WTN: Picknick! In Finland!!!!

Miracle of miracles: it's warm today! My thermometer went up to 28 C. So what better to do than go for a picknick by the sea with one's girlfriend? With a nice assortment of little foodstuffs and the remains of the previous day's Karlsmühle and a little bottle of Muscadet we set out. And a jolly nice time we had too...

• 1999 Weingut Karlsmühle Lorenzhöfer Riesling Auslese - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer, Upper Mosel (6/14/2006)
  AP 3 536 016 12 00; 8,5% abv. Slightly gold. The nose is very fruity, showing the warmth of the year well, but with the typical Ruwerian steel underneath. Also the minerality is more an undercurrent than typically obvious. Petrol is beginning to appear, but in low doses. The palate is very fruity, rather sweet, not very acidic and not as obviously mineral nor as obviously steely as in some other years, but it is still balanced. Very long. Very good infact!
• 2005 Chéreau-Carré Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Château de Chasseloir - France, Loire Valley, Pays Nantais, Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine (6/14/2006)
  From a 0,5 liter bottle. Water coloured. The nose is lovely and classical in its sea-breeze and intense mineral aromas. The palate is light, fresh, very mineral but perhaps lacking a bit in the zippy acidity I would have liked. Nice anyway.

Posted from CellarTracker

I remember a picnic in Darmstadt, Germany on Valentine's Day one year. The wind was very "nippy." We had to weight down the paper plates with pieces of fried chicken and potato salad and as soon as we finished eating, we gathered up our debris and retreated to an automobile with a heater. Our feelings for each other were a lot warmer than the climate.

]2005 Chéreau-Carré Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Château de Chasseloir - France, Loire Valley, Pays Nantais, Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine (6/14/2006)
From a 0,5 liter bottle. Water coloured. The nose is lovely and classical in its sea-breeze and intense mineral aromas. The palate is light, fresh, very mineral but perhaps lacking a bit in the zippy acidity I would have liked. Nice anyway.

Otto,
FWIW, I sampled the 2004 vintage of the Chereau-Carre last week and thought it was a very nice Muscadet. When we first opened the bottle, it seemed quite tart/sour and unbalanced. It took about 45 minutes for the acidity, minerality and the Muscadet "saltiness" to come out to play. Not quite as expressive as the 2004 Pepiere, but a nice Muscadet nonetheless.
Curly

[Jenise]

Otto, not a comment on the wines but on cellar tracker--increasingly, when I go fishing for TN's for these monthly neighborhood tastings I help organize, results from Cellar Tracker pop up. And increasingly, I am seeing names of people I know from the internet wine world. Yours will pop up any day now, I'm sure.

JC, even with warm feelings and the day, it doesn't sound much fun in such temperatures! Wasn't a warm fire and a bottle of VP romantic enough?

FWIW, I sampled the 2004 vintage of the Chereau-Carre last week and thought it was a very nice Muscadet. When we first opened the bottle, it seemed quite tart/sour and unbalanced. It took about 45 minutes for the acidity, minerality and the Muscadet "saltiness" to come out to play. Not quite as expressive as the 2004 Pepiere, but a nice Muscadet nonetheless.

I've not tasted the basic 2004, but I do have 5 bottles left of the 2004 Cuvée des Ceps Centenaires which is very nice! It also only opens up by the second glass (no idea how long it took to finish the first, but I did manage to make dinner for two during that time...)

Jenise, CT is indeed quite a data base! Lots of free info and some of the people write genuinely good TNs.

Otto, It wasn't the smartest thing we ever did but I still remember it, so that counts for something. We weren't into vintage Port at that time--more like Piesporter Michelsberg or German beer.