#Estrella District

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Thank you Jesus for our food.

I opened a Primitivo today in honor of #nationalzinfandelday for a couple reasons: First of all because it’s a fake #influencer holiday and I purposely never open the *proper* wines on those days but more importantly in honor of the 80’s and early 90’s when we were told it was the original Zinfandel and a lot of us believed it–and many still do. That and I don’t really have any zinfandel in my…

[wine-porn]

Fianoally

Fiano in California??? Yup, it’s a thing. And hopefully gets bigger. Just like a blast back to Italy, this vibrant white packs the glass with nuance. A bit green and abrasive in the nose–after you get past the flower-shop concentration of floral–just enough to let the calm smoky fruit slide by on rails of graphite and dust. Really complex nose, packed with dirty positivity and eager peach.

In…

[wine-porn]

Cab Collective

Moving on down the coast today from Napa Valley to Livermore Valleyto Paso Robles, and a BARGAIN from a new label. Beautiful nose, all jammy and layered with campfire smoke and sweet chocolate, the ripeness of the fruit a not-jammy presentation as much as it is a wall of black candied fruit just aching to get out of the glass. Dense berry and plenty of gorgeous oak make for something chocolaty…

[wine-porn]

CB PV

You can *kinda* see through this wine… it’s not completely pitch-black, but pretty close. Black ruby with a minuscule pink rim. Big heady perfume, rich and dark. The concentration on this thing doesn’t mess around, coming at you full-bore with fat juicy dripping black cherry and generous oak. Sweet and nutty in the nose, it reeks of decadence. Lots of air brings out a milk-chocolate note not…

[wine-porn]

Christopher Robin

Dark ruby with a sliver of a clear rim. Big smoky dankness flows out of it, dark and ‘grapey’, deeply concentrated and ripped with dates and honey and roasted meat dripping with BBQ sauce and umami. Nice strains of stony earth move alongside, producing a high note of wet granite which climbs out and becomes tête-à-têtewith the bloody fruit after considerable air. All visions of flabbiness you…