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By Bastardo |
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Recently, we caught wind of Access Beverage LLC's new venture, Snob Hill Winery, and their lineup of Le Snoot wines. The Le Snoot "suite" has a North Coast, California, appellation, with the fruit being sourced from Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Solano, and Sonoma Counties. The wines are made at the Taft Street Winery, in Sebastopol, by Snob Hill's Master Winemaker Bob Broman, whose résumé includes stints with Concannon, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, Guenoc, St. Supery and his own Broman Cellars, along with consulting work in France, the Republic of Georgia, Italy and Chile.
"At Snob Hill, we believe the making of premium - performing wines is serious business," says Cab. "With that said, we also believe that a premium-performing wine not only holds up in the presence of humor, but is definitely enhanced by a good chuckle." Now, there's nothing wrong with injecting a little humor into the wine business; Randall Grahm has been doing that successfully for years with his Bonny Doon wines. Here at Gang Central, we enjoy a good laugh as much as anybody, so we finagled our way into tasting through the Le Snoot lineup. Here's what we found with the first three releases.
2002 Snob Hill North Coast Merlot Le Snoot, 13.5% alc.: Dark garnet in color, with a surprising note of briar bramble accenting the black currant and blackberry bouquet. The smooth, creamy medium full - bodied flavors echo brightly, with some added black cherry in the mix, low tannins and more acidity than the chardonnay. Once again, the wine finishes decently, not especially long or particularly short, and as it opens, the fruit turns redder and sweeter (showing a little residual sugar perhaps?), gaining a note of chocolate as well. 2002 Snob Hill North Coast Cabernet Sauvignon Le Snoot, 13.5% alc.: Dark garnet in color, with cassis, black currant, blackberry and chocolate covered cherries in both flavor and aroma; again, there's the creamy texture, with low tannins and fairly low acidity, lower than in the merlot. The deeper, darker cabernet character makes for a more interesting wine than the merlot for this taster.
Bastardo
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Each label on a bottle of Le Snoot features well
- groomed porcine types in evening dress, such as one "Cabel
Walloway," whose portrait graces the Le Snoot Cabernet
Sauvignon. Apparently these little piggies can speak, because Mr.
Walloway is quoted in the Snob Hill press release, wherein he explains
the concept behind the brand. 
Neither of the reds shows much of anything in
the way of structure, and all three wines are all about upfront fruit
and right - now drinkablity. These are wines that should appeal to those
with so - called "California palates," and while we find them to be
perfectly acceptable (though, as consumers we'd like to see them priced
closer to $9 or $10, rather than their $10.99 to $12.99 price range), we
doubt that they "will cater to even the most persnickety connoisseurs
with (their) superior quality and value," as the folks at Snob Hill
suggest. Perhaps their future "ultra - premium" Bee's Knee and
Hollow
Leg brands will live up to that claim when they're released in the Fall
of '04 and Spring of '05 respectively. For our money, Le Snoot clearly
seems to be a good choice for "those apprentice wine lovers who have
been tiptoeing around premium (wines) for years," and, after all, what's
wrong with that? 
Reporting from Day-twah,
