Wine Folly Wine Club Review

2018 Roger et Didier Raimbault Vieilles Vignes Sancerre, France
Blend: 100% Sauvignon Blanc
Retail price: $20-25 | Video Tasting Notes | Wine Access Write-up

We brought this wine out to dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I wasn’t sure what I’d be ordering, but I had a pretty good idea it would involve seafood, so I thought this would be the perfect wine from the shipment to bring along.

One of the joys of fine dining in the desert is that as soon as the wine comes out of the bottle (from the chiller), it starts warming up. You don’t have to wait long for aromas to start popping and complex flavors to emerge from a high-quality wine.

Key takeaways:

• When you see a wine labeled Sancerre, that means it is Sauvignon Blanc from the Sancerre wine region in France. This particular Sancerre is typical (in a good way) of what you’d expect for Sauvignon Blanc from this region — it’s fruity and bright, featuring a lemony essence on the palate with a touch of minerality.
• Vieilles Vignes translates to “old vines.” In this case, the vines range from 35-50 years old and have roots sunk 20-30 feet underground. The old vines add a complexity to the wine’s character that is absent from much “new world” Sauvignon Blanc. (New world means everywhere that isn’t Europe or western Asia.)
• Sur lies translates to “aged on the lees” — the lees are a byproduct of fermentation which includes leaving the wee yeasties in with the wine while it matures. This particular aspect of winemaking leads to my favorite wines because they always offer a round, smooth mouthfeel and typically add a lot of nuance and finish to a wine.
• Back vintage. This wine is a 2018 (having spent two to three years in the bottle after 12-18 months maturing sur lies in stainless steel). Any wine that is older than the current release vintage would be considered a back vintage. For people who lack the means or patience to age their wine, buying back vintages is a great way to experience what all the fuss is about. Wine Access does a marvelous job of finding back vintage wines to sell on their site.

2020 Tabalí Talinay Chardonnay Limarí Valley, Chile
Blend: 100% Chardonnay
Retail price: $21
Video Tasting Notes | Wine Access Write-up

I already experienced this wine as I received it in Wine Access’ Decanter Magazine wine club. I had so many mixed thoughts about it (read the sanitized version in my review), but I was curious to see what the husband thought as he unfortunately missed this wine on the first go around. (He liked it.)

What surprised me was how different it tasted than the first time I had it — specifically what had been mouth-puckering and bracing acidity had mellowed into what, I believe, had Decanter Magazine so enamored they gave it 96 points and called it a Wine of the Year. Which leads to the key takeaways for this wine:

• Not every bottle from the same vintage is identical. The more you try the same wines from the same vintages, that weren't mass-produced to be identical every year, the more obvious this becomes. This phenomena is part of the adventure of wine, brought on by the handcrafted nature of a product made from produce. It’s totally normal and something you’ll likely only ever notice if you’re buying more than one bottle of a given wine at a time.
• Chalky, limestone soils make for food-friendly Chardonnay. In the case of this Chilean stunner, the ancient marine soil which lies under the vineyard imparts subtle lemon, floral, and mineral flavors on the palate, propped up by racy acidity. If you read this description but didn’t know the wine hailed from South America, you might just assume it is Chablis. Another new world region embracing this style of Chardonnay shares this soil profile — Sta. Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County, California.
• Whole cluster. A winemaking technique generally only available to wineries who harvest by hand, fermenting wine using whole clusters of grapes, stems and all, leads to complexity, balanced acidity, addition of tannins for structure and ageability, and a range of fruit and spice notes that wouldn’t come from the grapes alone.
• Restrained use of oak. Chardonnay from California often gets a bad rep for being too oaky. That “classic” Napa Chardonnay style of Rombauer, Far Niente, and Trefethen is actually the classic Côte de Beaune style (premium white Burgundy). While Chardonnay generally gets a lot of oak if the fruit is of poor quality or the winemaker’s intention is to age it for decades, some oak can enhance any Chardonnay. This one saw 10 months in new French Oak barrels, but the oak influence was quite subtle, mostly adding body and not an oaky or vanilla flavor.

2019 Bernardus Winery Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands Monterey County, California
Blend: 100% Pinot Noir
Retail price: $45
Video Tasting Notes | Wine Access Write-up

Like Chardonnay, Pinot Noir hails from Burgundy and the Burgundian style is what a lot of wine connoisseurs seek. The new world versions tend to be fruitier, more full bodied, and sometimes spicier depending on where it came from and what the winemaker’s style preference is. Keeping all that in mind, it’s difficult to quantify a “classic” Pinot Noir, but somehow Wine Folly & Wine Access found a wine that checks all the boxes, making it perfect for this “lesson.”

Key Takeaways:

• There is great value in Pinot Noir from Monterey’s Santa Lucia Highlands (SLH). The Bernardus Winery is in Carmel Valley, California, but the grapes in this wine hail from SLH. Monterey is a go-to affordable source for Pinot Noir for major wine brands like Meiomi, La Crema, Estancia, etc. Despite the mass-produced crowd, a lot of boutique production quietly happens with high-quality SLH fruit, like at Bernardus.
• Flavor profiles. Pinot Noir has a set of flavors that make it distinctive and typically easy to identify no matter the style in which it was produced. Most common are cherries (red, black, or dried), other red fruit (cranberry, strawberry, raspberry), and baking spice or a smokiness. There’s a whole market for earthier Pinot Noir, too, which features mushroom, or the strangely named but apt “forest floor.” The Bernardus in this case was strong on the red fruit and well-balanced.
• Blending. Despite nearly all Pinot being 100% Pinot Noir, it’s usually blended from multiple vineyards. Single-vineyard Pinot Noir is fickle and decidedly not “classic.” But when the winemakers start blending, using fruit from different vineyards because it has different flavor profiles, a consistent and round, red-fruit with spice style emerges. Again, the Bernardus really shows the power of blending for Pinot Noir, with a roundness and balanced flavor profile, especially pulling in nice acidity.

2020 Métier by Delille Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley, Washington
Blend: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon
Retail price: $30 | Video Tasting Notes | Wine Access Write-up

Cabernet Sauvignon is yet another example of a grape whose classic style is defined by its French origin, this time in Bordeaux. A key distinguishing factor between new world and old world Cabernet is that in the old world, it’s typically blended with something else (Merlot in France or Sangiovese in Italy), but in the new world, we tend to bottle it on its own. As Pinot Noir benefits from blending, so does Cabernet Sauvignon, and also like Pinot Noir, most single-vineyard Cabernet does a good job of expressing its terroir and climate.

Key Takeaways:

• Trusted producers. This isn’t the first Delille Cellars wine to come my way via Wine Access. I’m beginning to understand this as a trusted producer of high quality wines. Perhaps more than any other reason, this type of thinking (find trusted, somewhat under the radar producers to share with your members) is what makes all of the Wine Access clubs a great value.
• Washington wines straddle old world and new world styles — they usually show balance in acidity and structure and are more subtly fruity than California. This Cabernet is a perfect example of how new world reds can be better than their old world counterparts without being, as the snobs like to say, “overripe.”
• This wine is from a great AVA to know — Horse Heaven Hills in Columbia Valley. Long known as one of Washington’s best Cab regions, Horse Heaven Hills now produces quaffable Cabs at a variety of price points. Some mass-produced selections include H3, Columbia Crest, and 14 Hands, but boutique producers still abound like Quilceda Creek, Alexandria Nicole, and of course, Delille Cellars. Expect strongly concentrated flavors and intensity from Horse Heaven Hills wine.
• Some of the grapes in this blend come from a new AVA. Designated in 2020, Candy Mountain is Washington’s newest AVA. Its sand and gravel soils resemble Bordeaux’s Left Bank. If you’re familiar with Red Mountain (another premium Cab region tucked into Washington’s Yakima Valley), you should note Candy Mountain is similar (same soil, same high winds).