Wattle Creek Winery 2008 Alexander Valley Shiraz - 4 Pack

[Cesare]

Wattle Creek Winery 2008 Alexander Valley Shiraz - 4 Pack
$49.99 + $5 shipping
CONDITION: Red
PRODUCT: 4 Wattle Creek Winery 2008 Alexander Valley Shiraz

Winery website

Previous offer:
12/20/10

[ecue]

$38 a bottle on their website… seems like a nice one

[mike808]

Wasn’t this just Monday’s woot? Oops. That was the Cabernet Sauvignon.

[laineyhigg]

Have had this too (split so only had two bottles). If you’re a Shiraz lover you’ll like this. It liked being decanted and was very smooth. (velvety) I need to start taking notes, sorry guys. I promise I don’t love all the wine I drink but I did love this one. Wish I had more. Under SIWBM now.

[laineyhigg]

@mike808

Wasn’t this just Monday’s woot?

Same people, Different wine

[diannap]

From the last offering:

@chriswattle

Winemaker notes

Initial Aromas are very enticing showing dark berries, blue berries, black cherries, black berry syrup, with touches of bacon fat, toasty oak and smoked meat. As the wine opens up the aromatics repeat and intensify. The flavors mirror the aromas with notes of black cherries, blue berries and notes of toasted oak. The mouth is rich without being heavy or tannic and there are layers of sweet tannins that coat the mouth as the deep fruit flavors unfold. Enjoy!

Vintage & Winemaking

The 2008 vintage is being hailed as one of the best vintages in the last decade and some would argue longer. The winter and spring were very dry and bud break started 2-3 weeks early in some places. With early bud break and the dry season, there was concern about heat stress and water availability for the later months of harvest! As harvest progressed we never saw any significant heat spikes, and the growing season remained cool and consistent.

The cool weather contributed to small cluster development with smaller than average berry size across all varieties. In warmer regions such as Alexander Valley, cooler vintages allow the fruit to “hang” on the vines longer, really intensifying flavor development in the grapes. This Shiraz was harvested in the first few weeks of October.

When maximum ripeness was achieved in the vineyard, the fruit was handpicked into small bins early in the morning while the fruit was very cold. It was delivered to the winery cold for processing, where the fruit was de-stemmed and the berries were partially crushed. The berries and juice were pumped to open top fermentors and held cold for 1-2 days. This cold soaking period helps early color formation, though Shiraz usually does not require much cold soaking to achieve this.

After cold soaking, the fruit was allowed to warm up and then fermentation was initiated. The fermenting juice was pumped over three to four times a day during the course of fermentation. After 6-8 days the wine was drained off of its skins and put to a majority of French Oak Barrels with a small balance going into American Oak Barrels. This Shiraz aged for 14 months before being blended and bottled.

Appellation Alexander Valley Sonoma County

Variety/Blend Shiraz 100 %

Vintage 2008

Barrel Maturation 100 25% New French oak 10% New American oak

Oak Maturation 14 months

Alcohol 14.6 %

Harvest dates 10/09/08—10/16/2008

[Chargerrt500]

No action on CT. Tough to go in without someone’s opinion.

[ticomike]

@laineyhigg

Have had this too (split so only had two bottles). If you’re a Shiraz lover you’ll like this. It liked being decanted and was very smooth. (velvety) I need to start taking notes, sorry guys. I promise I don’t love all the wine I drink but I did love this one. Wish I had more. Under SIWBM now.

I like the varietal so I’ll take two based on the review…

I have a "crap"load of wine coming after the last couple weeks…cases.

[doctorfarkas]

Looks tasty I’m in for one.

[TooOldForThis]

previous woot

@klezman

I think I’ll disagree, Richard! Putting the tasting room there drives business, I would think. If you’re a winery that doesn’t distribute much then that would significantly widen your potential audience. In the end, I judge based on the wine. Which I did try in the Ghirardelli Square room a year or so ago. I figure tasting is nearly always better than not…

I remember it being good but not great. Certainly nowhere near the QPR that WD has me now expecting. I think I was going to buy a bottle to get a tasting fee refund until I found out they weren’t going to do that. At that point I walked out. At woot prices, if you like the style I would bet on this being at least decent QPR.

and for those concerned about the 2008 fire/smoke

@chriswattle

It is Chris here the owner of Wattle Creek. You are correct about the smoke damage which we did experiance in our Yorkville property near Anderson valley. We did declassify that wine . No problem with the Alexander valley thankfully.

[mandoo500]

Anyone with taste notes? Any volunteer? ANYONE?

[thisisntjasmine]

does anyone know how often woot cellars wines are included in wine woot-offs?

[TooOldForThis]

@mandoo500

Anyone with taste notes? Any volunteer? ANYONE?

Hmmm. 150+ buyers last December. You would think at least one of the people reading the forums would have been a buyer and would have opened one by now, even as young as it is.

Maybe they’re all on the East Coast and have gone to bed.

[TooOldForThis]

@thisisntjasmine

does anyone know how often woot cellars wines are included in wine woot-offs?

Yes. Not me, but I’m certain that WineDavid knows

[laineyhigg]

@TooOldForThis

Hmmm. 150+ buyers last December. You would think at least one of the people reading the forums would have been a buyer and would have opened one by now, even as young as it is.

Maybe they’re all on the East Coast and have gone to bed.

I promise I’ll start taking notes. Newbie mistake!

[majamaki]

Soo tempting… down for one. Damn you wine.woot.com, stop offering good wine for a little while.

[TooOldForThis]

@laineyhigg

I promise I’ll start taking notes. Newbie mistake!

Oops. I saw you up there, but your post slipped my mind. When you say, “If you like Shiraz,” what do you think a Shiraz should be? Other than “velvety,” which sounds like a good thing. I mean, it sounds like it met your expectations of a Shiraz, but what are they? Lots of fruit? Tannins? “Leather”? Crisp? “Peppery”? I assume that if you like crisp fruit and got old leather book, you would not have been happy…

[otolith]

@ticomike

I like the varietal so I’ll take two based on the review…

I have a "crap"load of wine coming after the last couple weeks…cases.

I have 6-7 cases coming this week as well. Yikes!

[mandoo500]

@TooOldForThis

Oops. I saw you up there, but your post slipped my mind. When you say, “If you like Shiraz,” what do you think a Shiraz should be? Other than “velvety,” which sounds like a good thing. I mean, it sounds like it met your expectations of a Shiraz, but what are they? Lots of fruit? Tannins? “Leather”? Crisp? “Peppery”? I assume that if you like crisp fruit and got old leather book, you would not have been happy…

yeah I do appreciate your opinion and thank you for that. I just wanted to see few more, that’s all.