Clos Saron Black Pearl

Drank over a couple of hours at dinner (and side by side with the 2013 Carte Blanche), with a variety of foods. Opened about an hour before the first glass was poured, not decanted. it is amazing how young this wine still is - it needed a TON of air to really open up. At first it felt a little disjointed/was totally tertiary with no real fruit and felt a bit jumbled. But as it sat for a few hours …

Wine seemed right in the sweet spot to me. Mature, well structured, long finish. Aromas of garrigue, black fruit, leather.

Gideon saw my last note and graciously offered to send me another replacement bottle. I let the wine settle for two month, breath in the bottle for few hours after opening. It really redeemed itself this time around. With a thin body, flavors released gradually over a two hour lunch. Faint fruit, high acidity, light smoke, more flavors seemed coming out as the bottle finished. There is a fine line between good or bad for this bottle, luckily it landed …

Magnum. High acidity low tanin, flat, this wine is done. Gideon shipped it in my first library membership 12/23. He shouldn�t have shipped this wine.

Super high-toned and bright with some briny flavors (hello syrah!) But also some old leathery notes from the cab. Barely any fruit. Delicious but not for the faint of heart!

Opened one hour in advance. Aromas of cassis and clover. Smooth flavors of bitter black fruit, cherry, a bit of tar. Sour cherry and tar in the finish. Very rustic, with strong tar flavors when first opened but with air time it becomes much smoother and the tar recedes to the background. Beautiful, firm backbone, well integrated, complex. A high toned version of an old fashioned California field blend.

At Heirloom CS event.

Possibly the tarriest wine I've ever sampled, it had great acidity and a good sense of dark berryish fruit overlain with a pervasive tarry note. Very enjoyable with BBQ ribs, but quite an unusual wine.

A very strange wine. While I am usually a fan of gideon's wine, this was a miss for me. Disjointed and unwieldy, and despite a low alcohol % (13.2), still a very heavy presence.