2000 Corison Cabernet Sauvignon

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/13131.html

Category: California
Size: 750 ml
Brand: Corison Winery
Region: Napa Valley
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Style: Red Wine

Price: $62.99

2010 May Wine Club Premiere Selection

It's no secret that to get a Napa Cabernet noticed by the critics and the public alike, many winemakers feel the need to make wines that boom and shout on the palate. But as wine writer Jancis Robinson once said, "Cathy Corison has barely to whisper."

Cathy has a philosophy on Cabernet that many may claim to ascribe to but few actually practice in California today. She makes wines the old-fashioned way, some would argue the French way: to be less ripe, less alcoholic, and most importantly, ageworthy. The wines are subtle, complex, never "big" or "flashy" or over-concentrated. And thus, they often won't catch a reviewer's eye in a blind tasting, where the ripest and boldest wine often wins. But those are often not wines that you want to drink ten years later….this is.

Cathy spent almost thirty years making wine for others, including Chappellet (where she mentored Mia Klein), Staglin, and Long Meadow Ranch, before she made the first vintage of her own Corison Cabernet in 1987. "There was a wine inside me that needed to be made," she says. And the rest is history.

Recognized and well-respected across the industry as a maker of age-worthy Cabernets, Cathy will never be seen donning the front cover of a glossy mag as a "rockstar winemaker." Instead she prefers to do things rather quietly, with wines that "define style and grace." (Wine Enthusiast). And that's just how we like her.

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/13131.html

Gary's Wine & Marketplace - Madison | Bernardsville | Wayne
1308 Route 23 North • Wayne, NJ 07470 • 973-633-3900
E-mail: info@garyswine.com • Toll Free: 1-888-99-GARYS
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2004 Selene Chesler Blend

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/13124.html

Category: California
Size: 750 ml
Brand: Selene Wines
Region: Napa Valley
Varietal: Cabernet Franc / Merlot / Cabernet Sauvignon
Style: Red Wine

Price: $62.99

2010 May Wine Club Premiere Selection

Winemaker Mia Klein really earned her stripes as a consulting winemaker before finally beginning her own wine label. Her resume reads like a who's who of Napa wineries: she worked her way up to assistant winemaker under the venerable Cathy Corison (see second Premiere selection) at Chappellet before going on to make wine for Spottswoode, Araujo, Viader, Dalla Valle, Bressler and Palmaz. In 2003 Food and Wine magazine named her "Winemaker of the Year."

But it's her own Selene label that's Mia's personal expression of winemaking. The Cabernet Franc (60%) and Merlot (22%) both came from the Frediani Family vineyard and were picked and co-fermented together, creating a rare seamlessness to the blend. Cabernet Sauvignon (18%) from the hailed Stagecoach Vineyard in Oakville joined the party later, imparting a deep blackberry flavor to the profile of the wine. Parker found flavors of sweet cherry, licorice and spicebox, noting, "It is a broad, savory, rich, full-bodied red that retains the hallmark elegance and purity for which Mia Klein’s winemaking is known."

"Selene" was named after a Greek moon goddess, a tribute to the important role the moon and its influence on nature plays in a winemaker's life. But the Chesler bottling may be the most personal to Mia, as it carries a picture of her own mom waterskiing on the front label.

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/13124.html

Gary's Wine & Marketplace - Madison | Bernardsville | Wayne
1308 Route 23 North • Wayne, NJ 07470 • 973-633-3900
E-mail: info@garyswine.com • Toll Free: 1-888-99-GARYS
http://www.GarysWine.com • Buy Wine Online • NJ Wine Store

2007 Elizabeth Spencer Cabernet Sauvignon

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/09159.html

Category: California
Size: 750 ml
Brand: Elizabeth Spencer Wines
Region: Napa Valley
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Style: Red Wine

Price: $39.99

2010 May Wine Club Cellar Selection Today, many proprietors of Napa Valley vineyards come to the Valley looking for a second home after making their fortune in another industry. But for Elizabeth Pressler, wine was always the focus, though it took a number of years before her dream of owning her own winery was obtained. She came to Napa in 1978 to work as a tour guide for Joseph Phelps Vineyards. Over the next few decades, she worked her way through numerous hospitality and wine marketing positions with Araujo, Dalla Valle, Spottswoode and Viader, (to name only a few) before she and her husband, Spencer Graham, finally founded their own winery, Elizabeth Spencer. Today they source their Cabernet from Napa's finest sub-appellations in St. Helena, Howell Mountain, Yountville, Oakville, Rutherford and Mt. Veeder to come up with just the right blend of cassis, cigar box, incense, cherry and plum cobbler flavors.

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/09159.html

Gary's Wine & Marketplace - Madison | Bernardsville | Wayne
1308 Route 23 North • Wayne, NJ 07470 • 973-633-3900
E-mail: info@garyswine.com • Toll Free: 1-888-99-GARYS
http://www.GarysWine.com • Buy Wine Online • NJ Wine Store

2007 Selby Chardonnay Russian River Valley

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/13407.html

Category: California
Size: 750 ml
Brand: Selby Winery
Region: Russian River Valley
Varietal: Chardonnay
Style: White Wine

Price: $19.99
Reg: $27.99
ON SALE!

2010 May Wine Club Reserve Selection

Susie Selby is her father's child. Raised by a man who loved wines of all sorts, not just the big powerful wines with high scores or the most elegant or the most well known, but all of them, she was encouraged to taste and love wine, enthralled with the lure and history of it as she was growing up.

It was her dad's dream to have a Selby family label, so Susie pitched in with the marketing development when he first launched it. It was only then that Susie began to really fall in love with winemaking itself, and in the early 1990’s, Susie ditched the corporate career to learn everything she could about making wine, from driving a forklift to running a tasting room. Sadly, her father passed away in 1997, but Susie carried on the legacy on her own, now in her fifteenth vintage.

Chardonnay was the first wine they made, and one of the wines she continues to love. While this one is for all of you who have patiently waited through the zestier whites to get to some buttery ripe California Chard, Susie still balances that buttery fruit with a good dose of acidity.

Winemaker's Notes:

This wine is from California's most prestigious region for Chardonnay, the Russian River Valley. The grapes from Orsi Vineyard offer notes of stone fruits. The Syar Vineyard delivers floral aromas and flavors. The Cornerstone Vineyard's Dijon Clone imparts tropical and citrus characteristics. The result is an intense, full-bodied wine with excellent structure.

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/13407.html

Gary's Wine & Marketplace - Madison | Bernardsville | Wayne
1308 Route 23 North • Wayne, NJ 07470 • 973-633-3900
E-mail: info@garyswine.com • Toll Free: 1-888-99-GARYS
http://www.GarysWine.com • Buy Wine Online • NJ Wine Store

2008 Bastianich Tocai Friulano

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/italy/70077.html

Category: Italy
Size: 750 ml
Brand: Bastianich
Region: Friuli
Varietal: Tocai
Style: White Wine

Price: $13.99
Reg: $17.99
ON SALE!

2010 May Wine Club Vintner Selection

If you’re an avid viewer of cooking shows and/or Italian food, the name Lidia Bastianich is likely familiar to you. For years, Lidia has been the Italian mother coming into American homes via television, showing us how to make the comforting Italian dishes our own mothers may not have had the slightest clue how to make. But what many don’t know is that Lidia, in partnership with her son, sommelier Joe Bastianich and friend and superstar chef, Mario Batali, owns her own vineyards in Italy.

Within the Colli Orientali region of Friuli, the Tocai Friuliano grape is king of the white wines (though in 2007, the EU mandated they begin calling it Friuliano since another region laid claims on the Tocai name.) Lidia’s Friuliano is a classic expression of the local grape and terroir, with medium body and lush flavors of pear, mineral and almond.

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/italy/70077.html

Gary's Wine & Marketplace - Madison | Bernardsville | Wayne
1308 Route 23 North • Wayne, NJ 07470 • 973-633-3900
E-mail: info@garyswine.com • Toll Free: 1-888-99-GARYS
http://www.GarysWine.com • Buy Wine Online • NJ Wine Store

2008 Patricia Green Pinot Noir Croft Vineyard

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/oregon/62556.html

Category: Oregon
Size: 750 ml
Brand: Patricia Green Cellars
Region: Willamette Valley
Varietal: Pinot Noir
Style: Red Wine

Price: $32.99

2010 May Wine Club Cellar Selection

Patricia Green is a pretty humble person with humble beginnings in the wine industry. In the 1980's, she left the re-forestation business literally to pick grapes for Hillcrest Vineyard in Oregon. Within a small amount of time, she had somehow worked her way up the winery ladder to assistant winemaker, and only a few more years later she was known throughout Oregon, by wine critics, and Pinot drinkers as the Famous Patty Green, Pinot Expert.

She made wine and garnered high scores for Torii Mor for six vintages before she got her own name on her own label, a phenomenon she's still a little shy about. "I’m not a name-in-lights kind of gal," she says, but today she is the creative force behind what she humbly calls "a pretty decent little two-person operation."

Patricia and her winemaking partner Jim Anderson believe in the expression of terroir in each individual vineyard, and Croft remains one of her best sources for silky, cherry and earth-laden Pinot Noir.

Patricia Green Cellars is located in the Ribbon Ridge district of Yamhill County on the 52 acre estate purchased in 2000 by Patty Green and Jim Anderson. The winery is noted for producing a tremendously broad selection of Pinot Noirs from far flung vineyards representing some of the better sites in the Ribbon Ridge, Dundee Hills, Chehalem Mountains, and the Eola Hills growing regions. Patricia Green produces Pinot Noirs that show the distinctions of the differing soils and climates of these sites.

Winemaker's Notes:

This wine has some serious guts to it and it may take some time for it to completely unwind and release all the pent up goodness that it holds inside. Still it is a burly, black fruited, masculine, rich, intense wine with a boat load of personality to it. As ageable as any wine we produced in 2008. A seriously interesting wine for those with some patience and cellar space.

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/oregon/62556.html

Gary's Wine & Marketplace - Madison | Bernardsville | Wayne
1308 Route 23 North • Wayne, NJ 07470 • 973-633-3900
E-mail: info@garyswine.com • Toll Free: 1-888-99-GARYS
http://www.GarysWine.com • Buy Wine Online • NJ Wine Store

2005 Cedar Knoll Hagen's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/74523.html

Category: California
Size: 750 ml
Brand: Cedar Knoll Vineyards
Region: Napa Valley
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Style: Red Wine

Price: $24.99
Reg: $34.99
ON SALE!

2010 May Wine Club Reserve Selection

Some wineries are smart enough to hire a woman winemaker to join their team, contributing those highly-tuned feminine sensors to the selection and blending process. The Palmaz family, who makes Cedar Knoll Vineyard Co. Hagen's Reserve, had the insight to hire two.

Mia Klein is a well-respected Napa Valley winemaking consultant; her credentials are outlined in the Premiere selections this month. Tina Mitchell, the full-time winemaker at Palmaz, has some serious street cred of her own, having learned under the legendary Andre Tchelistcheff at Niebaum Coppola winery. Put the two together, and you've got a team that can really crank out a great Cabernet.

A perennial staff favorite that seems to over-deliver every vintage, Cedar Knoll carries ripe red fruit and mocha tannins that make it an interesting wine to taste as it evolves over a year or two.

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/74523.html

Gary's Wine & Marketplace - Madison | Bernardsville | Wayne
1308 Route 23 North • Wayne, NJ 07470 • 973-633-3900
E-mail: info@garyswine.com • Toll Free: 1-888-99-GARYS
http://www.GarysWine.com • Buy Wine Online • NJ Wine Store

2007 Guenoc North Coast Victorian Claret

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/13261.html

Category: California
Brand: Langtry Estate and Vineyards
Region: North Coast
Varietal: Meritage Blend
Style: Red Wine
Size: 750 ml

Price: $12.99
Reg: $16.99
ON SALE!

2010 May Wine Club Vintner Selection

In 1888, flamboyant British stage actress and notorious tomboy Lillie Langtry purchased a vineyard property sight-unseen in the North Coast of California, arrived with entourage and a small fleet of stagecoaches, rolled up her sleeves and started making her own wine. "Greatest Claret in the county," she proclaimed, and who could argue with her? Over a century later, that estate has changed hands a number of times, gone fallow during prohibition, and was revived in 1963 by the current owners.

Inspired by Lillie’s spirit, they saw it fitting to make a "Victorian Claret" in her honor (Claret is just another name for a Bordeaux blend, containing Cabernet, Merlot, Cab Franc, and sometimes Petit Verdot or Malbec.) And since 1981, Guenoc has held the distinction of being the only single-proprietor AVA in the country! Lillie would be proud. Expect friendly red fruits and an ever so slightly spicy finish to this well-rounded blend.

Winemaker's Notes:

The 2007 Guenoc North Coast Victorian Claret is a complex blend of our award winning wines. Dark ruby in color, the wine has a wonderful fruity nose bringing on black cherry, plum, and blueberry aromas. Rich and soft on the palate, the hints of vanilla and nutmeg, from 12 months of barrel ageing, add to the complexity and the long smooth finish. The wine pairs well with any meat dish or just on its own.

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/california/13261.html

Gary's Wine & Marketplace - Madison | Bernardsville | Wayne
1308 Route 23 North • Wayne, NJ 07470 • 973-633-3900
E-mail: info@garyswine.com • Toll Free: 1-888-99-GARYS
http://www.GarysWine.com • Buy Wine Online • NJ Wine Store