big names from napa

Today I was visited by Duckhorn and Raymond.
Judith Britt supplier rep for duckhorn in the midwest.

The only white that duckhorn does is a Sauv Blanc 2007 , with a touch of semillon , had a touch of the herbacious quality you find in Sancerre but missing a little in the mid palate. Not overly oaked and a slight creamy quality.

2006 migration Pinot noir anderson valley... dark color for pinot, but bright red fruit, a touch hot, cola tea and fruit tannin on the tongue...not a wimpy pinot

2006 Decoy as was described to me not a set blend, can change each year, and not necessarily made every year. basically a blend of wine that didnt quite fit the bill for their napa bottlings.
as with most of these wines I detected a very fruit forward style without a lot of tannin from oak, some cedar but just a pleasant table wine.

2005 Paraduxx Napa Valley cute label of different types of ducks... mostly zin but also no set varietal mix. this had some cab in it that gave structure and comes through in the nose with a little bit of pencil box...perfect for the start of school... it has the nose of zin with briary undergrowth but more elegant..

2005 Duckhorn Napa Merlot this merlot is made from vineyards up and down the valley...a truly valley wine, dark color, rich aromas on the nose, with juiciness and some tar and tobacco on he finish

2005 Duckhorn Napa Cab the wine that they are most known for even though the duckhorns wanted to be the merlot property with st emillion as the benchmark. this is a soft cab with silky tannin and with a little merlot added in it seems a good wine to both age or drink now.

not as expensive but as long lived in napa are the raymond brothers.

2006 r collection chardonnay clean, crisp no ml...a little time in oak this is the trend i have noticed in napa chards to be more about the fruit than the oak and butter and vanilla

2005 r collection merlot it wasnt fair to try this after the duckhorn merlot but for the price point it was nice and juicy , maybe a little too hot from alcohol.

2005 r collection cabernet mocha dark cherry, tar and tannin.s