Stone Hill Norton: Weedy Goat (and not in a good way)

So I opened the Stone Hill Norton last night and sipped it while I watched the movie Black Book (which I loved, but that would be another post). Despite being about twice the cost of the Illinois Cellars' Norton, it was a worse wine. It wasn't particularly sweet or goaty, but it was thin and astringent. Perhaps it will have opened up since last night - thereby becoming a little less astringent - but this will probably not improve its body.

Part of the problem, presumably, was its aging in oak barrels. A little oak can improve a wine, but all too often vintners appear to use oak to cover up imperfection and so drinking a wine can turn out to be like sucking on a wood chip. This wasn't that bad, but it certainly was more like sucking on a wood chip than one would prefer. At any rate, the thin-ness was the real problem.

It had a little of that wet mammalian hint, which I would normally have welcomed. However, the wine was also unpleasantly weedy. Sometimes a wine is described as herbaceous or tasting subtly of grass... and this is supposed to be a good thing. In the case of the Stone Hill Norton, it tasted a little like bad hay... thus: "weedy". Interestingly, the weediness and the wet mammal melded in a way that removed any potential for pleasure from the taste of wet mammal. (I realize that the previous sentence contains what might seem like a paradoxical presupposition; but, trust me, a little wet mammal can be nice.)

Summing up: Thus far, the Illinois Cellars' Norton is still by far the best I've tried and at less cost than its rivals. I ended my last post - the one on the Catawba - with a list of whites I'd like to try. Perhaps I should branch out and try some different North American reds - in particular, the Baco Noir or Chambourcin.