The joys of a quality wine shop like the Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan is enjoying the wines that are offered to you.  Some days it will be whites and rosés, sometimes sparkling wines, and other times it will be reds.  And I will say always, that there is a great chance of trying varietals and districts that you have never encountered.  It will always make you smarter for the future, when you are in a restaurant, because you can make wine assessments much easier, with the more knowledge that you have.

I had a chance to taste Daou Vineyards “Soul of a Lion” Cabernet Sauvignon Adelaida District/Paso Robles 2020, which is the Tenth Anniversary of this wine.  Daou Vineyards is famed for their Cabernet Sauvignon, and their Bordeaux-style blends; as well as Rhone styles and Burgundian style wines.  Their wine portfolio is divided into four tiers at different price points.  The top-level is their Estate Collection, which made from estate-grown fruit and “Soul of a Lion” is their flagship wine.  The estate was established in 2007 by brothers George and Daniel Daou, who previously had a successful IT business.  The initial purchase was for part of the Hoffman Mountain Ranch, and in 2012 they purchased the balance of the estate and now have two-hundred-twelve-acres of vineyards.  The Hoffman Ranch was the first modern commercial winery in Paso Robles after Prohibition.  It was established by Stanley Hoffman with the help of winemaker Andre Tchelischeff.  The “Soul of a Lion” was named for their father with the intention of making the finest Cabernet Sauvignon from DAOU Mountain. The wine is a blend of eighty-one percent Cabernet Sauvignon, thirteen percent Cabernet Franc and six percent Petit Verdot.  The wine was aged for twenty-two months in new French Oak.  A very deep purple wine with garnet reflections and offered notes of black fruit, tobacco, leather, florals, and a whiff of dark chocolate.  On the palate, this was a big wine offering great tones of black cherry, currants, cassis with secondary tones of figs, truffles, baking spices, ripe tannins, and limestone. With a nice long count for a finish evoking more black fruit, espresso, pepper, and terroir.  This wine could easily accept ten to twenty years in the cellar.

The wine to follow was also a show-stopper.  We enjoyed Dominus Estate Christian Moueix Napa Valley 2019 as I was curious to see how a new vintage would taste like.  Dominus is Latin for “Lord of the Estate.”  I am sure that Christian Moueix knew that he would be pressed to live up to that title.  Christian Moueix comes from a famed wine family from Bordeaux, France and among the many wineries that they own is Chateau Petrus (which alas I have never had) and Chateau Trotanoy both from the Commune of Pomerol.  He acquired the old Napanook Vineyard in Napa Valley and has made it his own.  The estate is based around the Napanook Vineyard which was originally planted in 1838 by George Yount.  Originally the estate was one-hundred-twenty-four-acres and ten more acres have been added over the years.  The estate is organic and they use dry-farming techniques, first used at Chateau Petrus, on a gravely-clay-soil with gentle sloping for natural drainage. Some of the common procedures that they use for each vintage are cluster sorting by hand, optical sorting of berries, gentle pump-overs to delicately extract aromas, color and tannins, and hand-racking barrel to barrel every three months.  The wine is a blend of ninety percent Cabernet Sauvignon, four percent Cabernet Franc, and six percent Petit Verdot.  The wine is oak, of which forty percent is new for about twenty months.  A deep ruby-red offering notes of black fruits, tobacco, jasmine, and spices. On the palate tones of black cherry and cassis are first, followed by currants, licorice and silk tannins and then ends with a long count finish of plums and graphite.  Definitely a good ten years in the cellar to make this wine truly memorable, even though most will enjoy it young.