San Francisco Chronicle – Recommended Napa Sauvignon Blanc – July 2012
That mix of winemaker Mia Klein and Larry Hyde’s vineyards has been going strong for 20 years, and with a blend of old oak and mostly small steel barrels, this banks on intense fruit: gooseberry and ripe pear, with a floral aspect, although it's quieter at moments than expected.
89 points Wine Spectator August 2011
This full-bodied white is intriguing; with a roasted Meyer lemon note that mingles well with peach, apricot and dried mango flavors. This offers mineral and tobacco details and refreshing acidity. Drink now. 550 cases. M.W.
90 Points - Wine Enthusiast Magazine, November 2011
A rare Sauvignon Blanc from the Carneros region, this bottle is rich and full bodied. Made with one-quarter new French oak, it has a buttered toast and vanilla richness alongside ultraripe, long hangtime pineapple, citron, lime and honeysuckle flavors. A complex wine to drink now. -S.H.
SF Chronicle’s Top 100 Wines 2010
Match star consultant Mia Klein with the extraordinary Hyde Vineyards, and its Musqué planting of this grape, and you get a refined, texturally layered wine that sets a new bar for Sauvignon Blanc's potential. Another mix of barrel (30 percent) and steel fermentation, the result is an opulent, exotic, stony presence with sage, apricot, coriander and Meyer lemon, wonderfully precise and yet thoroughly lush. - Jon Bonné
90 points The Wine Advocate #192, December 2010
Winemaker/proprietor Mia Klein has always done a top-flight job with Sauvignon Blanc. The Loire Valley-styled 2009 Sauvignon Blanc Hyde Vineyard reveals the texture of a mid-weight Chardonnay. Aromas of melon, figs and spicy, smoky gun flint jump from the glass of this complex Sauvignon. Medium-bodied with crisp acidity as well as a surprisingly intense mid-palate, it should age for several years.
89 points Wine Spectator 2010
Intense lemon, lime peel and passion fruit flavors have a distinct herbal, musky side. Appealing for its full body, its focus and its floral and white pepper aromatics, with a refreshing punch of acidity on the finish. Drink now. 750 cases made. - M.W.
Wine Enthusiast Magazine, April 2009
Rich and creamy, with opulent pineapple and peppery spice flavors finished with a savory edge of lemongrass. High acidity works in the wine’s favor, making it mouthwatering. -S.H.
The Wine Spectator - August 2008
This has tons of personality. The fleshy texture reveals peach, nectarine, mineral, Asian spice and smoke notes. Drink now through 2012. 1,400 cases made. -MW
Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate #174
The 2006 Sauvignon Blanc Hyde Vineyards (her 15th anniversary vintage of Sauvignon) offers gorgeous notes of tropical fruits, honeysuckle, and ripe citrus. The perfumed fragrance is followed by a crisp, dry, medium-bodied white with loads of fruit and a sumptuous texture. Drink it over the next year.
Score 91: Wine Spectator Top Wines August 2007
Shows fragrant floral notes of honeysuckle and jasmine. Intense and complex, with fleshy peach and mango flavors. Well-balanced, offing juicy Meyer lemon, tangerine, melon, pear and spice notes that echo on the finish.
Score 91: Wine and Spirits Magazine, October 2007
Large in scale, this has a musky green fruit tone, similar to papaya before it gets too ripe. The intriguing textural depth of the wine will match tuna tartare with shizo.
Score 92: Wine Enthusiast Magazine, October 2006
(Top 100 Wines for 2006) December 2006
Score 92: Wine and Spirits Magazine
(Year's Best Sauvignon Blancs) August 2006
Meyer lemon and fresh lime scents build into this wine's spicy citrus flavors to last, long and delicate. There's an undercurrent of wood spice that makes it feel firm. Decant a bottle for sautéed sand dabs.
Score 92: Wine Enthusiast Magazine, October 2006
What a rich wine this is. It shows ripe varietal character in the tangerine,
fig and cantaloupe flavors, but more than that, a white Bordeaux-inspired
interventionist technique brings a leesy, oaky creaminess. Add to that
refreshingly crisp Carneros acidity, and the bottom line is great Sauvignon
Blanc.
Score 91, Wine Spectator August 2005
Smooth, rich and plush, with layers of fig, melon, citrus and hay flavors, all sharply focused and finishing with excellent depth and concentration. Drink now.
Score 92: Wine & Spirits Magazine October, 2004
Cleanly delineated fresh lime flavor fills the soft, cushioned texture
of this wine. Then it lasts in shades of green from herb, to lime zest, to a
touch of artichoke. The balance between the piercing clarity of flavor and the
fleshiness of the wine make it a mouthwatering match for seared scallops or
fried clams.
Score 90: The Wine Spectator August
2004
Crisp, lean and coiled, with excellent focus to flavors of yellow and green
apples, grass, green pear and minerals that gain depth and complexity on the
finish. Best with food. Drink now through 2005.
Score 91: Connoisseurs Guide to California Wine - August,
2004
Regularly rising to the head of the class when it comes to very good Sauvignon
Blanc, Selene scores again with this deep and abundantly fruity wine. Rife with
ripe melons and lifted by oak, it has plenty of mass and essential fruit extracts
to offset its slight turn to heat at the finish. A serious wine with fine prospects
for age, it needs to be tagged for drinking with seafoods that fall on the richer
end of the range.
Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate December, 2003
"One of Mia Klein's undeniable specialties is her exotic, perfumed,
seductive Sauvignon Blanc. Wonderful honeysuckle, melony, fruit-driven style.
With good delineation as well as medium body, it comes across as exuberant Loire
Valley-like Sauvignon Blanc-based effort with oodles of fruit."
Score 90: The Wine Spectator August 2003
Impressive, with an intense burst of concentrated green apple, grass
and lime peel character. Nicely delineated flavors fan out through the finish,
with subtle anise character and lead pencil notes. Drink now through 2005. 1,150
cases made
Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate August, 2002
"Selene's delicious 2001 Sauvignon Blanc Hyde Vineyard is crammed
with melon-like fruit, fig and honeyed citrus notes. One of California's
finest Sauvignons, it requires consumption during its first 1-2 years of life."
Score 96: Connoisseurs Guide to California
Wine March, 2002
"Boasting a lovely mix of ripe melons, piquant citrus, just a bit of
grass and a fine veneer of creamy oak, this keenly honed wine edges very close
to varietal perfection. Intense, but never near to being overbearing, it is
remarkably well focused, bright and beautifully balanced, and it shows a rare
sense of seamless proportion from start to finish. For all its considerable
depth and richness, it makes no feint at being ersatz Chardonnay, and it earns
our most enthusiastic endorsement as nothing less than the quintessential
Sauvignon Blanc."
91 points Wine Enthusiast, September 2010
This is an unusual blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot. At the age of nearly five years, it’s already throwing some sediment, but is still superfruity, offering an explosion of raspberries, cherries and currants. The oak remains unintegrated, and as a result the wine is jammy and direct. But that’s now. It has the inherent sweetness and balance to age for another 4-6 years, so stash it until 2014 and see what happens. -S.H.
Score 92 points: Wine Spectator November 2009
Spice, tobacco leaf, dried currant, sage and berry notes are firm and structured, intense and focused, gaining depth and complexity on the finish, where the minerality comes through with the tannins. Cabernet Franc and Merlot. Drink now through 2015.-J.L.
Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate #168
The dark plum/ruby/purple-hued 2002 Chesler Proprietary Red Wine possesses nuanced aromatics in addition to medium body, an elegant, stylish format, light to moderate tannin, sweet fruit, and an excellent mouthfeel as well as purity.
93 Points - The Wine Advocate #198 December 2011
The 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Dead Fred Vineyards is flat-out beautiful. Layers of expressive dark fruit, smoke, tar, incense and graphite caress the palate in this highly articulate, refined wine. With time in the glass, the wine shows gorgeous inner perfume and sweetness. Today the oak is a bit pronounced, but the wine appears to have the depth to provide balance over time. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2021.
91 Points – The Wine Spectator October 31, 2012
This firm red exhibits a chunky mix of earth- and mineral-laced dried berry, sage and cedar flavors. Maintains its muscular, chewy profile, yet finishes with a nice burst of ripe berry fruit and cedary oak. One of the better finds in well-priced Napa Cabernet. Best from 2013 through 2025. 190 cases made. —J.L.
90 Points - Wine Enthusiast Magazine, November 2011
This is an ultrarich, ripe Cabernet, marked by jammy blackberry, blueberry and cherry fruit flavors, with a milk chocolate sweetness and soft, intricate tannins. Made in the soft, modern style, it's best over the next six years. -S.H.
90+ Points - Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate #192, December 2010
The dark ruby/purple-tinged 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Dead Fred Vineyard is a more structured, less charming effort at present, but it has more layers as well as 10-15 years of upside potential. The tannins are noticeable, but sweet. Notes of plums, earth and spice can be found in this dense 2008. It needs 2-3 years of bottle age to come into its own.
91 points The Wine Advocate #186, December 2009
The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Dead Fred Vineyard has a more opaque purple color, and slightly more intense black currant and blackberry fruit intermixed with a subtle touch of oak. More seamless, with riper tannin, and a fleshy, even voluptuous texture, it is a young, still somewhat primary, but overall more impressive, deeper, and broader Cabernet with sweeter tannins than its older sibling. It should drink well for 15-20 years.
91 points Wine Spectator 2010
Ripe, fleshy and smooth-textured, with ripe plum, blueberry and savory herb notes. Full-bodied, with hints of tobacco leaf, spice and chicory, ending with a delicate, lingering finish. Drink now through 2017. 377 cases made. -J.L.
93 Points Wine Enthusiast, September 2010
The palate can tell a superbly structured Cabernet from a flawed one, and this Cab shows off its pedigreed origins with flash. Great tannins, fine acidity, fully dry, and with a rich veneer of oak, it has perfectly ripened flavors of blackberries, currants, cherries and dark chocolate. -S.H.
Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate #186, December 2009
The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Dead Fred Vineyard, an homage to a long-deceased cat, exhibits a dense ruby/purple color in addition to plenty of cedar, underbrush, and black currant aromas. Medium to full-bodied and slightly tannic, but well-endowed, pure, and impressively constituted, this wine requires 2-3 years of cellaring, and should keep for 15+.
90 points
92 Points: Wine Spectator Insider August 2009
Wonderful aromas and flavors are built around roasted herb, dried currant, sage, mineral and dusty berry, but it’s the complex, harmonious mix of these flavors that makes this so compelling. Ends with drying tannins. Drink now through 2016.-J.L.
92 Points - The Wine Advocate, #198 December 2011
The 2009 Merlot Frediani Vineyards is a
gorgeous wine. Juicy dark cherries, violets,
licorice and mint are some of the nuances that
flow across the palate in this beautifully
delineated, refined wine. The estate's Merlot
shows fabulous class and tons of personality.
Tobacco, flowers and mint linger on the finish.
This is a mid-weight, polished style of Merlot
loaded with class. Anticipated maturity:
2012-2019. - Antonio Galloni
91 Points - Wine and Spirits Magazine, June 2012
Mia Klein makes this wine from a vineyard in Calistoga, a portion of it from a dry-farmed block planted in the early 1970’s. Poor fruit set in 2009 limited yields to 1.5 tons per acre, resulting in a wine with flavor density yet without excess weight. It’s perfumed in a black licorice sense, tight with dusty black cherry flavors that broaden with the tannins in the finish. Suited to a year or two of bottle age and a plump filet mignon.
89 Points - Wine Enthusiast Magazine, November 2011
A beautiful Merlot, rich and evocative. It has soft tannins and delicious flavors of red cherry jam, red currants and chocolate, accented with smoky oak. The tannins are so fine. Drink now. -S.H.
92 points Wine Spectator 2010
Sleek yet layered and complex, with rich aromas of red currant and toasty mocha, followed by lush flavors of black cherry and spicy, toasty oak, with hints of roasted herb and cedar. Tannins sneak in on the finish. Drink now through 2016. 378 cases made. -T.F.
Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate #192, December 2010
Selene's 2008 Merlot Frediani Vineyard possesses a dark ruby color as well as a sweet perfume of red and black fruits intermixed with white chocolate and cocoa, a lush, medium to full-bodied mouthfeel and a heady finish. Drink this seductive Merlot over the next 5-6 years. 89 Points.
92 points Wine Spectator 2010
Sleek yet layered and complex, with rich aromas of red currant and toasty mocha, followed by lush flavors of black cherry and spicy, toasty oak, with hints of roasted herb and cedar. Tannins sneak in on the finish. Drink now through 2016. 378 cases made. -T.F.
Score 90 points. Wine and Spirits Magazine, June 2010
Finely tailored, this merlot is all of a piece, its cherry liqueur scents and lead pencil tannins knit into a black satin texture. A soft red and an easy choice with roast beef. (271 cases) (W&S 6/10)
Score 91 points. Wine Enthusiast Magazine, March 2010
A delicious, complex Merlot, although all the parts haven’t come together and it needs time in the cellar. It’s extraordinarily rich in oak-inspired black cherries, red currants, violets, cocoa, spices and sweet sandalwood, and it should develop nuance and bottle bouquet after 2012. -S.H.
Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate #186, December 2009
The well-known Mia Klein is the proprietress of this estate, and her 2007 Merlot Frediani Vineyard is a winner. It boasts a dense ruby/purple color as well as attractive plum, licorice, and subtle smoke characteristics offered in a fleshy, medium to full-bodied, supple, seductive style. Already delicious, it should continue to evolve for another 7-8 years. 89 points
Score 90 Points. Wine Enthusiast Magazine, April 2009
Marked by a great big burst of ripe fruit, this Merlot is distinctly New World in origin. You can taste the sunshine in the purity of the blackberry, cherry and plum flavors. With complex but soft tannins, it’s so polished, you can drink it by itself. - S.H.
Score: 92 The Wine Spectator December, 2002
"A delicious Merlot, dark, rich and chocolaty, with layers of mouthcoating
mocha, currant, blackberry and coffee grounds. Sharply focused, long and intense,
with well-integrated tannins. Best from 2003 through 2010. 1,000 cases made."
Score 92 Connoisseurs Guide to California
Wine March, 2003
"… there is so much fruit, sheer richness and lavish oak at work
here that its riper bias is more than easy to forgive. Fat and fleshy in feel
with lots of body and tannins enough to notice, this immensely flavorful wine
entertains with suggestions of cocoa, cream, raspberries, cherries, mint and
a note of loamy earth on the palate. Never shy and not especially refined,
it is a wine to save for appropriately savory dishes, and it should drink
famously with a classic, garlic-larded, rosemary studded, roast leg of lamb.
"
Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate August 2002
"A deep ruby/purple colored effort, it reveals an easygoing style with
notes of smoke, black cherries, and blackberries. With airing, a pleasant
roasted characteristic emerges. Elegant and medium weight with well integrated
acidity, tannin and alcohol, it will drink well over the next decade. "
