 94 Phelps Insignia--Sweetish. 15.5/20 
  • 89 Lynch Bages--Earthy, flat finish. 16.5/20 
  • 92 Beringer PR-- Luscious, sweet mid-palate. Round finish. 19/20 
  • 92 La Jota 11th Anniversary--Strong concentration. Firm. Big and  chewy. 17.5/20 
  • 94 Turley Petite Sirah Hayne--Very smooth, firm tannin. 16.5/20 
Flight 2:  
  • 90 Leoville Las Cases-- Sweet earthy, cassis. Complex, round,  still chunky. Drying finish. 13.5/20 
  • 86 Montelena--Closed. Mint? Tannic, big fruits. Long finish.  16/20 
  • 94 Caymus Special Select--Big nose. Sweet, big tannins. Fine,  long, drying finish. 16.5/20 
  • 95 Astralis (Shiraz)--Big nose. Smooth. Bit short finish. 15.5/20 
  • 92 Dominus-- no notes. 14/20 
  • 94 Dominus--Sweet, tannic. 13.5/20 
  • 90 Pichon Baron--Huge, earthy, cassis bouquet. A little thin in  comparison to previous wine. 13.5/20 
By flight 3, everyone knew that these wines remained. Tough to  tell blind what was what (TFIC): 
  • 89 Beaucastel--Huge enticing cassis nose. Great wine. Intense.  Balanced. Fabulous. 19.5/20 
  • 90 Ferraton Hermitage (Look it up in Parker's Wine Buying Guide)--  Medium tannins. Fruity. 16/20 
  • 87 Montelena--Earthy, leather. Intense. 16/20 
  • 85 Heitz Martha--Closed. 15/20 
  • 95 Clarendon Hills Blewitt Grenache--Incredible tannins. Huge  concentration of fruit. 15/20 
  • 82 La Conseillante--Leather, blackberry. Round, smooth. 16/20 
Groveling in the gutter:  Way too many serious wines to adequately judge in 75 minutes. Some  of these bottles had barely been open and would need 1-2 hours  decanting to begin to show their stuff. The 89-90 Bordeaux were  especially tight and closed up. What a shame. 

I thought most votes for favorite wine went to the Clarendon  Hills Blewitt Grenache. It definitely had more intense, forward  fruit than the others. It was the second time I'd tried this  wine, and I thought it was showing too much tannin now. The  bottle a few weeks ago was much smoother. 

My favorite wine of the day was the 89 Beaucastel. It was just  magnificent. Not a blow 'em away powerhouse. Just at the peak  of what CDP can be. Elegant, seemless, incredible. It is too  bad it was being poured against so many tannic, bombastic,  monster cabs. I don't think most people took this wine on its  own terms. Tough to do when it's the only CDP in the tasting. 

I brought the 92 Dominus. It was not very forward. Todd wanted  me to bring it to make his point that Dominus never shows well  in these blind tastings. There was a little wine left over  Sunday, so I again tried the Dominus. Its fruit was definitely  very much in the background. Todd has a good point questioning  the viability of Dominus because it does not have sweet, forward  fruit to balance the tannins at this youthful stage. However,  I suspect the wine might reveal more in 10-15 years. It's a  risk, to be sure, but Moueix does know something about making  long-lived wines. Time will tell. 

I left a little Astralis in the glass till the very end of the  tasting to see how it would evolve, given its reputation. All  I can say is it did not make a serious impression. 

I was very disappointed by the showing of the Groth Reserve,  given its reputation. 

I was also pleased to have tasted the La Jota 11th because I  did not manage to find and buy any when it came out. It is  terrific wine. 

We had gone through 33 wines in a little over 4 hours. It was  now on to Todd's for more wines and dinner. 

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