New Wine Reviews: En Garde
I’ve given En Garde, which is based in Kenwood (Sonoma County), lots of 90-plus scores over the years, and my successors at Wine Enthusiast have followed suit. I taught my young Jedis well! The winery specializes in the two hottest wines in California, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. The owner/winemaker is Hungarian-American Csaba Szakál; his first wine was a 2007 Diamond Mountain Cabernet to which I gave 95 points and a “Cellar Selection’ designation. (I wish I could taste it now to see how it’s doing.) Judging by the wine wines, En Garde remains focused and on-track.
En Garde 2013 Adamus Cabernet Sauvignon (Diamond Mountain); $100. This is a reserve-style selection from the winery’s block of the Sori Bricco Vineyard. The price is midway between the Bijou du Roi ($120, 95 points) and the regular Diamond Mountain ($90, 92 points), both of which also are from Sori Bricco. This is certainly a delicious, important Cabernet Sauvignon, rich and opulent, but I wonder why En Garde needs three wines from the same vineyard. With ultra-smooth tannins, complex black currant, green olive and oak flavors, and refreshing acidity, it’s a crowd-pleaser, but really, all three wines are so similar that most people could not detect any difference. Still, kudos to Csaba. He has amazing grapes and he is making amazing, ageable wines. Score: 93 points.
En Garde 2013 Touché Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley); $180. This is the winery’s most expensive Cabernet. It’s a blend of their best barrels from their Diamond Mountain and Mount Veeder vineyards. It’s also, with their Bijou du Roi Cabernet, the oakiest of the six new releases (100% new French for 28 months). There’s a family resemblance with En Garde’s other 2013s: concentrated blackcurrant, cassis and green olive flavors, plus in this case a bacony, umami tang that adds to the pleasure. Cedary, toasty oak. Thick tannins, and acidity that’s fine and cleansing. If there’s a qualitative difference here, and there is, it’s in the purity. There’s a structural refinement that’s hard to put into words, a wholesome completeness that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Adjectives that come to mind are smooth, impeccable, dramatic, authoritative, delicious, lithe, and let’s not forget ageworthy: I would drink this now, but it should glide effortlessly through the decades. Score: 96 points.
En Garde 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon (Mount Veeder); $90. I fell in love with this wine with the first sip. Profound! So pure, so refined, so essence of Napa Valley mountain Cabernet. The vineyard is above the fogline so it gets more sun than down on the valley floor; there’s a ton of ripe, flashy blackcurrants and blueberries and blackberries. Oak, too: 67% new French for 21 months, which adds clove and vanilla notes. The wine feels dense and important, if you know what I mean: nothing flimsy here, just solid, packed juiciness and complexity. Also lots of mountain tannins that give it a certain astringency. Parker gave this wine 93 points. I’ll go to 95 points. You can drink it now, or over the next 20 years.
En Garde 2014 Gold Ridge Pinot Noir (Green Valley); $55. I’m giving this the highest score of En Garde’s five new Pinot Noirs. The vineyard is near Sebastopol, planted in the famous Goldridge soils I wrote about years ago in my first book. This soil type is very fine and sandy, with wonderful drainage; Ehren Jordan calls it “rain forest desert.” The Pinots grown in Goldridge have a delicacy that’s otherwise rare in the Russian River Valley, of which the Green Valley appellation is a subset in the chilly, foggy southwest corner. The wine, whose alcohol is 13.5%, is exceedingly fine. It first strikes you for deliciousness: savory essence of raspberries, a vein of red licorice, a taste of wild mushroom, the sweetness of roasted oak, a pleasantly titillating clove-and-white pepper spiciness. Then you notice how light and silky it is, how “transparent” to use that overworked word. Another sip; a third; the wine is addictive. A Pinot Noir triumph, superb to drink now. If I had a case, I’d drink a bottle a year. Score: 97 points.
En Garde 2013 Le Bijou du Roi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (Diamond Mountain); $120. This mountain appellation in the Mayacamas Mountains always gives intensely concentrated, yet tannic, Cabernets than can take a lot of time in the cellar. The grapes are from the Sori Bricco Vineyard, which has been source to Cabernets from Nickel & Nickel and Von Strasser—not bad company to be in! The wine is, in a word, immense. The color is very dark, almost impenetrable. The aroma is young and intense: fresh black currants, green olives, oak (100% new French), and a lanolin note, like warm candle wax. In the mouth the flavors of blackcurrants and ripe blackberries have a floral edge of violet petals and anise. Very delicious, very complex. But those tannins are strong. Of course, they’re as finely-meshed as modern winemaking techniques can achieve, and there’s no reason you can’t drink the wine now. Yet in a proper cellar it should stride effortlessly through the next two decades. Great job. Alcohol 14.5%, 112 cases produced. Score: 95 points.
En Garde 2014 Reserve Pinot Noir (Russian River Valley); $70. The thing to keep in mind about most reserves is that (a) the winery makes a decision in the first place to have one and then, having made that choice, (b) the winemaker chooses the “best barrels” that will comprise it. The selection is therefore arbitrary. In my long experience, reserves aren’t necessarily better, although they are more expensive—sometimes considerably so. This reserve is 15 dollars more than En Garde’s single vineyard Pinots, and 25 dollars more than the regular Russian River Valley. It is a composite of the single vineyard wines: Olivet Court, Starkey Hill and Gold Ridge. It’s a close approximation of them all, made in the winery’s style: rich, dense, layered, complex. It’s also the oakiest of the bunch. The result is delicious: red currants, licorice, cranberries, tea, beet root, wild mushroom, cloves, anise, wrapped into firm tannins. Is it “better” than the rest? Not really. But it sure is good. Score: 94 points.
En Garde 2014 Starkey Hill Pinot Noir (Russian River Valley); $55. I tasted this alongside the Olivet Court, and the difference was stark. The Starkey, which comes from the Sebastopol area, is much lighter in body and more delicate in structure. It’s also more transparent of the terroir, and less fruit-forward, not so much about raspberries and cranberries, although they’re there, but more subtle sensations. The tea, mushroom, beet, cocoa dust and anise flavors of Olivet Court are there, but the main difference is how light and ethereal this wine feels. The alcohol is only 13.2%. The wine has a grip that’s partly from zippy acidity, and partly from unresolved tannins, and the finish is absolutely dry. Production was 138 cases. I suspect most people will drink this wine soon, and that’s fine; give it some decanting, and enjoy with ahi tuna, lamb, a great grilled steak or wild mushroom risotto. But if you like your Russian River Valley Pinots with some bottle age, it will develop nicely over the next ten years, at least. Score: 93 points.
En Garde 2014 Olivet Court Pinot Noir (Russian River Valley); $55. What I like about this Pinot is that it has big, flashy, exuberant flavors, but also a complexity that gives it intellectual interest. The fruits suggest raspberries, cranberries, red currants and orange zest. The complexity derives from the earth, with tea, mushroom, beet root, anise and clove notes, finished with the sweet, smoky vanilla of new French oak. It’s a good wine, solid and well-made, with fine acidity and silky tannins. Should be more interesting in a few years, and could go to ten years while dropping sediment and purifying. The vineyard is west of Santa Rosa, and is said to be planted to vines more than 35 years of age. The alcohol is 14.1%. Score: 92 points.
En Garde 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon (Diamond Mountain); $90. A first bottle was severely corked. The second showed well, displaying a plethora of ripe, Napa-esque Cabernet flavors: blackberries, black currants, cassis liqueur, blueberries, pencil lead and dark shaved chocolate, accented by 60% new French oak aging for 28 months. The tannins are strong, as you’d expect from Diamond Mountain, and there’s good, savory, balancing acidity. I would cellar this for 4-5 years. Score: 92 points.
En Garde 2014 Pinot Noir (Russian River Valley); $45. It’s true that this regional Pinot isn’t quite as concentrated as En Garde’s single-vineyard bottlings, which it’s a blend of. But that is in its favor, because it’s the most drinkable of the winery’s five Pinot Noirs at this time. It’s quite classic, with lively acidity highlighting flavors of raspberries, cranberries, balsam, crispy bacon, orange zest, tea, pepper and cloves. Bone dry, with moderate alcohol (14.3%) and a silky mouthfeel, it’s not an ager, but it’s a real beauty for drinking now, and every bit as good as the Olivet Court, which costs ten bucks more. Production was 130 cases. Score: 92 points.
En Garde 2013 Tempranillo (El Dorado); $40. Body-wise, this wine is like a full-sized Pinot Noir, veering into a lighter Merlot, but with the spiciness of Zinfandel. With alcohol of 14.4%, it features oaky, fruity flavors of red licorice, red currants, cocoa nib and teriyaki beef, with soft tannins and good acidity, all wrapped into a silky texture. It’s a good, drinkable wine, although not particularly Tempranillo-esque, whatever that means in California. The grapes were grown at an altitude of 2,800 feet in the Sierra Foothills, where the summer weather is quite hot and dry during the daytime, but chilly at night. The winemaker interestingly blended in a little Petit Verdot—for structure? Steak would be the ideal partner, unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case a mushroomy lasagna will suffice. Score: 88 points.
En Garde 2013 Greenville Summit Cabernet Sauvignon (Livermore Valley); $70. I can’t say I found this Cab in the same league as the winery’s Napa Valley bottlings. It’s sound, it’s good, it’s drinkable, but it simply lacks their lush, rich opulence. The blackcurrant and cassis fruit, the oliveaceous notes are there, but the wine is quite tannic and dry and tart, and there’s something herbal: maybe it’s the Hungarian oak that gives it a dill weed aroma. I would decant this wine before drinking it; it should provide decent drinking over the next 4-5 years. Score: 87 points.
Steve, put this review in context:
“En Garde 2014 Gold Ridge Pinot Noir (Green Valley); $55. I’m giving this the highest score of En Garde’s five new Pinot Noirs. The vineyard is near Sebastopol, planted in the famous Goldridge soils I wrote about years ago in my first book. This soil type is very fine and sandy, with wonderful drainage; Ehren Jordan calls it “rain forest desert.” The Pinots grown in Goldridge have a delicacy that’s otherwise rare in the Russian River Valley, of which the Green Valley appellation is a subset in the chilly, foggy southwest corner. The wine, whose alcohol is 13.5%, is exceedingly fine. It first strikes you for deliciousness: savory essence of raspberries, a vein of red licorice, a taste of wild mushroom, the sweetness of roasted oak, a pleasantly titillating clove-and-white pepper spiciness. Then you notice how light and silky it is, how “transparent” to use that overworked word. Another sip; a third; the wine is addictive. A Pinot Noir triumph, superb to drink now. If I had a case, I’d drink a bottle a year. Score: 97 points.”
Is 97 points the highest California Pinot Noir score you have ever awarded?
~~ Bob
No. I gave 100 points to a Williams Selyem Estate Pinot Noir.
97 is certainly the highest score my wines ever received including the Cabs. Very flattering Steve, I am honored!
Csaba:
Seems you are in good (make that exalted) company.
~~ Bob
“Pinots Near The Pinnacle;
Steve Heimoff attends a Williams Selyem vertical tasting at the 2010 World of Pinot Noir festival.”
(Mar 16, 2010)
http://www.winemag.com/2010/03/16/pinots-near-the-pinnacle/
1991 Allen Vineyard (Russian River Valley): From the original 40-year old vineyard planted beside the winery, an exquisitely aromatic wine, brimming with baked raspberry tart, rose petal, meringue, sweet cocoa and buttered cinnamon toast aromas and flavors. Pure and limpid, so refined and sweet, yet bone dry. Defines the elegance and finesse of a perfectly-aged, great Russian River Pinot Noir. As grand as it is, has years of life ahead. Made from the Pommard selection, with alcohol of 13.1%. Stunning. Score: 100.