Over the course of a week, I taste a bunch of wine, usually with friends, and almost always with my wife. This week we had some good friends who were back in town for a few days, so we got some serious drinking in. Here are some of the wines we tasted this last week that stood out:

2006 Abiouness Pinot Noir Stanly Ranch: Retail: $30. Popped and poured. Hints of stewed fruit and really nice secondary flavors of bacon and a bit of leather have developed. Over the course of the bottle, as is usually the case, the wine really improved, going from Good, to Very Good, to the verge of Excellent. 88 to 90 Points.

2006 L’Angevin Pinot Noir: Retail $45. After the last bottle a couple of years ago, I was hoping that the wine had simply been going through a bit of a dead period. Well, I might just be a genius–this wine rocked. Tons of fruit, and some back end complexity. This is really good juice. Outstanding. 90-92 Points.

2003 Beaulieu Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford: Retail $22. or a ten year old “average” wine, this was pretty rocking. Really good fruit up front, and the fact that it was not really backed up with anything did not seem to matter. No, this was good and fun, if uncomplicated. Very Good. 86-88 Points.

1992 Beaulieu Vineyard Tapestry Reserve: Retail $45. This in no way made me think this was a 20 year old wine–rich expressive fruit with soft tannins and active acidity, this is an outstanding food wine and still going strong into its third decade. Excellent. 90-92 Points.

2004 Copain Syrah Madder Lake: Retail $35. Rich and full with a bit of spice on the end, this was wonderful. Good fruit and structure with just the right amount of acidity and some “Syrah spice” on the lingering finish, this wine was really singing. Excellent. 90-92 Points.

2004 Cosentino Winery Cabernet Sauvignon: Retail $35. Dark and brooding, this wine really is doing well. Rich dark berry fruit and hints of vanilla and mocha, the oak is present, but in no way overpowering. I really enjoy Mitch Cosentino’s work. Outstanding. 91-93 Points.

1995 De Loach Zinfandel Papera Ranch: Retail ??? Popped and poured. I had no idea what to expect, but this really was fantastic. Great fruit on both the nose and the palate, this seemed like a wine not even half its age. The finish is a bit wanting, but, hey this sucker is almost 20 years old. Truly remarkable. Excellent to Outstanding. 90-92 Points.

2007 Melville Chardonnay Estate: Retail $30. A bit dark on the color scale, which scared me a bit–this has been one of our favorite chards for a while. On the nose, a bit of lemon, vanilla, and oak. On the palate more of the same, but with a tarty creaminess that really, really works. Excellent. 90-92 Points.

2007 Novy Family Wines Syrah Rosella’s Vineyard: Retail $32. I am a fan of Novy and Siduri, so take the following with that in mind: this wine was fantastic. Not surprising that this is a Pinot lover’s Syrah–not overly bombastic fruit, great balance, long finish. Very impressive. Excellent to Outstanding 91-93 Points.

WINE OF THE WEEK: As is what seems to be the case, choosing the Wine of the Week (WOTW) this time around was challenging. There were many solid wines, some were even “better” than the WOTW if I went strictly by score: the Cosentino and the Novy rosella’s Syrah for example. The 1995 DeLoach Papera Ranch Zin was certainly incredible and would likely have gotten the nod for WOTW if my wife had not completely disagreed with my assessment (she thought it was too “stewed”–she was wrong, it wasn’t). In fact, overall, it was a pretty good week for wine (I did not even include here the three bottles of Champagne either!).

We had the 2006 l’Angevin Pinot Noir early in the week and I thought at the time that it would be very hard to beat for WOTW (I guess that is a bit geeky, thinking about what might be WOTW on a Monday for the following Monday) and none of the subsequent wines was able to dislodge it from the top spot. My last tasting note for this wine (June, 2011) was not stellar: “Disappointment. Popped and poured. Rather thin and lacking complexity. Just not very interesting. Some RR pinot characteristics (nice eucalyptus nose) but not much there. Good, no more. 83-85 Points.” It really showed so much better than the last bottle we had–it was rather amazing and a worthy winner of WOTW.

What was your wine of the week?