ITB: In The Business
The printer is silent. All mailers have gone to the Post with Follow-Up emails sent. It must be time to make the 2007 Butterdragon Hill Cabernet Sauvignon offer to the public. Visit http://www.matchvineyards.com/order.shtml to learn more.
Continue reading about 2007 Match Butterdragon Hill Offer now online.
This is the first of what I hope will be many updates straight from our winemaker Cary Gott. We’re trying something new: since Cary is a busy guy who rarely spends time writing at a desk, he recorded a voice memo on his iPhone, emailed it to me, and I have transcribed it. If you’d like to “hear” more from Cary, please take a moment to click on “Like” or comment. And please let us know if there are topics you’d like Cary to talk about in the future.
From Cary:
I’m going to be racking the ‘09 Cabernets next week. So what we’re doing right now is I’ve got them [Bin to Bottle -- where we custom crush our wine] set up to have the barrels down on Tuesday afternoon and we’re going to rack it on Wednesday. I’ll taste every barrel and make sure everything is fine. Once the wine’s in tank, we’ll take a big sample of it and send it off [to ETS laboratories] for full analysis plus Scorpion [test for wine spoilage microbes] and adjust the SO2 and then go back to barrel. So it’s a very gentle process. This will be the first racking for the ’09s.
Continue reading about Winemaker Cary Gott discusses racking the 2009 vintage wines
Yesterday we racked both of our 2008 Cabernet Sauvignons: Butterdragon Hill and Baconbrook. The wines are loooooking gooooood. (Try to picture Freddie Prinz — no, his father, you young whipper snappers — from Chico and the Man saying that.)
Now back to your regularly scheduled social networking.
Today I noticed that what used to be my Local Wine Store (LWS) in the Montclair district of Oakland is now going to be a self-serve yogurt place. I guess it is a sign of the times, but let’s see if you can make a little blip on the sales charts of your favorite LWS. Show them that you appreciate them adding value to your wine passion. Please pass this on. Share it on Facebook or post comments here. Tweet it and tag #wine. But most importantly, buy a bottle of something at your LWS this weekend.
Continue reading about Buy a bottle from your local wine store this weekend
Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate Issue #186 (Dec 2009) is out and the big man himself reviewed some of our wines:
2007 Match Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Baconbrook
Revealing the most opaque color of these offerings, the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Baconbrookâs abundant notes of blue and black fruits, forest floor, graphite, and vanilla are followed by a tannic, rich, backward wine with undeniable minerality. It should turn out to be outstanding after 3-4 more years of bottle age. It will last 20+ years. (90-93 pts) Release Fall 2010
2007 Match Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Butterdragon Hill
The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Butterdragon Hill possesses attractive, fleshy black currant, crushed rock, cedar, spice box, and tobacco leaf characteristics. This broad, savory, pure, moderately tannic 2007’s overall impression is one of elegance, with a Bordeaux-like framework to the tannic structure. Give it 3-4 years of cellaring and drink it over the following two decades. (90-92 pts) Release Spring 2010
2006 Match Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Baconbrook
The impressive 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Baconbrook does not possess any aggressive or rustic tannins. It offers pure red, blue, and black fruits intermixed with notions of crushed rocks and flowers. Medium to full-bodied with excellent balance, ripeness, depth, and length, it will benefit from 1-3 years of cellaring, and should easily last 15-18 years. (90 pts) Available Now
2006 Match Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Butterdragon Hill
The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Butterdragon Hill reveals plenty of plum, spice box, floral, cedary, black cherry, and black currant notes, elegant, medium to full-bodied flavors, and well-integrated wood, acidity, and moderate tannin. This graceful Cabernet should be enjoyed over the next 15-18 years. (90 pts) Available Now
We’re pretty proud of these notes. He describes our wines in very similar ways to how we would hope folks would perceive them. “Graceful.” “Pure.” “Elegant.” Wines that you can confidently age for 20 years. These are characteristics we are going for. As always, one can follow how our customers are enjoying our wines at Cellartracker.com.
At the end of the day, however, what really matters is how you like our wine. To receive information and the opportunity to buy our wines on release, please join our mailing list. The 2007 Butterdragon Hill that Mr Parker reviewed will be offered in just a few short weeks at a price of $60 for new customers. Repeat customers will receive their customary discount.
The Finklestein Family is Napa Valley wine royalty. Okay, perhaps they’re more like the wine court jesters. They are fun, funny, eccentric, and make life in wine country just a little bit more interesting. Art and Bunny Finklestein created Whitehall Lane and then moved on to found Judd’s Hill. Their son, Judd, follows in their footsteps running the winery now. Check out Judd’s off-the-wall video blog: Judd’s Enormous Wine Show. I especially like Episode 2. I’m ready to order tshirts for every kid I know.
Continue reading about Video blog by Judd Finklestein will make you chuckle
It was our very first release. It was dedicated to my late father-in-law. We started with 500 cases but only a few are left which we’ve been storing for personal use. It hasn’t been available to the public for years, but I’ve managed to grab 10 cases for this offer. I’m pleased to make this final holiday offer a rerelease of our 2002 Match Vineyards Butterdragon Hill Cabernet Sauvignon.
Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV was “completely blown away” by this wine and scored it 96+.
Wine Spectator Magazine said the 2002 Butterdragon Hill is “[r]emarkably plush and opulent, impeccably balanced, with rich, soothing layers of ripe currant, blueberry, blackberry and plum, scents of cedar, anise, herb and dusty berry. The tannins are ripe and polished and the finish sails on and on.”
We just say yummy.
With the exception of our personal library, the initial release of this wine sold out at $72 a bottle. We are offering these 10 cases at our new, lower price of $60. Plus, for shipments of six bottles or more, we’ll pay for shipping. Eligible repeat customers may use their individual discount. This offer expires midnight PST 12/4/2009.
Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV scored our 2005 Butterdragon Hill 93 points when I was a guest on the WLTV Thunder Show. We’re not big in to points, but 93 sounds good to us, so for this Holiday Special we’re offering magnums of 2005 Match Vineyards Butterdragon Hill Cabernet Sauvignon for $93. That’s $67 off the original release price!
Tasting notes on Cellartracker.com indicate that with a few hours in the decanter, this big bottle will be a great addition to your holiday table.
This offer expires Midnight PST on 12/4/09 or until the small supply is gone.
No additional discounts apply.
Continue reading about Holiday Special #2 – GaryVee said 93. So will we.
We’re going to do a little test of social media. Let’s see what kind of response we get to some very special offers which last only a extremely limited time. These deals will be promoted via Twitter, our Facebook fan page, and Facebook advertising. The rest is up to you. Please spread the joy.
Holiday Special #1: three 2004 Butterdragon Hill for the price of two AND free ground shipping. That works out to $40 bucks a bottle delivered to your door, BUT it only lasts until midnight PST on Friday, 12/4/2009. Orders placed now will be delivered prior to the holidays.
If you’d like to know how the 2004 Butterdragon is drinking, check it out on Cellartracker.com
Limit 4 three packs per customer.
Eligible repeat customers will receive their appropriate discount as well.
Here’s a brief report from winemaker Cary Gott after tasting through the barrels today:
I just tasted all of the wines we have that are in barrel. Very nice wines.
09 Butterdragon, a deep rich wine, a wow!, just finished ML [ed: malolactic fermentation]
09 Baconbrook, clean/fresh- firm texture, will need the extra aging as in past years, just finished ML
08 Butterdragon, beautiful barrel and Cabernet note in the nose and mouth, complex
08 Baconbrook, high structure, nose is developing, flavors are full and round/firm, nice
07 Baconbrook, elegant complex nose, as usual for Baconbrook, plenty of age worth structure, very nice
Continue reading about Cary Gott tastes through the barrels.