1986 Adega Cooperativa de Colares Vinho Tinto
Picked up in December at the Colares coop, where they stock vintages stretching back to the 1930s. Wanting something older, and not having internalized a Colares vintage chart (the sheer incompetence...), I went for 1986 because it was a good year in Bordeaux, as if that meant anything. Aromas are quite exotic, with prunes, dishrag, tobacco and a forestful of pine resin. The fruit has mostly gone the way of its ancestors, leaving the faintest smidgen of sweetness to counter the unforgiving, suck the chrome off the trailer hitch acidity. Despite the desert dryness, fascinated by the nose, and with cheese blunting some of the pungency, I was actually happy with it, in a geekily reverent sort of way. But Marcia, less a masochist, just couldn't take the Lusitanian heat, so I opened a half bottle of:
2006 Felsina Chianti Classico Berardenga 13.0%
Blackberries submerged in vanillin and caramel, as if doused with new wood essence. Good acidity, decent fruit and balance, pleasantly astringent tannins, everything correct but somehow utterly unexceptional. Palates I respect dig Felsina but, unlike Fontodi or Ricasoli, I have yet to taste one that makes me say wow, or even flutter.
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