Wanted something simple and delicious and grabbed this… and for all who know this wine: it was the wrong choice. Delicious it is. Simple it is NOT. Beautiful blue-purple in the glass right out to florescent pink edges. A nose musty and deep, the dankness an old-world kiss on sultry berry and incredible minerality. Smoky funk rises from it, but it’s not an oak thing–kinda like Bardolino–it arises from the complexity of fresh, young fruit, if this thing saw anything other than slight neutral I would be shocked.

Incredibly steely on entry–almost harsh in its drying, quite metallic qualities. Powerful–yes: a POWERFUL $10 New World wine–it claims a grainy stake on the palate with eviscerating acid perched on pithy fruit clawing at every pore. This is California’s answer to Cru-Bojo and while the tech-sheet on the website has dropped all details of its explicit and complicated production in favor of feel-good marketing non-descriptors, those who know KNOW. Ripe and supple throughout, concentrated raspberry and pomegranate churning limitless bounds, WHY this wine isn’t 3X the price and revered by geeks everywhere is a mystery. I know why: because it’s J.Lohr and 10 bucks. That’s why. This is one of the more tannic vintages in my cellar’s long vertical: a bitter grime clinging to the chubby berry far beyond expectation. Buy a 6-pack every single year. Blind it for your somm-friends. Drink the CRAP out of it. There’s not too many people open-minded enough to try or highlight this wine, but those who do, WIN.

2019 J. Johr ‘Wildflower’ Valdiguie Arroyo Seco AVA Monterey Co. 13.0

www.jlohr.com/