WTN: 1 for 3, but that 1 rocked

2008 Christian Ducroux Régnié Sans Soufre
Starts out with very tart, slightly underripe red berry fruit flavours over a spine of high acidity. With some air it fleshes out a little, gaining a little weight and showing some more interesting gravelly flavours, but generally remains quite bitter, stemmy and not particularly pleasant to drink.

2000 Pierre Gaillard Côte-Rôtie Cuvée Unique Viallieres
Frustrating to drink as there's a nice core of rich plummy fruit accented with leathery, smoky and faintly gamey notes, but it's obscured by dominant oaky and vanilla flavours that blur out most of the other nuances here. Very disappointing, as I've liked some other Gaillard (regular) bottlings in the past but this was just ruined by its oak.

2005 Dönnhoff Norheimer Kirschheck Riesling Spätlese
Incredibly fun to drink, packed with bright peach, lime and pear flavours mingled with floral notes and touches of honey. Underneath there's really bright acidity and an intense minerality giving it an almost crystalline texture; light on its feet, precise and finishing very long.

2000 Pierre Gaillard Côte-Rôtie Cuvée Unique Viallieres
Very disappointing, as I've liked some other Gaillard (regular) bottlings in the past but this was just ruined by its oak.

From my experience Gaillard is very hit or miss. And mostly miss. At least on this issue of cuvées marred by oak.

Not sure if you are aware, but the words Cuvée Unique should be like kryptonite for you because they signify the North Berkeley 'special' treatment. It's really quite a convenient shortcut for 'pass'.

But the Donnhoff sounds great.

I was not aware of that - thanks for the heads up. I had brought his 'basic' 1999 Cote-Rotie to a dinner a few months back and really liked that wine. Shame that the 'special cuvees' are so heavily distorted.

Shame that the 'special cuvees' are so heavily distorted.

On boards like this one and Disorder, North Berkeley Imports is one of the Pariah Importers. That can get taken too far as they have some very good non-spoofy producers. I haven't exactly followed them closely in recent years, but in the past the real key was always when they mark the wines 'Cuvee Unique' because that essentially means heavy new oak treatment.

As Rahsaan says, "Cuvée Unique" is a designation applied by NBI, the importer, who also specify a "barrel program" to their vignerons, much to the detriment of the wine, alas. Again, to reinforce Rahsaan's point: approach those wines with caution, if at all.

Mark "Quercophobes R Us" Lipton

Not sure if you are aware, but the words Cuvée Unique should be like kryptonite for you because they signify the North Berkeley 'special' treatment. It's really quite a convenient shortcut for 'pass'.

It always helps to know the lingo. I usually pass at the words 'cuvee exceptionelle' and anything in Latin, referring to Grande-this or using Roman emperors for a designate.

I've always found "Grande Ordinaire" a bit absurd.

Had the sans souffre a few weeks ago and liked it better than you, Salil, but not enough to buy more.