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Reflective of a long, warm growing season, the wine shows the depth and length of fruit that is fully mature with ripe tannins. It is full-bodied, meant to be cellared for up to 8-10 years. Due to its youthful tannins, it takes about an hour in the glass before it shows itself. When it does, the wine displays a rich array of aromas, from vanilla and cinnamon to powdered cocoa, tobacco, and blackberry jam. Big, mouth filling tannins wrap fairly tightly around a center palate of cassis, black cherry, plum, and raspberry. Decanting is, as usual, the key to unlocking the wine’s complex flavors.

Ripe, assertive, intense, concentrated are the words used described this wine, atypical for Pinot Noir but typical for Garys' Vineyard Pinot Noir. Similar to 2004, deep aromas of baked cherries and berries, with hints of cinnamon, rose petal and spice lead to intense flavors of sweet, ripe cherries. It shows a touch of acidity to balance the richness of the wine. While it is tempting to drink this in its youth, we believe proper cellaring of a few years will better integrate its spicy components.

The nose is very expressive, showing blueberry, violets, leather, herbs, and orange peel. On the palate, this delicious syrah is richly structured, with smooth tannins and ripe notes of red and black fruit. Through the finish, it shows complex flavors of white pepper, bacon, and what we’ve come to recognize as the vineyard’s signature flavor, ripe blackberries. Page Nord has proven to be a remarkably versatile and food-friendly wine.

Elegant oak on the nose gives way fairly quickly to plum, spice, and bacon fat, rounded out by the vineyard’s signature aromas of rhubarb and orange peel. In its youth the wine is tight, chewy and tannic, which open up with at least a hour of aeration. At its core, though, it shows hints of kirsch liqueur, candied raspberry, black cherry, and an underlying minerality. Based on our experience with the vineyard, these complexities will more fully reveal themselves with time in the bottle.

Sweet oak and vanilla aromas jump out of the bottle upon opening, though the fruit characteristics are slow to emerge without ample aeration. Cedar dominates the nose, followed by hints of earth, smoked meat, sage, spice, and mineral. These carry through on the palate, with red cherry, blackberry, currant, and cherry liqueur showing up at the core of this amazingly complex cabernet. The enveloping tannins yield somewhat once the wine has been open for two to three hours. The ’04 Stagecoach is a classic example of a Surh Luchtel wine meant for long term aging. 300 cases produced with a small number of 3 liters.