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The Tom Hill Archives

The Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium presents the musings and reflections of Tom Hill. We think it's great that Tom, who has sampled so many wines, has shared his tasting notes with us. We do have, or have had for sale a few of the wines Tom writes about, and we include a link to our stock page whenever it is a producer we carry (but since the stock page is kept up-to-date and the wines are sold, don't expect any but the newest of wines to show up in our stock!). Mostly though, since we specialize in County of Santa Barbara Wine and Central Coast Wine, we don't carry a lot of the wines Tom writes about. But we think it is important that you be able to have an idea what they're like in case you are planning to buy some somewhere, or have them in your own collection. Enjoy.

Here are Tom's notes from March 5, 2003:

Birthday Wines for Rita

Tasted this week some Birthday wines for Rita: 
 
  1. Rhodes Vineyard Colorado Chardonnay Sweet Table Wine; P&B by S.Rhodes Vineyard, Hotchkiss, CO;  1997: Dark gold color; strong very ripe/overripe/rotted apples some creme brulee/ butterscotch pudding slight oxidized nose; very sweet bit oxidized very ripe/ overripe/rotted apples lush flavor; long/sweet rotted apples slight oxidized finish; tastes like Chard left out on the vine to dehydrate after leaf drop; kinda interesting in an eccentric sort of way; would be great w/ butterscotch puddin.
  2. Chateau Nairac Barsac/Sauternes; Proprietaires: M & Mme Heeter-Tari; 1980: Med.dark gold color; rather toasty/oaked/toasty coconutty butterscotchy some botrytis/peachy caramel some old Sauternes nose; soft slightly sweet rather toasty/pencilly/Fr.oak slight earthy/oxidized caramel/butterscotch/creme brulee bit peachy/botrytis flavor; med.long soft slight oxidized/old Sauternes light peachy/botrytis rather toasty/caramel/toasted coconut finish; interesting atypical old Sauternes.
  3. Rosa d'Amore Sweet Malvasia di Casorzo (5%) NV: Med. cherry/red color; fragrant/ grapey/cherry/muscatty some Lambrusco-like soda-pop perfumed nose; spritzy very bright/cherry/Nehi soda pop/cherry cola off-dry grapey/muscatty flavor; med.short cherry/soda pop/muscatty slight earthy flavor; loads of grapey character and a bit like a Lambrusco-Lite.
Un' petite bloody pulpit:
  1. Nairac: In the late '70's, Mr. (Tom?) Heeter married the Tari daughter (of Leoville- Las Cas fame?) and they were given (dowery?) the old/run-dowm Ch.Nairac Sauternes property to run, as I understand it. With lots of infusion of $$'s, they started to turn out some interesting Sauternes. Eventually the couple parted ways and the property sort of went down-hill to my tastes. Haven't had anything of recent vintage from Ch.Nairac, so don't know what's going on there now. I gather Nicole and son Nicolas now run the property. Presume Tom returned to America.
TomHill
 

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