No tasting note for this wine. Mark Aubert is one of the contenders for California's finest practitioner of Burgundian-styled, yet classic, California Chardonnays. His offerings are all made like grand cru Burgundies with... Read More
The 2013 Pinot Noir UV-SL, primarily made from Calera and Vosne-Romanée clonal material, boasts a dense ruby/purple color as well as a big, sweet nose of blackcurrants, black cherries, forest floor and beet root. The complex aromatics... Read More
A touch closed and youthfully shy to begin, the 2015 Chardonnay Lauren Estate soon powers up to reveal intense grapefruit, citrus peel, yuzu and honeyed pear notes over suggestions of crushed stones, struck match, baking bread... Read More
The 2016 Chardonnay Hudson Vineyard has a gorgeous nose of pear tart, aniseed, beeswax and honey toast with touches of salted almonds and a waft of baking bread. Full-bodied, rich and with a totally decadent creaminess to the... Read More
The 2015 Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard offers up floral notes of jasmine and peach blossom over a core of apricot preserves, honeyed toast, beeswax and lemon butter, plus a waft of crushed stones. The palate is just beautiful, possessing... Read More
The 2016 Chardonnay Eastside Vineyard is scented of lemon tart, baking bread, crushed stones, clover honey and shaved almonds with hints of pure, sliced pears and Golden Delicious apples. Full-bodied, elegant, fine and restrained,... Read More
The 2011 Chardonnay Eastside Vineyard is rich, fat and explosive. Butter, smoke, spices, apricots, orange blossoms, almonds, hazelnuts, and nectarines all burst from the glass. This is a decidedly extroverted, plush Chardonnay... Read More
Made entirely from a clone from the most famous vineyard in Burgundy, the 2014 Cix offers crisp acid, loads of black raspberry, forest floor and blueberry fruit, and tremendous density, richness, and intensity. (It's interesting... Read More
The 2016 Chardonnay Hudson Vineyard has a gorgeous nose of pear tart, aniseed, beeswax and honey toast with touches of salted almonds and a waft of baking bread. Full-bodied, rich and with a totally decadent creaminess to the... Read More
The 2012 Pinot Noir Cix Estate was made from suitcase clones from Vosne-Romanee. It exhibits abundant notes of forest floor, blackberries, blueberries and spicy oak along with dry tannins in the finish. The wine is multi-dimensional... Read More
The 2016 Chardonnay Sugar Shack Estate is opulent straight out of the gate, with stunning orange peel, candied ginger, nutmeg and ripe apricot with touches of cashews and croissant. The full-bodied palate explodes with expressive... Read More
As for the 2014 Pinot Noir UV, this wine comes two-thirds from the Calera clone of Pinot Noir and the rest from a Vosne-Romanée clone (which we all know, but no one's saying, probably emanated from the famous Domaine de la... Read More
No tasting note for this wine. Mark Aubert is one of the contenders for California's finest practitioner of Burgundian-styled, yet classic, California Chardonnays. His offerings are all made like grand cru Burgundies with... Read More
The 2013 Pinot Noir UV-SL, primarily made from Calera and Vosne-Romanée clonal material, boasts a dense ruby/purple color as well as a big, sweet nose of blackcurrants, black cherries, forest floor and beet root. The complex aromatics... Read More
The exuberant 2010 Chardonnay Reuling Vineyard is another big, big wine bursting with fruit. Caressing the palate from start to finish, this is a decidedly broad shouldered, expansive Chardonnay loaded with power and energy. White... Read More
Aubert's 2011 Chardonnay Lauren Vineyard flows across the palate with hints of butter, marzipan, spices, nectarines and dried apricots. Rich, voluptuous and creamy, the 2011 is another of the more overt wines in this range.... Read More
Starting with his 2011 Cornas, it's a rocking wine in the vintage that's still showing every bit as well as it did on release. Massive minerality, violets, bloody meat and sweet blackcurrant and black raspberry-like fruit... Read More
Probably the wine of the vintage, once again. Only 9,000 bottles of the 2013 Ausone were produced, as crop size was 50% of normal. However, proprietor Alain Vauthier and his daughter certainly have proven a truly great wine can... Read More
Its bigger sibling, the 2011 Ausone increases the level of intensity, elegance, complexity, richness and length. Nearly a mirror image of the La Chapelle, just with more going on, the Ausone boasts a more saturated purple color,... Read More
Two bottles were badly corked, which is certainly a scary situation for a wine where only 1,000 or so cases were produced. However, a third bottle was magical and just short of perfection. Its saturated purple color was followed... Read More
Probably the wine of the vintage, once again. Only 9,000 bottles of the 2013 Ausone were produced, as crop size was 50% of normal. However, proprietor Alain Vauthier and his daughter certainly have proven a truly great wine can... Read More
Possibly the "wine of the vintage," the 2008 boasts an inky/blue/purple color as well as a glorious perfume of spring flowers, blueberry and blackberry liqueur, camphor, truffles and crushed rocks. With great fruit on the attack... Read More
The 2010 Ausone struck me as another brilliant, potentially perfect wine, which should come as no shock to people who have been following Vauthier's work over the last decade or more. Backward and intense, this wine offers... Read More
One of the handful of candidates for wine of the vintage is the 2006 Ausone. In fact, while tasting it, I was thinking, is there any estate in Bordeaux that, since 1998, has made as many legendary wines as proprietor Alain Vauthier... Read More