High End Red - 7th Allocation
 This is the fourth time that we've offered this month's High End Red Wine club selection - Orin Swift Mercury Head Cabernet Sauvignon - the wine is that good!
In fact we love all of the wines that Dave Phinney makes - he's the mind behind Orin Swift wines and is best known for The Prisoner Zinfandel blend - he's that good!
He's best known for The Prisoner, but also makes Saldo Zinfandel, Veladora Sauvignon Blanc, Papillon Meritage blend, and Stanton Cabernet Sauvignon. All are known for their full blown style and beautiful package design , but this wine is perhaps the greatest example of the David Phinney style.
Mercury Head Cabernet Sauvignon has it all - killer packaging (a real Mercury Head Dime glued to the bottle!), great fruit, and a lovely finish!
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High End Red - Sixth Allocation
 This month, we travel to Portugal to sample one of the great new wave of great wines being made on the Iberian peninsula: Lemos And Van Zeller CV (Curriculum Vitae)
The 2007 CV (Curriculum Vitae) is a Douro field blend, some 20 grapes identified according to owner Cristiano van Zeller. Single vineyard with an average age of 80 years. Aged in 100% French oak for 21 months. Primary varietals are Rufete Turiga, Tinta Amarilla, Turiga Franca and Turiga Nacional (very special old vines).
The 2007 “CV” (the initials stand for “Curriculum Vitae”) (Quinta Vale D. Maria) is a blockbuster, full in the mouth, round, with a gorgeous, lingering finish. In its youth, it has a touch of oak and licorice noticeable. Its attack is subtle at first, and then it increases in intensity to the point where it is rather focused and penetrating. It is structured and remarkably flavorful, with lovely red berry notes on the finish.
Cristiano Van Zeller, one of the Douro’s most prominent and important figures and the former head of Noval, has a growing empire that includes brands like CV, Vale D. Maria, Van Zellers and Casa de Casal Loivos.
400 six packs made, we have two. 91 points Parker.
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Fifth Allocation - High End Red
 This month, we offer an amazing wine, 2006 Las Flors de la Peira – a sustainable to organically farmed Grenache Syrah Mourvèdre blend from Southern France. We featured this wine's younger sister in a past Classic club, and customers are still asking for more of it!.
94 points from Robert Parker, who noted that the wine "displays a simultaneously ravishing and decadent nose of fading lilies, iris, candied black fruits, mint chocolate, resin, and baking spices. Chalky, stony foundations under-gird the chocolate-drenched and spice-dusted black fruits on the palate, and an inner mouth floral profusion persists right though to a superbly soothing finish. In both perfume and its cocoa-powder richness and velvet texture, this puts me in mind of a great Pomerol. For as far-gone on sheer ripeness and decadence as it is, this retains a wonderful sense of lift and elegance. Here is further proof (in a dramatically different style from Olivier Jullien’s wine) that 2006 was especially favored in this sector of the Terrasses du Larzac, and certainly this wine bids fair to evolve fascinatingly for at least a decade."
La Peira en Damaisela is the property of London-based composer Robert Dugan, located between Jonquieres and Aniane, on two adjacent parcels of no known previous distinction, but to which in 2004 instinct led him either with remarkable prescience or remarkable luck. The deep alluvial fan that is the basis for this site is only barely tilted, as it might be in St. Helena or Rutherford, St.-Estephe or Pomerol ... and these comparisons will not seem inapt once you experience the quality of La Peira’s wines. Claude Gros (of Chateau de Negly fame) consults here, expense seems not to have been spared on a new facility (with, of course, lots of new barrels), and Bordeaux-trained Jeremie Depierre is the hands-on (or, as I am sure he and Dugan would prefer me to put it “hands-off”) winemaker. New barrels of 500-600 liter capacity are favored here, incidentally, rather than classic (225 liter) barriques.
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April '10 High End Red
I have been raving for months about the wines of Raul Perez - the wild eyed winemaker from northwestern Spain who makes precise, amazing wines from native varietals.
His wines are made in miniscule quantities and even less makes it to this country. We are fortunate to have a good supply of his wines - beyond even what we are presenting to the club this month (so if you are interested in his other wines, let me know).
You have a choice of one of the following (you can buy more than one if you wish), made from native grapes Bastardo, Mencia, and Prieto Pecudo.
 2006 Quinta da Moradella Gorvia Bastardo - The Bastardo spent 14 months in French oak. It is medium
ruby-colored with kinky aromas of underbrush, mineral, wild cherry and black raspberry. Elegant, velvety textured, and complex on the palate, this impeccably balanced wine will drink well for 6-8 years. Unfortunately, there is not much of this singular wine to go around. 96 points Parker $85/btl
2006 Quinta da Moradella Gorvia Tinto Sourced from the same vineyard, this wine is composed of 90% Mencia, 5% Bastardo, and 5% Caino Redondo aged for 14 months in French oak. This unique offering is exceptionally perfumed with aromas of rose petals, cherry blossom, raspberry, and spice box. Elegant and silky on the palate, it has a Pinot Noir-like texture, layers of sweet fruit, and vibrant acidity. 2005 rated 92 points '06 not yet rated Parker $54/btl
Quinta da Muradella is where star vigneron Raul Perez makes his A Trabe wines. Grapes from this vineyard were once used to make Grappa but now serve a more noble purpose. A mere 1.2 hectares in size, the vineyard is now biodynamically farmed.
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It's no secret that we love wines from Owen Roe Winery here at Farmstead. Throughout the years, we've carried nearly 30 different wines from their Corvidae, Sharecropper's, O'Reilly's, and Owen Roe brands. 
