Tried these two last night:
1. picket fence Chard RRV (13.8%; www.PicketFenceVineyards.com) Hopland 2009: Med.yellow color; attractive ripe/melony/lemony/Chard/mango/spicy light pencilly/oak clean/bright/pure Chard nose; soft light pencilly/oak attractive ripe/melony/lemony/mango/Chard/spicy clean/bright bit simple but pure Chard flavor; med.long bright/lemony/melony/Chard/mango light pencilly/oak finish; a pure/clean/varietally-correct/four-square Chard w/ plenty of flavor & aromatics at a great price. $10.00 (AV)
_______________
2. JCCllrs Misc.Stuff Calif RW (Grenache/Syrah/Mourvedre/PetiteSirah; 15.5%) 2010: Very dark/black color; strong toasty/oak/smokey bit pungent/graphite rather blackberry/boysenberry/Syrah slight earthy nose; soft rather hot/alcoholic very strong blackberry/boysenberry/Syrah rather toasty/chared/smokey/oak sorta unfocused flavor w/ some hard/gritty tannins; long fairly hot/alcoholic/fumey very strong blackberry/boysenberry/Syrah/chocolaty strong toasty/charred/oak finish w/ rather hard/unyielding/gritty tannins; seems rather unfocused and just a bunch of miscellaneous stuff of leftover wines just thrown together w/ no rhyme nor reason; not a bad wine and very expressive of JeffCohn winemaking but seems sorta purposeless; pretty ppricey at $45.00
_________________________________
And a wee BloodyPulpit:
1. picket fence: Not a wnry I'd ever seen nor heard of before. Winemaker is AllisonCrowe, another total unknown. My eyes glided over this btl on the shelf at ArroyoVino until I saw the price...$10!!! Is Brian trying to out-TraderJoe's us w/ this wine? So I bought a btl w/ very low expectations. I was mightly impressed by this Chard. Better than any of the TJ's <$20 Chards I've ever tried. Certainly not a profound rendition of Chard but just mighty tasty and way overdelivers for $10.00
Tom