WTN: Lanson, Greco, Carmignano, Cailloux, Sizeraine

Did as lunch today as a planning session for a possible vacation next Fall.

Lanson Black Label Brut Champagne – this is a few years old, but despite being an NV wine, it had great mousse, and decent complexity.

Served with roasted chestnuts, in honour of the season, a combination I thought would work – and it did!

2004 Mastroberardino Greco di Tufo Riserve Nova Serra – nice complex forward nose with some cheesiness, good acidity, slightly hollow right off the bat, but it opened up and filled out with time.

Served with Kubocha squash soup done up as faux cappuccino (whipped cream piped on top and dusted with fresh ground nutmeg in a teacup).

2001 Cedar Creek Pinto Noir, Platinum series – lost of wood (whisky cask?) and citrus in the nose, smooth in the mouth, with decent length, but ultimately a bit unsatisfying due to the simplicity of the wine.

Served with stuffed mushroom caps and pea shoot slald.

2000 Piaggia Carmignano Riserva – this Tuscan wine continues to baffle me. Every time I taste it blind it fools me into thinking it is a new world wine. Dark, big fruit nose, less fruit on palate, tight tannic. This is a ‘quo vadis’ wine – whenever I taste it, I wonder where the heck it is going!

With mushroom pasta and pear and asiago pasta, sauced simp0y with butter and EVOO dressing with black pepper and sea salt.

1995 Les Cailloux CNduP – at a great point right now, lightening in colour a bit, with a lovely nose with pepper and fruit, on palate slightly hot and more pepper at the end, long and good.

1993 Chapoutier Hermitage La Sizeranne - quintessentially Rhone funky nose - horse all the way. Medium body, cleaned up its act after some air but up until then was for Rhone fans only. Finished decently.


With cheese.

Afters:

Tignanello Grappa – killer grappa with lovely fruity nose, not too hot and white pepper at the end.

Aquavitta di Venaccia Grappa di Prosecco Riserva – quite a contrast – oily marzipan and pear notes, soft in mouth, but not satisfying.

[Jenise]

Great lunch, Bill!

Loved the roasted chestnuts with the Lanson, and I agree with your description.

2004 Mastroberardino Greco di Tufo Riserve Nova Serra – I loved this. I'm really getting into lightly aged whites and this was very satisfying. Mature, golden color, gives off a bit of chardonnay-ness with a lot of minerality at first, rather like a very ripe Chablis. But it evolves from there and picks up some pie spice flavors, and once we knew it was Italian, Greco and Arneis seemed the most likely culprits.

2001 Cedar Creek Pinot Noir, Platinum series – interesting wine to guess at. Coop and I both went straight to pinot, but it was too simple to be burgundy and too light-bodied and lacking in other qualities to be California or Oregon. It was cherry, orange peel and just a bit of caramel--and just those three things, nothing more. I concluded it was a very plain Jane of a Rioja--Canadian pinot noir never crossed my mind!

Loved the stuffed mushroom caps and pea shoot salad.

2000 Piaggia Carmignano Riserva – this Tuscan wine continues to baffle me. Every time I taste it blind it fools me into thinking it is a new world wine. Which, along with the relatively low acids, is why I guessed New World Cabernet--and if you'd said yes to that then we were going to California and then Kenwood's Jack London series--it had a very California-like profile with rough, rustic tannins. As to where it's going, lacking any history with the wine to give me hope, my guess is it's not going to get better than it is now. It's a very awkward wine, and there was a hint of that soy sauce/muddiness in the backround into which the fruit will further decay and leave the tannins holding the bag.

1995 Les Cailloux CNduP – Can't improve on your description--GREAT wine.

1993 Chapoutier Hermitage La Sizeranne - I've had 90, 91, 94, 95, 97, 98 and 99 of this wine in the last, oh, three years, and nothing in those bottles or my love of that barnyardy thing Rhones often have prepared me for the initial blast of horse poop--not cow, not a collection of animals, not generically 'barnyardy', but very specifically horse poop. Not sure if I'd like it as much had I not spent every Saturday at the horse stables for a long period of my childhood, but I actually thought this was pretty cool, even if atypical in my experience with La Sizz.

Now about those Grappas. The Tig was great--best grappa I've ever had, in fact. But that Prosecco thing--I have a hard time remembering anything so vile. Oily? Check. Pear? Check. But you forgot to mention the bandages--used bandages, used BIG bandages like might have been on a major accident victim or someone who had their stomach blown to bits, the smell of antiseptic and pus and the putridity of rotting flesh clinging to bandages to be exact, that was also there. Egads, Bill, where do you get these things?