Talk to us about Futo 2012 & 2013!

This is a small but magnificent estate on the lower hillsides of the Oakville corridor in the Mayacamas Mountains just below Bill Harlan’s estate and the Bond Winery. The original wines that came from their Oakville estate have been supplemented by grapes from another estate in Stags Leap, and some blends were put together at a less-expensive price point, one called He-Li-An-Thus and a Stags Leap/Oakville blend called OVSL. The quality of these wines is truly world-class, and what proprietor Tom Futo has done with extraordinary success has been to use a relatively significant percentage of Cabernet Franc with his Oakville blend, while the Stags Leap relies primarily on Cabernet Sauvignon.

David Abreu planted many of the vines on site; Clark Vineyard Management (a well-respected vineyard management company based in the Napa Valley) helped Futo transition to their own vineyard management team. Their in-house vineyard management team makes the extra steps in terms of quality – hand selecting only the fruit they want to ripen, keeping the grapes from the vines at the end of the rows separate during the wine making process (not using this fruit in their own wines), and only using free run juice in their wines (no pressing).

From Robert Parker about the 2013 vintage:

The 2013 Proprietary Red Estate Oakville showcases even more Cabernet Franc (35%) and is blended with 59% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Petit Verdot. This is another wine that has aspirations for a three-digit score. Flowery, fragrant aromatics, including blueberry, blackberry and currants are all present along with licorice and graphite. Full-bodied, opulent and stunningly concentrated, but slightly more coiled, less flamboyant and exuberant compared to the 2012, this is another stunner that ideally should get 4-5 years bottle age and then be consumed over the following 35-40+ years. There are 501 cases of the 2013.

The 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon 5500 is 92% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Merlot, but production was smaller at 375 cases. This is more coiled, reserved and tightly knit, but again, a wine of great intensity. It has a burgeoning complexity with a floral note intermixed with creme de cassis, creosote, subtle background earth and barrique aromas. Multidimensional and with a finish of close to a minute, this is an amazing wine, but oh so young and in need of 4-6 years of bottle age. It is another 35- to 40-year effort.

The 2013 Proprietary Red OVSL (77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot, 6% Petit Verdot and 4% Cabernet Franc) is a small cuvée of 535 cases, and like its bigger brethren, bottled unfined and unfiltered. This is the strongest of the three vintages in that it is a richer, more concentrated wine. I would think it’s hard to cull out such high-quality juice from the other lots, but Futo did it. Silky tannins, stunning blueberry and blackberry fruit with a hint of burning embers are all present in this multidimensional, complex, fleshy and succulent style of wine. Drink it over the next 20+ years.

Massandra in the Crimea - The Tsar's Winery

We can offer 2 bottles of Massandra Pinot Gris 1888 at $5,500 per bottle - Lucky Number Eight!

Near Yalta on the Crimean Black Sea Coast lies the Massandra Imperial Winery.  The winery is situated in a beautiful park in a natural amphitheater, protected on three sides by mountains and facing the Sea.  

 

In the 1890’s the Tsar decided to build the ‘Best winery in the World’ at Massandra to provide wines for his nearby Summer Palace at Livadia.  During construction, miners were brought from Georgia to tunnel deep into the mountainside and construct cellars on three levels.  One of the finest winery cellars in the world, the temperature is a perfect and constant 13/14 degrees Centigrade.  

 

Massandra Winery has 5,000 employees and 4,400 hectares of vines which stretch for 180 kms along the coast.  Most of the wines produced are fortified (Port or Madeira style) or dessert wines (Muscat, Tokay or Sauternes style) and in a typical over 1 million cases are produced.

 

The Massandra Collection

The first wine maker at Massandra from 1894 to 1915 was Prince Lev Sergeivich Golitzin. During this period, Golitzin collected many fine wines from other parts of the world, all of which were donated to Massandra upon his death, the start of what is now known as the Massandra Collection.  The collection remained safe during the Russian revolution for the tunnels in which it was stored had been bricked up and concealed. 

 

At the end of 1920 the Red Army took control of the Crimea and the collection was discovered.  In 1922, on Stalin's orders, wine found at the Tsar's many Russian palaces was moved to Massandra and the majority added to the collection. 

 

In early 1941, fearing the German advance, the entire collection was prepared for evacuation.  The last part of the shipment left for the cellars of the No. 1 winery in Tbilisi on 21 September 1941 and the Nazis arrived in Yalta on 8 November.  Yalta was liberated by the Detached Seaboard Army on 16th April 1944 following which, the monumental task of shipping all the wines back was undertaken, all bottles being back in the cellars by the time of the Yalta conference in February 1945.

 

The Massandra Collection is one of the largest collections of old wines in the world, estimated at over 1 million bottles, covering vintages from as far back as 1775.  Available for commercial sales are wines dating back to 1891, including some of the extremely rare bottles incorporating the Tsar’s personal seal.

 

Though initially popular with the Russian aristocracy who spent their summers near Czar Nicholas, the winery has since been visited by several notable personalities including Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, Ho Chi Minh, and Josip Broz Tito. Gorky wrote a tribute to Massandra that is inscribed in a metal plaque on the wall of the winery. On two occasions wines from the Massandra Winery have been attempted to be given as gifts to Presidents of the United States. In 1987 Gorbachev requested wines from the year of Ronald Reagan's birth to give to him as Reagan was on a visit to Russia. The bottles were delivered by hand to the Kremlin, but never given to Reagan. In 1994 a bottle from the year of Bill Clinton's birth was given to an American businessman to give to him, yet no further message was heard. In 2015 the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, visited the winery with the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. While touring the winery, Putin and Berlusconi allegedly drank from a 1775 bottle of Jeres de la Frontera worth $90,000. The tour was conducted by the winery's pro-Russian director, Yanina Pavlenko, and charges of embezzlement were subsequently prepared against her by Ukrainian prosecutors. 

 

 

Joseph Phelps Insignia 2013

Talk to us about the Insignia arriving shortly!

Celebrating 80 years?

While 1937 was a good year in Bordeaux, this bottle should probably be appreciated more as a historic value than actual drinking pleasure.  Should you have a friend or family member turning 80 this year, here is a very inexpensive way of celebrating their life!

Chateau Rouget 1937 Pomerol

Contact us for details, please!

Soon to be Offered - Lucky Number 8!!!!

We still have a couple of cases left to offer of Screaming Eagle's Second Flight 2013 - Contact us for details, please!

Tasting Vintage 2015 two Minutes after Filtering!

I spent a day with a wine journalist in Pope Valley (Napa) a couple of weeks ago and must recommend this beautiful area that I was not very familiar with until now!

Pope Valley is an community located in the small valley of the same name in the Mayacamas Mountains and northern Napa County, California. It is east of Calistoga, north of Angwin, and borders Lake Berryessa, the second largest man-made lake in California.

When visiting Napa Valley, you have roughly 400 options for wine tasting and most visitors to the valley, including people from the trade, will follow the rest of the traffic up and down Hwy 29 or the Silverado Trail.  However, if you are not in a hurry, take the scenic route up into the surrounding hills and stop at the quiet, unpretentious and historic wineries where you will find no boutiques selling baseball caps, toe rings or bath salts!

Here we were at a winery tasting the 2015 roughly two minutes after filtering!

And the 2016 vintage did not look so bad, either!