2006 Stefania Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mountains

How many times can F. Scott and Zelda possibly drink and write about Paul and Stefania Romero's wines of Stefania? Well, unfortunately for you all, you are going to have to keep reading about them until we finally run out of them, but I don't see that happening for quite sometime. You all know how much of wine lovers we are, and how we like to drink many different varietals of wines from a whole plethora of producers. Who might the number one producer in our cellar be? You guessed it, Stefania, for good reason! Paul and Stef are crafting incredible wines, at incredible prices, that really suit our palates! A quick Grape Stories report reveals that we have 116 bottles of Stefania in our cellar, making up almost 16% of our total inventory! I think that those numbers speak wonders for what Paul and Stef are doing with their fruit! This happens to be the third bottle of this particular wine that we have opened, and has showed the best yet out of all of them. This wine was open for about 2 hours prior to consumption, and the nose revealed nice sweet and dark berries, with hints of mint, eucalyptus, tobacco, and currants, with a bit of cedar and and cassis. On the palate, this is where the wine really shines, and I would put this wine up against many cabernet in the $60-$100 price range. Awesome full bodied creamy feel of dark cherry, cassis, currants, blackberry, and spice, with a good acidity, and nice soft tannins. I am actually pretty surprised at just how soft the tannins are on this wine as it is so young, yet I do believe that this wine will age easily or another 10 years, and get better as it goes. Regardless, I do not think that extended aging is necessary for this wine as it is drinking so well now. I also do not believe that this wine needs to be decanted, and is just as good popped and poured. Even so, this wine does benefit with air, and only gets better with more time to open up. In short, what is there to say other than awesome! At $32, this is an incredible QPR, and such a pleasant wine to open and share with friends! Kudos to Paul and Stef on taking such pride in such affordable wines! 93 points! Cheers! -F. Scott

2007 Stefania Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains

Out of all of the wines that I have been dying to taste, this one may rank at the top of my list, and I finally gave into the peer pressure and popped one since I have a few of them laying around. Let me say that I will let the other 5 rest for a while in the cellar before popping another, but this wine shows some great potential, but what else do you expect from a wine hand crafted by Paul and Stef. This wine was popped and poured over the course of 3 hours, and had a nice light ruby color in the glass with lots of strawberry and floral, earthy notes on the nose. There were also hints of spice, and some nice vanilla tones which I attribute to the barrels used for this wine. On the palate, firs thing you’ll notice is that this is not your typical fruit forward pinot. I didn’t find any candied fruits on the palate whatsoever, but I did find some nice dark cherry hints that I love in pinot from this area. The acidity on this wine is nice at this point, but there is a bit of tannin, which is not overwhelming in the least, but I think it’ll settle out nicely with another year in the bottle. All in all, this wine shows some great qualities, and have potential for some serious improvement with time. For now, I would score this wine 88 points, and I could easily see it going up another 5 points or so with some aging. That said, the others will rest, and we’ll try another one in the Spring or Summer of 2011 to see where it is at. This winery shows so much promise, and I look forward to their future offerings! Cheers!