Back at the end of March, seven of us gathered in the back room of a neighborhood restaurant in Newton to taste through some older vintages of Sociando-Mallet.
Starter wines:
1991 Roederer Estate L’Ermitage Brut Anderson Valley. This is a dark honey color, with a nose featuring yellow fruits and sweeter honey notes. In the mouth, it has a pleasing density and viscosity that make it feel masculine, yet it still offers a little sense of some aged refinement. It holds together nicely from entry to finish and stays juicy and gently tangy on the rounded finish. A pleasant surprise to start us off.
1988 Pommery Champagne Louise. The Pommery takes it up a slight notch, though. Here we have pretty aromas of orange blossom, ginger, citrus skins, flint, chalk, white pepper and some faint oxidative notes as it comes up to temperature. It is crisp and minerally on the palate, with some soft lemon sourball notes. It has solid body, fine definition and a creamy texture with a river of crisp minerality running through it. The tongue-tingling finish is fairly long and leaves a pleasing impression.
2003 Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough. This features a typically bright nose of kiwi fruit, gooseberry and anise. There are some sweet fruit cup and bitter smoke notes trying to play together nicely in a tangy mélange on the palate. It sort of feels like it lacks a true center, with a jangly acidity that carries along these disparate elements through to a faintly smoky and bitter toasted citrus skin finish.
Flight #1:
1983 Chateau Sociando-Mallet Haut-Medoc. This first wine got us right into the Sociando spirit of things. There is a very elegant sense to the bouquet, especially when compared to the 1986 and 1989 paired alongside with it. Pretty red currants, soft wood, dried blood, leather, and a very faint mint note all make appearances on the complex and evolving nose, which grows darker and perhaps more serious with air time. In the mouth, it is considerably bigger and richer than the nose initially might suggest. It is moderately dense and corpulent, with a fine minerally streak offsetting flavors evoking a rich red berry paste and dark cassis. It hangs together so solidly through the mid-palate and finishes with excellent presence and balance. The tannins are very nicely resolved. The wine does, however, seem to dry out a bit as the evening goes along, taking on a bit more austerity to the finish. Still, this is a lovely wine in a very good drinking zone right now.
1986 Chateau Sociando-Mallet Haut-Medoc. The 1986 sports a simply gorgeous bouquet, with notes of deep cassis, cedar, mint (turning more to peppermint with time in the glass), cranberry mince pie, soft chalk dust and a very refined bell pepper accent way down below it all. This nose shows incredible staying power throughout the course of the night. In the mouth, it is solid and rich, with a fair amount of fine tannin hanging around toward the back of the palate. It has outstanding definition, with a fine but slightly drying acidic tang, especially on the young-seeming finish. The overall impression is that this has plenty of cellar time left despite showing quite well today. This was my runner-up for WOTN.
1989 Chateau Sociando-Mallet Haut-Medoc. The 1989 features a bit more sweetness on the nose compared to its flight-mates. It offers deep red berries, candied cherries, licorice rope and a deep down note of creosote or warm campfire embers. It smells like it comes from a warmer vintage, but on the palate it offers a decidedly cooler fruit profile. It has fine texture and layering, and the soft, classy soft tannins don’t get in the way for the most part. If feels rounded and full, yet focused on its currant, black cherry and earth flavors. It provides a much gentler finish than the 1986 and is more ready to drink on all levels. For that reason, this was my WOTN, though I’d surely prefer the 1986 in about another 5 years.
Flight #2:
1988 Chateau Sociando-Mallet Haut-Medoc. This wine just seems so classically older Bordeaux to me. It features an inky, mineral-tinged nose that leads into all kinds of secondary notes like horse hair, cool damp moss, green tobacco leaf, earth and dried blood. As it airs out, a distinctive green pepper and eucalyptus accent makes itself heard. All in all, it is extremely characterful and complex. It is rather tightly-structured in the mouth, with a rigid backbone carrying along flavors of blackcurrants and cool blueberries and mysterious moist earth. There is lively acid balance that keeps it cool and fresh, but there are some fine, somewhat gritty tannins to contend with at this stage, as well. I decanted this for several hours and definitely recommend some extended aeration if choosing to drink this wine now. This was my #3 WOTN.
1990 Chateau Sociando-Mallet Haut-Medoc. The 1990 Sociando features a much warmer nose, with a certain sexiness to the black raspberry fruit and accompanying accents of clean horse barn, saddle leather, dried tobacco leaf and faint bell pepper. Again, one just feels the solidity of the wine in the mouth. Compared to the 1988, this shows greater richness and warmth on the palate, with a softer structure and less obvious acidity. It offers up plenty of spicy red fruit and a gentle tannin profile, with a hint of star anise or licorice on the fine finish. This is quite good and very easy to drink.
1996 Chateau Sociando-Mallet Haut-Medoc. Jumping ahead a few years, one finds the 1996 sporting an inky, blackish color and aromatics of black licorice, incense, toasted spices, dried meat, cool minerals, dark caramel and again the very fine backing note of green pepper that I’ve come to expect by this time. This wine has the sweetest fruit, and features very big, but for the most part, pillowy tannins. It seems more flamboyant than the others and so much more dominated by its tannins. Still, the fruit is red, deep and dense and the whole package shows great promise for dinking in about 10 years.
Overall, this was an extremely educational and pleasurable vertical. One truly and almost effortlessly senses the lineage of “Sociando-ness” running through each of these. The wines always feel true to themselves and seem to reflect vintage variation while consistently offering solid palate presence with no sense of holes or loss of definition. Above all, they are a pleasure to drink and offer plenty of cerebral stimulation, as well.
Sweet wines:
1996 Chateau Pierre-Bise Coteaux du Layon-Beaulieu Les Rouannieres. This is a pale caramel color, showing some advanced age it would seem. However, it offers up just a delightful bouquet of toffee, caramel, crème brulee topping, browned apples, lime rind, brown butter and a faintly nutty spirits note. It is quite viscous and oily-textured in the mouth, showing good density and concentration of fruit in a lovely overall mouthfeel. The sweetness level is not too unctuous, with flavors of poached pears, quince, and spices. The finish is mouth-wateringly good and nicely balanced. Gorgeous stuff.
2001 Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Auslese ***. While the Pierre-Bise was showing some age, this baby is just a baby. It offers up a tight but intriguing nose of lanolin, beeswax, crushed sea shells, yellow citrus fruit, white peaches and minerals, with a very faint kerosene note popping in once in a while. It is so young in the mouth--it is very lively, with sugar cube sweetness to go with citrusy/tropical tastes of fresh-squeezed lime, grapefruit and pineapple. It is satiny-textured and just ever so tightly-coiled around it structure. Look out in about 5-10 years.
-Michael
