2012 StoneHedge Reserve Meritage

2012 StoneHedge Reserve Meritage ***

The word "reserve" is misleading compared to what Im used to a Napa reserve . Its quite lightbodied and it is quite simple. I was surprised that it had more sour cherry notes (like a rosso di montepulciano) than black fruits i n the beginning, but opens up after an hour and becomes darker and less sou r. It is very smooth drinking, lacking tannins. Second day it got quite swe et. Its pretty cheap and its nice for a random dinner and probably more usable as a sipping wine.

Reply to
Michael Nielsen
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ve. Its quite lightbodied and it is quite simple. I was surprised that it h ad more sour cherry notes (like a rosso di montepulciano) than black fruits in the beginning, but opens up after an hour and becomes darker and less s our. It is very smooth drinking, lacking tannins. Second day it got quite s weet.

e as a sipping wine.

Reserve really has little meaning as to quality. Mostly. it's a marketing t ool. For high end wineries it may have meaning.

Reply to
lleichtman

tool. For high end wineries it may have meaning.

Yeah, I just got used to it in teh sense that Sequoia Grove, B.V, and Berin ger uses it. Like you have the 50$ Sequoia Grove Cabernet Sauvignon and the 80$ Reserve. The reserve is a bigger and bolder wine than the non reserve ("classic"?), and the tasting costs more for the reserve than the "classic" . As I see it you can compare the non reserve vs reserve intra-winery but not inter-winery. But SG's non reserve is a bigger wine than the Stonehedge Re serve. Like Rioja reserve will be aged more than the same winery crianza, b ut another winery's crianza may have more than the other's gran reserva.

Reply to
Michael Nielsen

ng tool. For high end wineries it may have meaning.

inger uses it. Like you have the 50$ Sequoia Grove Cabernet Sauvignon and t he 80$ Reserve. The reserve is a bigger and bolder wine than the non reserv e ("classic"?), and the tasting costs more for the reserve than the "classi c".

ot inter-winery. But SG's non reserve is a bigger wine than the Stonehedge Reserve. Like Rioja reserve will be aged more than the same winery crianza, but another winery's crianza may have more than the other's gran reserva.

And Michael Trujillo's wines are even denser.

Reply to
lleichtman

And similarly "meritage" is just a marketing term. Don't know how it is now but used to be to use the term you had to pay into a marketing consortium. Otherwise, it meant "Bordeaux-type blend (from CA)", which is of course a pretty wide sort of denomination.

Another one of these is "old vines." That sometimes means 10 years old, or sometimes 80 or 120. What is old? ;) I even saw a Chinon advertising "young vines" on the theory that the average consumer wouldn't know that young fruit is of lesser quality. Go figure!

-E

Reply to
Emery Davis`

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