Extradimensional Wine Co. Yeah! Merlot Santa Cruz Mountains

1.5 hr decant. Interesting and different taste profile. Cranberry, cassis, thyme, some sort of basalty bass note. This made me rediscover something I already knew about XWCY!wines: they are more easily understood in musical terms than in taste profiles. This was a bunch of ideas coming together in a single track — like the title track to Aja. Trademark lift and acidity. Not your average Merlot. True to the variety but completely unique.

Sonoma Trip for Allison's 40th Birthday; 6/18/2024-6/25/2024 (Sonoma and Healdsburg) : holy s***. Cascading red berries of all types, strawberry, raspberry, leading into lingonberry in the finish. Texture, acid, slight integrated tannin. Insane wine, reminds me so much of the old D&R merlots.

A bit mute and non-descript at first, with slightly shrill ancid, the Hardy Wallace herb-red-fruit signature, and without much definition or Merlot character to speak of. Not quite sure what to make of it. But not to worry, because over the course of 5 hours, it starts to unfurl and reveal a suave and sexy wine that is Pomerol-like on the nose (cherries, kirsch, cassis), but incredibly light and transparent on the palate like all of Hardy’s wines. There is …

I opened the cabernet sauvignon a few weeks back, and found it as satisfying as anticipated, but couldn't really latch onto anything about it to put into words. This one is different, nothing subtle about the personality on display here, though the material of the wine itself is as subtle as they come as it's so ethereal it feels more like inhaling a cloud than drinking a liquid. Despite this, the flavors are pure and unmistakably merlot and will give …