WTN: A long night of no hard graft (LONG)

Levi Dalton did an amazing job organizing a "Pie Franco" (or French Pie, Pe Franco, Franc de Pied, take your pick) dinner last night at Convivio. There was a long lineup of over 30 wines from original, ungrafted rootstock spanning a whole range of regions and styles, flighted and ordered really well with a fantastic dinner menu that generally worked very well with the wines (though the maccheroni in the first pasta course may have overshadowed a lot of the wines; really fantastic, perfectly cooked pasta that was met with pretty much unanimous praise at our table):

Sfizi
Chef's selection of Small Bites for the Table

Antipasti
Mare
warm seafood salad, seppia, clams, shrimp

Primi
Maccheroni alla Carbonara
pancetta, pecorino, scallion, egg, black pepper

Fusilli
neopolitan pork shoulder ragu, caciocavallo fonduta

Secondi
Scottadito di Agnello
grilled lamb chops, salsa verde, escarole, tomato, beans

Formaggi
Nostrale di Elva (cow’s milk) Piemonte
Pecorino Foglie di Noce (sheep’s milk) Toscana
Nocetto di Capra (goat’s milk) Lombardia

The wines spanned a range of styles - there were no ungrafted/grafted vine contrasts to really show the differences that the ungrafted vines bring, though most of them seemed to have relatively moderate alcohol (particularly in the Loire Cabernet Franc flight) and amazingly approachable, often silky textures - particularly striking with the flight of young Cappellano Barolo from magnums, where I expected an assault of tannin and instead found the wines very drinkable. (Now I'm only kicking myself for not grabbing the mag of '04 Cappellano Pie Franco that Crush had in their sale last week)
A great evening; really fun to catch up with old friends and also Oswaldo Costa who was at the dinner with a few bottles he had flown in from Portugal. I can't thank Levi and the staff at Convivio enough for their organization in putting this together.

As for the wines:

Came into the restaurant to find Levi Dalton and Keith Levenberg mourning the 2000 Domaine de la Charmoise (Henry Marionnet) Romorantin Vin de Pays du Jardin "Provignage" vigne pré-phylloxérique which was apparently dead on arrival. No shortage of wine though, as I was going through two really good reception wines a minute later.

2008 Ameztoi "Rubentis" Getariako Txakolina (Getaria, Spain)
Light orange-pink in colour, really enjoyable with fresh cherries, citrus and melon flavours over minerally notes and bright acids keeping it very light and refreshing.

NV Tarlant Champagne La Vigne d'Antan Blanc de Blancs Extra Brut (Champagne, France)
Fantastic stuff with really vibrant and intense pear, apple and white fruited flavours with toasty and yeasty accents and a backbone of really good acidity that gives it an incredibly precise, almost chiseled mouthfeel. Awesome Champagne that I felt a strong inclination to find and buy for myself, until Joe showed us what it cost. Yikes.

Flight 1:
2005 Carl Schmitt-Wagner Longuicher Maximiner Herrenberg Riesling Kabinett (Mosel, Germany)
Tastes more Spätlese than Kabinett; quite sweet with a lovely floral and mineral note that really opens out with time, and bright lime and apple fruit over slate and herbal elements in the mouth with the start of developing smoky/petrol notes.

2008 Gaia Estate Thalassitis (Santinori, Greece)
Smoky, earthy aromatics leading into dry citrus and pear flavours in the mouth, develops really nicely with air with an emerging creaminess on the back end while still keeping its precision and lightness.

2007 Contrade di Taurasi (Cantine Lonardo) Grecomusc' (Campania, Italy)
Really amazing, just for the aromatic profile that smells as if someone just fired a gun on top of an active volcano. Dry, rich and minerally in the mouth with white fruits mingled with smoke and gunpowder; didn't seem to be an issue with sulfur either - Jeff Grossman kept some behind in a glass to follow over the rest of the evening and a few hours later when I smelled it, the wine was almost as smoky and ashy as it had been at the start of the night. Compelling.

2008 La Sibilla Falanghina (Campi Flegrei, Campania, Italy)
Really pale, fresh and light on its feet, starting out with bright white fruited flavours with seawater and chalky flavours emerging with a little air. Returned to this later in the evening after it had been open a couple of hours (Keith had been stressing this really needed air), and it was even better with the oceanic mineral character really vivid.

2007 Cantine Farro 'Le Cigliate' Falanghina (Campi Flegrei, Campania, Italy)
More weight and body here than the La Sibilla; rich pear and lemon fruit over savoury earthy flavours and a texture that becomes increasingly creamy with air. Didn't spend much time with this, as it was sandwiched between the really awesome Falanghina and the even more awesome Gruners.

2007 Meinhard Forstreiter 'Tabor Reserve' Gruner Veltliner (Kremstal, Austria)
Wild, wild aromatics, just an amazing perfume of pepper, all sorts of spices and floral notes over bright fruit, and such intensity and precision in the mouth that it's hard to do justice with words. I'll just go with 'wow'.

2006 Meinhard Forstreiter 'Tabor Reserve' Gruner Veltliner (Kremstal, Austria)
Wasn't as impressive initially as the '07 (which would have been a really hard act for anything to follow), unyielding and reticent at first with the flavours blurry, but with some time a similar perfume of spices and flowers develops and the fruit brightens and gains focus. Lovely wine, I need to find some for myself.

Flight 2:
2007 I Vigneri di Salvo Foti "Vinudilice" Rosato (Sicily, Italy)
Levi's note sheet indicates mostly Grenache, so Keith was taking this to the dump bucket within minutes. Rest of us did the same pretty soon; this tastes like somebody liquefied strawberry candy with a little alcohol. Faintly sherried, nutty notes emerge with time, but there's a really unpleasant confectionary sweetness about this.

2007 Tenuta delle Terre Nere "Prephylloxera, La Vigna di Don Peppino" Etna Rosso (Sicily, Italy)
Seriously awesome, with one of the most vivid expressions of black cherries I've ever come across in a wine on a frame that's incredibly silken and almost weightless with really good acidity freshening up the fruit. Delicious.

Frank Cornelissen "Magma" R 6va (Etna, Sicily, Italy)
Served from two bottles with identical provenance as an experiment to compare the wine when it was uncorked and poured immediately, and decanted three hours beforehand.
Enjoyed the popped-and-poured version better, fascinating stuff with bright red fruited flavours and herbal notes accented by an intense peppery spiciness and faint candy sweetness, very pale and light red in colour (with a fair bit of sediment in the glass), but really intense in the mouth with a sense of restrained power and a long earthy finish.
The decanted version was a lot less impressive with the same peppery/slightly candied red fruits, but with some noticeable alcohol and volatile acidity on the nose and some poop, leading into a discussion at the table between Keith and Jeff Grossman as to what type of poop it was - I think the final agreement was "advanced, more the slow kid that's been held back a few years rather than baby poop". As for the wine, fascinating and certainly unique, but not anything I'd really enjoy for the sake of drinking or would want to own.

2004 Cappellano Otin Fiorin "Piè Franco Michet" Barolo from magnum
2001 Cappellano Otin Fiorin "Piè Franco Michet" Barolo from magnum
1999 Cappellano Otin Fiorin "Piè Franco Michet" Barolo from magnum
Amazing sequence of wines here (particularly as this was my first experience with any Cappellano). The 2004 is surprisingly approachable and pleasurable for such a young wine, bright red and dark fruit with floral and tarry accents, very elegant but with a sense of power and grip in the mouth, fine grainy tannins on the back end and when revisited near the end of the night, starting to really open out aromatically.
The 2001 seemed the most reticent of the three initially with a core of dark fruits accented by tar and piney notes, more accessible later on with some air as it had started to unclench and showing more of the same depth and layers as the 04.
The 1999 is in a league of its own; starts out combining all sorts of rose petal, violet, tarry and herbal elements combining with bright red fruits into a gorgeous fragrance I could have kept smelling through the evening. Liquid silk in the mouth, power without weight as it almost seems to float over the tongue with the tannins surprisingly gentle and a long, expansive finish. Perhaps my favourite of the evening. Remarkable how the tannins on pretty much all the ungrafted vine bottlings seem so much gentler and more approachable than the bad pie versions, with most of the reds encountered in the evening all showing a really silken, polished texture and very few really showing off their tannin despite their youth.

1998 Marchesi Alfieri San Germano Pinot Nero (Monferrato, Italy)
Starts out incredibly ripe, floral and a little alcoholic on the nose, then with about 10 minutes of air it calms down to show really bright, intense red fruited flavours and rose petals with a faint candied accent, more density and weight here than any others in the flight with drying tannins on the back end.

Flight 3, all Loire Valley Cabernet Franc:
2007 Catherine & Pierre Breton "Franc de Pied" Bourgueil
Smells like the vegetable section of the supermarket with lots of green pepper (Robert: "Now I know why there's a case of this on Winebid"), tastes better than it smells though with tart red fruits, black peppercorns and green herbal notes over a lightweight frame with really bright acids.

2002 Catherine & Pierre Breton "Franc de Pied" Bourgueil
Corked

2005 Charles Joguet Chinon "Les Varennes du Grand Clos"
Tightly coiled at first, but really expands with some air to show dark fruits and faintly herbal, stemmy notes that add freshness over a core of earth and stones with a great texture that's all silk up front and then changes to something more gritty and chewy on the back end.

2005 Bernard Baudry Chinon Franc de Pied
2003 Bernard Baudry Chinon Franc de Pied
2002 Bernard Baudry Chinon Franc de Pied
The '02 took most of my attention straight away, easily my favourite of the flight with a seamless combination of fruit, leafy/tobacco notes and the start of developed leathery flavours on a silken frame. Delicious.
The '05 is a tad on the green side (not as much as the Breton), still quite pleasant with bright fruit and only a faint suggestion of green pepper.
The '03 is much riper and darker in its flavour profile, slightly denser and richer in texture than the other two, but what's really amazing here is that it shows the same sense of lightness and the same low (12.5%) alcohol as the other Baudrys. In fact the low alcohol levels on the entire flight was one of the notable points - Levi brought up a comment from Joguet suggesting that the ungrafted vines led to lower yields and about half a degree less of alcohol. (For reference/anyone who might care, the 07 Breton clocked in at 12%, the 02 Breton at 10.6% and the Joguet at 13.5).

Flight 4:
1995 Antonio Bernardino Paulo da Silva 'Reserva Velho Tinto' Colares Chitas (Sintra, Portugal)
And many, many thanks to Oswaldo Costa for lugging these bottles (and the Patos that followed) with him from Portugal. Some debate about the Colares across tables, but I loved this - phenomenal stuff with developed leathery and meaty nuances over a core of fresh red fruits and pepper, with a faint balsamic element in the aromatics that adds to the complexities here. 'Wow' aromatics, really elegant and silken textured with power, length and balance - fantastic!

1995 Quinta do Ribeirinho (Luis Pato) Pe Franco Bairrada (Beiras, Portugal)
Fabulous, all sorts of wild things going on in the aromatics with earthy, leathery and faintly rusty scents leading into a palate layering bright, ripe fruits with developed earthy and faintly meaty notes. Slightly rustic flavours on a frame that's anything but with such finesse and balance. Loved this.

1996 Quinta do Ribeirinho (Luis Pato) Pe Franco Bairrada (Beiras, Portugal)
An iron fist compared to the '95, full of ripe plummy fruit and some dark chocolate notes, faint balsamic notes in the aromatics, finishing long with a savoury earthiness on the back end.

2004 Atalayas de Golban Ribera del Duero (Castilla y Leon, Spain)
After those three, this came across as clunky, heavy and almost like a very ripe new world Shiraz with sweet dark fruited flavours and noticeable oak and alcohol. Boring.

Flight 5 (by which point my notes really took a dive):
2007 Domaine Gauby "Muntada" Côtes du Roussillon Villages Rouge (Roussillon, France)
Great aromatics with all sorts of awesome smoky, floral and tarry elements on top of the dark fruit here, but this felt rather heavy and brutish in the mouth, the most tannic of any of the wines I drank and challenging to drink after the amount that preceded it.

2007 Clos Saron Home Vineyard Pinot Noir (Sierra Foothills, California)
Ugh. Garish, alcoholic, headed straight to the dump bucket. What happened here?

2004 Cantina Santadi "Terre Brune" Carignano del Sulcis (Sardinia, Italy)
No notes on this.

2004 Cantina del Taburno "Bue Apis" Aglianico del Taburno (Campania, Italy)
2003 Cantina del Taburno "Bue Apis" Aglianico del Taburno (Campania, Italy)
Didn't take down any impressions on either, but found these really disappointing without any of the depth or aromatic complexity I'd expected, with the '04 showing a surprising buttery element.

1991 Quinta do Noval "Nacional" Porto (Douro Valley, Portugal)
A blast of volatile acidity and alcohol on the aromatics straight away, but once past that this is really tasty with dark chocolate, caramel and nutty elements and some earthy and smoky notes emerging on the back end. Immense, though the alcohol here was a bit much for me.

Frank Cornelissen "Magma" R 6va (Etna, Sicily, Italy)
As for the wine, fascinating and certainly unique, but not anything I'd really enjoy for the sake of drinking or would want to own..

Was anyone excited about the wine? For the price, one would hope that it was something enjoyable to drink!

thanks for notes, sounds like a fun time. Will go over more closely later.
Is the corked Breton supposed to be 2002? You reference 02 later in alcohol discussion
Oswaldo told me about this, but all I had were 05 and 06 Bretons I thought were already covered, and some Christoffels I didn't think would fit in.
Sounds like I missed a good one!

Yup, the corked Breton was the '02 - my mistake, thanks for the catch.

Shame you couldn't make it. I believe Christoffel's parcels in Treppchen and Wurzgarten are old ungrafted vines, so those would have certainly fit!

Re. the Magma, I know Keith, Jeff and Oswaldo weren't too impressed with it - more an expensive curiosity than something really enjoyable. Glad I got to try it though, certainly unique.

Magma was actually not even interesting enough to be a curiosity - just expensive bad wine.

[David M. Bueker]

In regards to Chrsitoffel - has anyone ever seen informaiton that says which Chrsitoffel wines are from the ungrafted vines? I know he has a lot of them, but right now I do not recall ever seeing positive identification that specific wines were 100% ungrafted vine fruit.

Meulenhof used to have old, ungrafted vines in the Erdener Treppchen as well (they may still have some). The '98 Meulenhof Erdener Treppchen Spatlese came from an old, out of the way plot that never got grubbed up for fleurbereinigung & thus was still on its own root stock.

My uncertainity whether my various Christoffels were 100% ungrafted was one reason I decided to pass.

[David M. Bueker]

I think that the Urziger Wurzgarten Auslese* is ungrafted vines. I think I will send a note to Terry to see if he knows.

2008 La Sibilla Falanghina (Campi Flegrei, Campania, Italy)
Really pale, fresh and light on its feet, starting out with bright white fruited flavours with seawater and chalky flavours emerging with a little air. Returned to this later in the evening after it had been open a couple of hours (Keith had been stressing this really needed air), and it was even better with the oceanic mineral character really vivid.
2005 Charles Joguet Chinon "Les Varennes du Grand Clos"
Tightly coiled at first, but really expands with some air to show dark fruits and faintly herbal, stemmy notes that add freshness over a core of earth and stones with a great texture that's all silk up front and then changes to something more gritty and chewy on the back end.

1991 Quinta do Noval "Nacional" Porto (Douro Valley, Portugal)
A blast of volatile acidity and alcohol on the aromatics straight away, but once past that this is really tasty with dark chocolate, caramel and nutty elements and some earthy and smoky notes emerging on the back end. Immense, though the alcohol here was a bit much for me.

Some interesting wines there.

Thanks for the reminder about Falanghina. We get a couple here and I always forget to buy them

Not surprising you found tannin on the Joguet. Love to try it in 5 and again in 10 years.

Any volatile acidity is of concern in the Nacional. Odd, that.

The TT catalog entry on Christoffel always says -

Most of the vineyards are “Würzelecht,” literally
root-genuine, i.e. not grafted onto North American rootstock.
“I have two parcels of grafted wines,” Hans-Leo
told me, “which is two too many!”

I've never heard which two parcels those are, but I've always assumed that all my Christoffels are essentially ungrafted. That's what it always says on the back of the bottle, anyway.

For the best performance out of the Falanghina you have to pour a taste and then come back to it like a week or two later. The transformation is jawdropping, from a pure but simple wine to a mineral explosion.

[David M. Bueker]

Just got feedback from Terry Theise who said that the two parcels of grafted vines go into the Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Kabinett.

So there are lots of own-rooted Christoffels. Of course there are also many other plots of old, ungrafted vines in the Mosel, but we don't generally have the exact data as to which ones.

Just got feedback from Terry Theise who said that the two parcels of grafted vines go into the Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Kabinett.

So there are lots of own-rooted Christoffels. Of course there are also many other plots of old, ungrafted vines in the Mosel, but we don't generally have the exact data as to which ones.

Why is that, I wonder? Is the soil so inhospitable to phylloxera, or is the climate too cold for it to survive winters? If the latter, global warming may prove to be even more deleterious to established wine regions than I'd already feared.

Mark Lipton

[David M. Bueker]

German winters are no worse than say Washington winters. If they were the vines would die.

Must be the soils and all the big rock outcroppings that create barriers. I don't think the bug can get through solid rock. After all it's phyloxera, not a horta.

So there are lots of own-rooted Christoffels. Of course there are also many other plots of old, ungrafted vines in the Mosel, but we don't generally have the exact data as to which ones.

Claude Kolm mentioned (via email) that most of the major producers still have plenty of old ungrafted vine plots aside from the handful who had to replant due to flurbereinigung - he mentioned Karthauserhof, Egon Muller, Haart, Schaefer, Grunhaus and Van Volxem among the more notable ungrafted vine holders.

And from my understanding, phylloxera struggles in the slate soils in the Mosel.

Better late than never, here we go:

2008 Ameztoi "Rubentis" Getariako Txakolina (Getaria, Spain)
Good, we start with an orange wine, like a relay baton from the last Convivio mega tasting. Oxidative almond and cherry aromas. Lovely acidity, some light fizz (unsure if secondary fermentation or deliberate). Rich and satisfying, would love to cellar some of this, but I understand Keith Levenberg has cornered the market (and understand why he would).

Flight 1:
2005 Carl Schmitt-Wagner Longuicher Maximiner Herrenberg Riesling Kabinett (Mosel, Germany)
Awesome aromatics, mineral, flower, peach and almonds, but a Garden of Babylon, more than the sum. The sweetness is lovely, though it overwhelms the acidity just a wee. Still a beauty.

2008 Gaia Estate Thalassitis (Santorini, Greece)
Medicinal aromatics, good weight, nice bitter finish. Attractive. Santorini? I loved Joe Versus the Volcano. Was I the only one? I also hated Cinema Paradiso. Was I the only one? But I digress.

2007 Contrade di Taurasi (Cantine Lonardo) Grecomusc' (Campania, Italy)
Fascinating nose of gunpowder, fresh herbs and anis. Like reaching the crime scene right after bullets flying to and fro. Original, different, one of the wines of the night for me. Paradoxically, sometimes a defect (if this was), or even too much of a good thing, can make something vault into the category of special.

2008 La Sibilla Falanghina (Campi Flegrei, Campania, Italy)
Also herbs and anis, minus the gunpowder. Nice weight, good balance, could use a touch more acidity.

2007 Cantine Farro 'Le Cigliate' Falanghina (Campi Flegrei, Campania, Italy)
Wet stones, flowers and glycerin. Good acidity, but the sweetness has a candy aspect that I didn’t love. Still, very nice wine. Little experience with this appellation, glad to learn that I should explore.

2007 Meinhard Forstreiter 'Tabor Reserve' Gruner Veltliner (Kremstal, Austria)
Minerals, flowers, chalk. Good weight, sprightly acidity. Very good.

2006 Meinhard Forstreiter 'Tabor Reserve' Gruner Veltliner (Kremstal, Austria)
Similar aromatics, with an additional yeasty note. Also good weight, but the acidity is not as attractive as that of the 2007.

Flight 2:
2007 I Vigneri di Salvo Foti "Vinudilice" Rosato (Sicily, Italy)
Oxidative almond aromas. An oxidative rosé? Good weight and pleasant acidity. I quite liked.

2007 Tenuta delle Terre Nere "Prephylloxera, La Vigna di Don Peppino" Etna Rosso (Sicily, Italy)
Fabulous nose of cherry, pomegranate and medicinal herbs. Lively and spellbindingly different. Ends on a salty, sweaty note. Most surprising wine of the night for me and possibly my favorite, though maybe more from fascination than pleasure. If this had been the Magma, I would have thought “now I understand what all the fuss is about.” But it wasn’t, so there’s no fuss (that I know of) to understand. But Don Peppino’s the man.

Frank Cornelissen "Magma" R 6va (Etna, Sicily, Italy) undecanted
Exotic aromas of gunpowder, herbs, spices and tar. Attractive sweetness, liked the mix of concentration and nimbleness. Intense but not at all “difficult.”

Frank Cornelissen "Magma" R 6va (Etna, Sicily, Italy) decanted for two hours
Fading fast. Burnt rubber aromas. So inferior to the freshly opened bottle that I’m not sure if the two hour decant explains the entire difference.

2004 Cappellano Otin Fiorin "Piè Franco Michet" Barolo from magnum
Lovely leather, cherry, violet, and licorice aromas. Rich mouth feel, powerful acidity, should be great in a decade.
2001 Cappellano Otin Fiorin "Piè Franco Michet" Barolo from magnum
Similar aromatics but much more subdued/closed. Try in five years.
1999 Cappellano Otin Fiorin "Piè Franco Michet" Barolo from magnum
Beginning to oxidize and somewhat fruit deprived. Nobody at my table seemed too keen on it, but at Salil’s table it sounded like they were drinking a different wine.

It was generous of Kevin McKenna to bring three magnums of Cappellano, a producer I place in the highest firmament. The 07 and 08 Cappellano barrel samples that I was fortunate enough to taste in Serralunga last November were among my most memorable wine experiences ever, so I had high expectations for this trio. Impossibly high. I remember Augusto Cappellano imitating the sounds of wines fermenting and remarking how they were happiest when still in the botti, becoming angry when bottled. These appeared to be terrific wines that weren’t tasting terrific on this day because they were either too young or too closed or, in the case of the 1999, possibly a little oxidized. Compared to the magic of that experience, here the genie had been bottled. SO2 also plays a role in making the genie groggy.

1998 Marchesi Alfieri San Germano Pinot Nero (Monferrato, Italy)
Lovely, rich cherry and leather aromas. Attractive acidity and light bitterness. Extremely dry, attractively uncompromising. Found this quite interesting and perhaps liked it better than others at my table. It was also the beneficiary of no expectations.

Flight 3, all Loire Valley Cabernet Franc:
2007 Catherine & Pierre Breton "Franc de Pied" Bourgueil
From gravel under a layer of sand. Cherry, leather, funk. Nice enough, but nothing special. Scott says “better nose than palate.”

2002 Catherine & Pierre Breton "Franc de Pied" Bourgueil
Corked. Damaged. Dommage.

2005 Charles Joguet Chinon "Les Varennes du Grand Clos"
2007 was the last vintage. Very tight. Good structure, but not giving much at this point.

2005 Bernard Baudry Chinon Franc de Pied
This was lovely, with rich, ripe pomegranate, excellent acidity and balance, ending on a coup de grace savory note.
2003 Bernard Baudry Chinon Franc de Pied
Wonderful leather and funk aromas, forward and ripe. Rich and balanced, despite a touch of heat (all three were labeled 12.5% but ze buds whispered no).
2002 Bernard Baudry Chinon Franc de Pied
Best of an excellent trio, the fruit augmented by an evanescent smattering of armpit and barnyard laced with just the right amount of acid, making the yings every bit a match for the yangs. An uppercut to the chinon, and one of the better cab francs that I’ve tried. I generally prefer Baudry fdp to Breton fdp, and David Lillie says this may be because at Baudry there’s limestone under the sand, whereas at Breton there’s gravel. Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Gravel Road has some great songs on it.

Flight 4:
1995 Antonio Bernardino Paulo da Silva 'Reserva Velho Tinto' Colares Chitas (Sintra, Portugal)
By this point I was beginning to tank, thanks in part to continual distraction from the food, which made my palate a moving target, and the lively conversation compromising my attention. But most damaging was the impossibility of squirting undesired sips in a graceful arc towards the central bucket, partly for fear of hitting David Lillie, who was sitting directly across. This Colares, my first (I brought it inviolate) was definitely no carbonic fruit salad, as E.T. (the extraterroirist) would say. Cherry, leather and eucalyptus were there for the sniffing but vanished in the mouth thanks to vigorous acidity that overwhelmed the retro fruit. Came across as old world, austere, unyielding (you catch my drift), yet admirable in its aquiline severity. Was it compromised? Hard to tell with no internalized Platonic Colares to compare it to.

1995 Quinta do Ribeirinho (Luis Pato) Pé Franco Bairrada (Beiras, Portugal)
Rich nose with cherry and spices. Lovely tannins, ideal acidity, perfect balance. A thing of beauty. Portuguese man ‘o war.

1996 Quinta do Ribeirinho (Luis Pato) Pé Franco Bairrada (Beiras, Portugal)
This felt both more subdued and decadent, an odd combination, perhaps because the riper fruit was still emerging from closure. This was a donation from Luis Pato for our tasting, and I wonder why he chose this vintage rather than, say, the 1995.

2004 Atalayas de Golban Ribera del Duero (Castilla y Leon, Spain)
Cherry and coconut, like American oak without the dill. Tasted very modern and garish in (and after) present company. Little did I know that this was a harbinger.

Flight 5:
2007 Domaine Gauby "Muntada" Côtes du Roussillon Villages Rouge (Roussillon, France)
Didn’t like this but didn’t write down why.

2007 Clos Saron Home Vineyard Pinot Noir (Sierra Foothills, California)
Vanillin diluted in alcohol. Horrible.

2004 Cantina Santadi "Terre Brune" Carignano del Sulcis (Sardinia, Italy)
With appropriate inspiration, I can whip out a one word TN: yuck.

2004 Cantina del Taburno "Bue Apis" Aglianico del Taburno (Campania, Italy)
Dishrag yuck. Bueshit.
2003 Cantina del Taburno "Bue Apis" Aglianico del Taburno (Campania, Italy)
Charred yuck. Ditto.

1991 Quinta do Noval "Nacional" Porto (Douro Valley, Portugal)
Ripe plum and figs. Not multilayered, but lovely, despite the mercy killing level of alcohol and my sensory degradation.

A spectacular event. The excellence and sheer volume of the wines, coupled with the superbly flavorful food and lively conversation, competed too much to allow optimal appreciation of any of the parts. To more properly evaluate this much wine, I’d have to spit, but then the affair would have become more stilted. I was the only person not ITB at my table, and others seemed to be handling the cascade of pleasure with professional ease. Perhaps I would have been better off at Salil’s table, discussing filigrees of poop. But it was fun to sit between Brad Kane and Scott Reiner, and I wouldn’t want to have given that up. All in all, an embarrassment of riches.

I was quite interested to read the Cappellano notes, as I have a few. It looks like I can forget about the 2001 for a while.