Featuring Whispering Dove

The partnership of Whispering Dove was literally formed one night while drinking and enjoying an insanely priced Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

The fruity forward taste of this fine wine turned sour rapidly as we calculated how many hours of work we had to put in simply to afford that wine!

This epiphany led us to investigate just exactly what it truly costs to produce an outstanding bottle of wine. What we learned astounded us.

We learned that after a certain point, all ultra fine wines cost almost exactly the same to produce and that more often than not winemakers based their bottle price upon intangible items such as personality, marketing or worse yet-pure ego. That night Whispering Dove was hatched with our motto…

“LET YOUR PALATE DECIDE”

Whispering Dove winery was founded with the sole purpose of returning to the California wine enthusiast both quality and perspective.

When purchasing a bottle of Whispering Dove, a wine drinker will be afforded the same advantages of an ultra premium California wine without the disadvantage of having to subsidize a wine producer’s extravagant lifestyle.

Rather than pay for airplanes, estates, antiques & art, “Whispering Dove” drinkers will pay for the finest grapes, grown in the best micro climates and produced in collaboration with the hottest winemakers in California.

Appellation: Napa Valley, California

Grapes: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon utilizing stressed farming & low yield techniques with extended maceration for intensity

Production: 950 cases of 12/ 750ml bottles

Aging: 24 months in French Taransaud & Seguin Moreau oak

2001 Lynch Bages

Source	Reviewer	Rating	Maturity
Wine Advocate #146 (Apr 2003)	Robert Parker	(89-91) points	Drink 2005-2017
Showing far better after 13-14 months in cask than it did early in its life, this wine has fleshed out, put on weight, and shows the typically full-bodied, corpulent, earthy, leathery, black currant style that has made Lynch-Bages so popular with consumers. The wine is lush, pure, and just a lot of fun to drink. Anticipated maturity: 2005-2017. P.S. Think of it as a slightly beefier version of the charming, elegant yet flavorful 1999.

Château Lynch Bages, a 5ème Cru Classé, is one of the best-known Médoc estates and has always had a particularly strong following on this side of the English Channel. Since 1973 it has been owned and run by the enigmatic Jean-Michel Cazes.

Lynch Bages's vineyards are superbly sited on a plateau west of Pauillac town, in the small village of Bages. The 90 hectares of vineyards (Red: Cabernet Sauvignon 75%, Merlot 15%, Cabernet Franc 10%)lie on deep gravel beds over limestone. For the reds, fermentation is temperature-controlled with extensive "remontage" to ensure concentration and depth of colour. A special system of pipes transfers the wine from the cuves to the oak barriques (60% new) where it matures for 15 months.

Often described as a poor man's Mouton, Lynch Bages can be surprisingly soft and approachable when young. However, when fully mature, it develops a succulent richness and a heavenly bouquet of minty blackcurrants and cigar boxes. As Oz Clarke says "Lynch Bages is impressive at five years, beautiful at ten years and irresistible at twenty."

$85 from Café Provencal