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Wine Reviews & Ratings

NEW RELEASE WINE REVIEWS

• PreVail Cab & Cab/Syrah releases & Rodney Strong Chard & Zin (10/07)

RECOMMENDED VARIETAL WINES

Cabernet Sauvignons & Bordeaux:
• Bordeaux Varietals from Non-California U.S. Producers
• Rutherford Appellation Cabernet Sauvignons
• St. Helena Appellation Cabernets & Meritages
Grenache/Garnache
• Resurfacing of a Major Varietal
Pinot Noirs
• Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noirs
• Sonoma County Pinot Noirs
Rosés & Rosados
• Spanish Rosados
Sauvignon Blancs:
• Rutherford Appellation Sauvignon Blancs
• Sonoma County Sauvignon Blancs
Viogniers:
• Paso Robles & Coastal Area Viogniers
• Sonoma County Viogniers
Zinfandels:
• Ravenswood 2004 Vineyard Designated Zinfandels

VARIOUS REGIONAL WINES

• Quick Glance at South African Wines

COLLECTOR'S CORNER: Tastings of Vintage Wines

• Bordeaux & California Cabernets: 1970 vintage
• Bordeaux & California Cabernets: 1966 vintage
• California Late Harvest Rieslings
• Tasting Old Chardonnays

A NOTE ABOUT OUR WINE RATINGS

A Note About Our Wine Ratings

As my partner, Bill Lennan, and I moved from posting just a few notes about currently released wines and into the review and posting of hundreds of tasting notes featured at wine events, we have added a rating scale with numbers. The WE-C Rating Scale indicates the following:

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Collector's Corner: 1970 Bordeaux & California Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Tasting Notes

Great winemaking, when combined with fruit from a perfectly sited vineyard, can produce magical results. This is once again confirmed when tasting the Ridge Monte Bello and other leading Cabernet Sauvignons of the 1970 vintage!

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Wine Recommendations: Ferrari-Carano Releases An Exceptional 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon -- Also, new Rodney Strong wines

PRE-VAIL 2004 WEST FACE Cabernet Sauvignon has promise for the ages!!!

Under its new PreVail label, Ferrari-Carano is offering the finest Cabernet Sauvignon it has released to date. It is a wine that is a real contender for honors among the top-tier of California Cabernets produced from the very successful 2004 vintage. Rich and dense on the palate, the [98]PreVail 2004 Back Forty (1200 cases, $85) once again confirms that California's best Cabernets need no 'seasoning' from other varieties to be complete wines. Not only wholly impressive as a young Cab (release date November 2007), it possesses the structure, balance and depth to live forever while gaining intriguing complexities over the next thirty years. If you want wine to lay down celebrating the birth of a baby born in 2004 -- this is a wine you can count on to be impressive when the child hopefully graduates Magna cum laude from Berkeley, Stanford (or, from Don Carano's alma mater, University of Santa Clara).

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Wine Recommendations: RAVENSWOOD Vineyard Designated 2004 ZINFANDELS

Prior to the release of this set of Zinfandels from Ravenswood we participated in a Thirty Year retrospective celebration of the accomplishments and success of the winery (see our Ravenswood article). During the event we had the chance to taste several yet-to-be-released wines, including a couple of the Vineyard Designated Zinfandels of which winemaker Joel Peterson is so proud.

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