96 Flora Springs Napa Valley "St. Rutherford" C.S.

[newsguy]

($26.99 btc; 14.0%) although now the equivalent of this from flora springs would be their regular napa valley bottling, in '96 this was actually a wine completely sourced from their home vineyard, which straddles the St. Helena and Rutherford districts, hence the St. Rutherford name. this wine is deep ruby, going orange at the rim. a gorgeous, full nose of licorice, spice and dark fruits (blackberry, plums, cassis), and those flavors are echoed on the tongue with great intensity. a wonderful entry and midpalate, leading to a finish that keeps going and going. there are still some slight Rutherford dust tannins that i expect will disappear in 2-3 years. i was fortunate to have found a case of this last week and will be thoroughly enjoying it over the next 5 years or so -- if i can make it last that long. 93 points.

[newsguy]

popped a bottle of this last night and this baby is singing. tannins are fully resolved and this beauty has got to be very close to the top of its game. expect it will stay there quite a while... and i have nearly a full case left. lucky me. [img]http://wines.com/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img] i actually paid less for these after five years of being in good storage than the actual release price, which apparently was $32 per bottle. at $26.99 per bottle, this is about as good as value as i've had. no change in scoring.

[This message has been edited by newsguy (edited 05-10-2007).]

[winophite]

I had a Flora Springs something or another from a wine club, but cant find my notes on this blasted electronic box! How is a good way to organise notes!!! By country; by grape; or (darn the French) by name of producer? WP

[winoweenie]

Don't unnerstand what happened to my reply on this post I made yesterday. Just reminded myself how much admiration I have for Ken Dies the only winemaker Floras' had and how consistantly excellent their products are. Their Trilogy is IMHO one of the Benchmark Meritages. WW

[wondersofwine]

Winophite,
I'm a fine one to talk as I haven't made an electronic database of my notes except by posting here and on WLDG. However, CellarTracker and other software programs can help you organize a wine tasting database. I believe such programs offer the ability to search by producer's name, geographic name (Carneros, Napa, Volnay, Sancerre, Tuscany, etc.) and by grape variety if you record that. http://www.cellartracker.com/intro.asp

(I have no commercial interest in CellarTracker or any other wine software.)

Many of my notes are on 3" x 5" recipe cards but filing is a problem. I have dividers for California, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Italy, etc. but then wonder whether to keep most recent to the front, file by producer, or keep Zinfandels together, Pinot Noirs together, etc. That's where a good electronic database could help--searching by different categories depending on need.

[newsguy]

popped another bottle last night. i have noticed a bit of bottle variation in this wine, with most of them being outstanding. last night's was a notch below, however, at 90 points. still quality stuff.

[newsguy]

had another bottle on friday night as my brother cooked us dinner as part of an early birthday celebration (my BD's monday 8/6). he does the cooking (homegrown tomatoes w/ fresh mozzarella and balsamic & herbs, roasted potatoes drizzled with olive oil and herbs, green beans and spaetzle, along with some d-mn fined hunks of spice-rubbed cow (filets and N.Y. strips cooked on the grill) and i bring the wines.

this bottle of the '96 flora springs st. rutherford cab was the best bottle of the 12 or so i've had to date. absolutely amazing fruit intensity (in addition to eh above description add gobs of raspberry on the very lengthy finish), plenty of structure and clearly has room still to improve, then hold for quite a while. 94+ points, and bordering on classic. clearly outshone the other two very tasty bottle i brought: a 97 titus napa valley cab (91 points) and an '02 le conselliere (spelling is off, i'm sure) bordeaux (90 points, and quite a value).

[This message has been edited by newsguy (edited 08-05-2007).]

[Kcwhippet]

Haven't had too many Flora Springs (there's just way too many wines out there). WW opened the 95 and the 97 when we were out there a few weeks ago, and they were wonderful. We have some in the shop and I'm going to have to bring some home because I really liked them and your notes make my mouth water.