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The Tom Hill Archives

The Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium presents the musings and reflections of Tom Hill. We think it's great that Tom, who has sampled so many wines, has shared his tasting notes with us. We do have, or have had for sale a few of the wines Tom 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 Tom 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 Tom's notes from March 2, 2003:

Dessert Wine 

Jill Cashman hosted a Dessert & Dessert Wine tasting at SantaCafe the other Sunday. Patrick Markby, one of the best dessert chefs in SantaFe, IMHO, did an extraordinary job on the desserts to accompany the wines. John Bernasconi of Botique Wines organized the wine selection and made commentaries. Jill was there to lend color and flair. The wines:
 
  1. Lawson's Dry Hills Marlborough Late Hrvst Semillon (13.5%) 2000: Med.gold color; lush botrytis/peachy/apricotty/spicy more R-like nose; tart/lean somewhat sweet spicy/flowery/ R-like almost grapefruity light botrytis/peachy flavor; long spicy/flowery/R-like light botrytis finish; more like a German botrytis Mosel than Semillon; lovely wine.
  2. Bodega Olivares Monastrell Dulce Jumilla/Spain 1998: Med.color; very ripe/grapey/late harvesty Zin-like some raisened/pruney nose; sweet chocolaty/plummy LHZin-like slight oxidized bit hot/fumey flavor; med.long hot/fumey quite LateHarvestyZin/raisened/grapey finish w/ light tannins; from very old/ungrafted Mourvedre vines; nice w/ the chocolate; very much like a LateHrvst Zin, was expecting a more spectacular wine.
  3. Fattoria Le Fonti Vin Santo del Chianti Classico (16%) 1997: Med.brown color; some sherry- like/oxidized bit pungent nose; tart slightly sweet slight oxidized/sherry some pungent/ grapey flavor; bit hard/hot/alcoholic but not as oxidized as some.
  4. Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese 2001: Fragrant pineapply/flowery/R bit simple nose; very tart/lean/hard some pineapply/flowery/R slight earthy/slatey  flavor; long sttely/slatey/tart/hard some simple/R/pineapply finish; bit simple now but  should be a good one w/ 10 yrs of age.
  5. Wittman Westhofener Steingrube Albalonga Beerenauslese 1998: Med.yellow color; very  fragrant/perfumed/grapey earthy light botrytis/pear/peach nose; tart some sweet clean/ripe/ pear light botrytis/peach some earthy flavor; med.long bright/spicy/grapey light earthy light botrytis/pear/peach finish; not as big & sweet as I expected; needs age.

Small Bloody Bulpit:
  1. Abalonga: A Rieslaner (Riesling x Sylvaner) and Sylvaner cross. Never had one before. This was quite a nice/elegant/delicate dessert wine w/o the rich/ripeness I was expecting.
TomHill

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