N.V. Gosset Champagne Brut Excellence (Champagne, France) 12% - imported to USA by Palm Bay, Boca Raton, Florida.
Perhaps it’s the season, but the smell of this reminded me of nothing more than nutmeg and persimmons. The mouthfeel was a nice tightly bound feel with small bubbles, but a full-bodied wine lurking behind—great combo of fullness yet being fast on its proverbial feet. The taste was simply delicious—lots of apple with a wee bit of pastry lurking within. Good amount of complexity and the wine responded in interesting ways to changes in temperature and different foods. I thought it a winner from the first sip, and subsequent quaffing only increased my appreciation of the wine—this is good stuff— and I certainly hope to seek it out again. I needed this antidote as less than one week previous I had a wine from Champagne that I would classify as ‘Do Not Put in Mouth’ (nasty combo of rotting and underripeness)—the Gosset completely restored Champagne’s good name.
From klwines.com: Gosset is small for a grand marque. At 50,000 cases a year total production they make about as much Champagne as Krug. They are located in Ay, the heart of Champagne, along with Bollinger, Deutz and De Meric and they have been making wine there since 1584, the oldest currently operating wine producer in Champagne. None of their Champagnes ever go through malolactic. On their web site, they list the Brut Excellence as being composed of 42% chardonnay, 45% pinot noir (all from Grand and Premier Cru vineyards) and 13% pinot meunier including 24% reserve wines from two vintages. When I met the sales manager of Gosset, she told me that they also use a small amount of Fromenteau (pinot gris) Petit Meslier & Arbanne in this reserve wine. Those are the almost extinct, native varietals of Champagne and it would certainly explain some of Gosset's exotic complexity if they were indeed in the blend.
N.V. Blandy Madeira Sercial 5 Year Old (Madeira, Portugal)
appears beautiful reddish color, smell fragrant and complex, obvious sandalwood (to me), subtle spice, nice and inviting, taste is bit on the sweeter side, but with shifting flavors that were quite worth savoring, refreshing and eminently drinkable, long and spiced finish, I didn’t have the chance to return to this wine during the evening, but for $23, I can’t imagine that I won’t seek it out again some other time, phenomenal stuff that made a very good first impression.
2004 Château Carbonnieux Blanc Pessac-Léognan [Sémillon-Sauvignon Blanc Blend] (Pessac-Léognan AOC, Grand Cru Classé de Graves, Bordeaux, France) 12.5% - imported to USA by Monsieur Touton, New York.
appears greenish-gold, super clear and reflective, nose is a bit closed at first, not all that fragrant, smell bit odd mixture of mint jelly, basil, sweat, and rocks, odd and quite intriguing, mouthfeel bit thick and viscous, taste unripe pear, lots of rocks, slight hint of pine sap or herbs, very interesting and very tasty for me, great fading finish with lots of green wood (reminds me of pine branches still with green needles on them) and bit of rock, this wine has a lot of angles, and though some might find some of those disagreeable, I totally loved this wine and all the nooks and crannies it offered for me to explore, certainly pricey at $47, but mighty interesting.
from thewinedoctor.com: The vineyards today cover about 90 hectares of land, the largest vineyard of all the Graves Cru Classés, and Marc's son, Anthony Perrin, has control. Located just ten miles from Bordeaux near the Garonne, the vineyards at Chateau Carbonnieux are situated on a rise in the land, on gravel-rich soils typical of the area. Near neighbours include Smith-Haut-Lafitte and Haut-Bailly, both to the south. Chateau Carbonnieux is one of the classified Graves chateaux, and produces both red and white cuvées under the Pessac-Léognan appellation. The area under vine is divided roughly equally between white and red varieties, the latter dominating slightly with about 47 hectares, leaving 43 hectares for the white. Average vine age is 26 years for the whites, which are 65% Sauvignon Blanc, 34% Semillon and 1% Muscadelle, whereas the red vines average 32 years of age, these being 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc, 1% Malbec and 1% Petit Verdot. Yields are reduced by a green harvest, although only as a last resort. The white grapes have a pre-fermentation soak, not a very common practice in the production of many white wines, which would more often be pressed with fermentation of the clear juice. After skin contact they are fermented in stainless steel, with indigenous yeasts. The white once saw no wood at all, but now sees up to nine months in barrel, with batonnage to encourage flavour and character from the lees. The reds are fermented under temperature control, at a temperature of about 28°C, up to a maximum of 32°C during maceration which may go on for up to four weeks. The wine then goes into oak barrels for eighteen months where the malolactic fermentation occurs if this has not already taken place in vat, with up to one third new barrels each vintage. Before bottling the wines are fined and filtered, the end result being the grand vin Chateau Carbonnieux - red or white - although many would regard the white (20000 cases) as the more significant and interesting cuvée.
2005 Domaine Xavier Monnot Bourgogne Blanc [Chardonnay] (Bourgogne/Burgundy, France) 12.5% - imported to USA by Robert Kacher, Washington, DC.
appears pale very shiny gold with silver tint, smell coconut, vanilla, some wintergreen, full and very rounded, mouthfeel good texture, smooth but bit chewy, taste good intro, quite tart/lime, full flavors, only slightest hint of simple curry spice in background, at times light, but in general, full easy juicy fruit, leaves quite a buzz on the tongue on the finish, nothing I didn’t like here, but at $30, no edges to really sink my palate into either, a crowd-pleaser, but I’d gladly sacrifice some of the fine tuning here for a bit more edginess
from pearsonswine.com: Xavier Monnot is a 17-hectare estate, all family-owned, located in Meursault. About 50% of the vineyards are planted in white, 50% in red. The production though is 65% white. Domaine Xavier Monnot's vineyards are very spread out, covering most of the Côte de Beaune starting in Beaune 1er Cru "Cent Vignes" and stretching all the way to Maranges 1er Cru in the Côte Chalonnaise. All the vines are hand-harvested and the use of new oak is done with a lot of caution.
2005 Domaine Xavier Monnot Monthélie Les Duresses [Chardonnay] (Village: Monthélie, Côte de Beaune, Burgundy, France) 13% - imported to USA by Robert Kacher, Washington, DC.
appears medium-dark gold, smell fascinating from the get-go, floral, pie, macaroons, lots of suggestive elements hard to identify, kind of a mix of flowers and orange juice and hint of drying paint or glue or some really green freshly sawed wood, odd and I love it, mouthfeel smooth with great flow, only slight heaviness, taste green pine wood, unripe berries, chewy and delicious, finish is wonderful light and airy feeling of plank of wood (but in air, not in your mouth), lasts well over a minute and takes on some caramel aspects, I love the unripe blueberry feel combined with the uber-lightness, I can drink a lot of this wine, it just keeps hitting the right taste buds, finely-tuned with lots of interesting things to say, worth lots more than the $45 pricetag.
2002 Tardieu-Laurent Cornas Coteaux [Syrah] (Cornas, Northern Rhône, France)
appears solid blackness and purple, smell nice if bit closed at first, lots of dried meats and jerky, with slight hints of fruit, taste solid, meaty, and not all that expressive at first, after a few hours starts to open up with slight fruit, but lots more leather, smoke, interesting constantly fading spices, hint of cocoa texture, this was solid stuff, but I think it was finished before it had a chance to show its stuff, long decant if I were to go for it again, as it was, I liked the development, but regretted the meatiness that seemed to fade from when the bottle was first opened, nonetheless this was obviously solid stuff for me, I would have no objections to going for it once more.
from thewinedoctor.com: Tardieu-Laurent is a négociant firm concentrating on the wines of the Rhone Valley but also of the Languedoc and Provence. It was formed with the coming together of Michel Tardieu, who owns a winery in Luberon, and Dominique Laurent, a renowned Burgundy winemaker. The operation is unusual in that Tardieu-Laurent own no vineyards, and purchase only finished wine from a select group of growers. The identities of the growers, and hence the exact source of the wines, remains a closely guarded secret. The wines are matured in their cellars, with new oak a big feature in the finishing of the wine. Many wines spend over a year in new barrels, before further time in older wood. The wines are racked, but are bottled without fining or filtration.
from pearsonswine.com: It was September 8, 2002. Two days before the harvest would begin. The growing season had gone well. The crops in the Rhone Valley were large and healthy. The growers awaiting the culmination of the vintage . . . in a state of nervous anticipation . . . as always . . . the last two weeks' weather would determine the vintage's final quality. On that day, without warning, a violent storm swept through . . . dumping, in 24 hours, a full year's worth of rain onto the Rhone Valley. The rains coursed through ancient trenches and sluiced new ones of their own. Vines that grew at the lowest elevations were ripped out by the roots. Others, somewhat more elevated, were saved from certain muddy asphyxiation. Most of the crops were devastated . . . grapes that survived were sold off to negociants . . . many of the best appellations were later bottled as Cotes du Rhone or lowly Vin de Pays. [snip] [Michel Tardieu and Dominique Laurent] were able to salvage tiny amounts of the highest quality wines from growers who lost as much as 80% of their harvest.
2004 Château Malescot St. Exupery Margaux (Troisième Grand Cru Classé/Classified Third Growth, Margaux, Médoc, Bordeaux, France) 13.5% - imported to USA by National Distributing, Washington, DC.
appears very dark blackish purple, smell fragrant, dark heavy fruit, some raspberry/blueberry/dark chocolate, soft and just a bit edgy, mouthfeel mighty smooth and silky with a touch of parching, taste solid deep fruit, bit chewy berries, slight raisin, quite basic if full-flavored, more interesting finish, slight charcoal, coffee, nice enough, nothing to get me excited here, I imagine more time would help here—right now this is pretty basic stuff, at $50 it’s a no-go right now, I wonder if there’s more of a punch to come . . . ?
from thewinedoctor.com: The vineyards, some of which abut those of Chateau Margaux, have a fairly typical constitution, with a layer of gravel up to ten metres deep in places, over a layer of rock which is a mix of marl, clay and chalk, with some iron deposits. They are planted with 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot, at a density of 10000 vines/ha, with an average age of about 35 years. The harvest is manual into small trays, sorted at the winery, and 100% destemmed. Fermentation is temperature-controlled, using indigenous yeast, with some gentle pumping over. [snip] Malolactic fermentation occurs in vat or in barrel, where the wine rests on its lees with some batonnage, and is racked only twice. After 14-16 months in barrel, of which 80% are new every vintage, the wine is bottled without fining or filtration. The grand vin here is Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry, 13500 cases per annum, and the second wine is La Dame de Malescot, of which there are just 3500 cases per annum. The wines, in my experience, have a quality that exceeds the property's reputation and price tag.
2003 Zardini Amarone della Valpolicella Classico [blend of Corvina, Rondinella and Molinara] (Amarone della Valpolicella Classico DOC, Valpolicella, Veneto, northeastern Italy) 14% - imported to USA by Monsieur Touton, New York.
appears reddish purple with slight rust halo, quite viscous, smell licorice, raisins, sweet, hint of tar and herbs, mouthfeel less viscous than expected, solid presence (but flows so nicely, it kind of feels light), taste heavier pomegranate, great integrated spice, dried fruit, coating on palate yet flows in texture and works phenomenally with food, fun spiky finish of light spice, crunchy berries, and hint of parching, mulled wine effect, still singing on Day Two, this is a fun wine to pair with food—particularly in the meat category, great mix of the lightness in mouth but with tons of depth
N.V. Macallan Amber Single Malt Scotch Liqueur
appears reddish brown, super viscous, smell is shooting out and rather obvious, it is some delicious pecan maple syrup, sweet and enticing—the nose is over-the-top, and, as Liberace would have it, it is absolutely wonderful, similarly the taste is sweet and sticky, with not much texture—but not cloying at all either, tons of complexity and interesting weaving of different flavors in the basic set up, long and interesting finish with hints of candied tangerine or orange peel, it was all too much—I loved it and it was the first liqueur I have ever had made from a Single Malt Scotch, a definite conversation starter, but I frankly prefer the more brooding and darker side that the single malts that I like (mostly from Islay) seem to offer, I liked this stuff and certainly found it well-done in a novel style, but I wouldn’t seek it out again (but neither would I ever turn down a glass if offered!)