Holiday Party Wines

Tonight's Office Holiday Party was a cornucopia of foods from all ethnic cuisines Pretty amazing spread. I brought wine, and these were my favorites of the evening:

1999 Chateau Lalande Borie St. Julien. Decanted upon arrival at my boss' house. Under $20 at K&L Wines in SF. Quite nice lighter style St. Julien. Black fruit but plenty of red currant. Tobacco and leathery notes with an initial bit of funk. Very Very french in character-couldn't mistake this for New World. Wine of the Night for many people. It was interesting to see the reaction of my co-worker Julia, who I don't think has had Bordeaux before! She didn't know that some wines taste like this! Very good and will buy again.

2001 Santa Catalina Rioja. I am beginning to change my mind about spanish wines. This was no blockbuster with gobby fruit and tons of oak. Only 13.5% abv. Very light and elegant wine, with red raspberry and just a hint of licorice on the finish. This wine would be a great food wine. It almost reminds me of Pinot Noir, without the piercing cherry fruit of that variety. Delicious. Sadly, this wine was never entered into my data base, so I have no idea when and where I bought it (or how much.) I'm hoping it was Nugget Market!

2002 Freemark Abbey Gravel Bed Chardonnay. Now this was a piercingly pretty Chardonnay. Five years old, but the lovely citrus and lemon and peach???? notes are quite nice. There was oak, but it did not taste as oxidized as the Kistler earlier this week. I wonder if the Kistler was flawed, because this wine tasted completely different??? Delicious stuff.

2003 Mazzei Fonterutoli Chianti Classico. This wine surprised me. It may lack a bit in acidity and typicite, but I actually like this kind of richer black fruited Chianti. definitely some smokey notees and leather along with the blakc cherry. Still that indescribable hit of Chinati-ness (acidity is part of that, maybe). I enjoyd this quite a bit.

Very nice selection of wines for a holiday office party. -- Clark

Great group of wine!

I noticed that during this holiday season, I've been drinking wine more often due to all the parties, but my consumption of quality wine has gone downhill. Then again, I can't complain too much because all the drinks have been free....

If more company parties had wines like those, I might actually attend some!

Well, my only response as far as rationality is that these wines were all relatively affordable in price-no blockbuster Napa Cabs or Classed Growth Bordeaux.

Actually, the most expensive wine (one I had been worried about and wondering why I had bought it a couple of years ago) was a Chilean Cab that had to be the single weirdest wine I've ever tried! 2001 Macul Domus Aurea. Otto posted a note months ago. Absolutely strange-acidic, weird eucalyptus notes that tasted absolutely not like any Cab. Can't say I liked it at all, it was almost MEDICINAL. Hence, it didn't appear in my "highlights" notes. Oh well, live and learn