WTN: 2 Italians, 2 French

With grilled shrimp over white beans and arugula, the 2008 Heinrich Mayr "Blaterle " ( Nusserhof, Bozen). This was actually a mistake buy, I thought I had tried this and liked it at a charity tasting, looking at my notes it was a Mayr red (Schiava). OK mistake, because I liked this too. Light with lemon and green apple fruit, quite floral, good zippy finish. There's a bit of an oystershell mineral note (of course, when I notice that in Muscadet I associate it with being by the sea, in this case I think they're high in the Alps!). B+/B

With pasta primavera the 2005 Paul Pernot Bourgogne. I drank several of these after release, dug out couple I tucked away recently to see if still alive. Good color, pear nose with a bit of a bothersome cheesy streak. Luckily, that seems to fade with time. A revisit after about 3 hours is showing quite well, and on day 2 it's still lively (with zero cheese). Maybe a bit too light to pass for a Puligny, but the clean white fruit, stony minerality, and focus do remind one of its big brother. B/B+

With lamb stew (same night, couple of courses to clean out leftovers), the 2000 Haut-Chaigneau (Lalande de Pomerol). This is the "Cuvee Prestige" according to the back label, but just says Haut Chaigneau on front, and I think they make only the one. Red plums and black cherries, moderate to low acids, mostly resolved tannins. Pretty standard RB satelite, holding on ok. Drinking well, pretty nice wine, but was there really a point of cellaring this 7-8 years? No better than at release, just slightly different. To it's credit it held up well overnight. B

Tonight we made a couple of recipes from a new Lidia B cookbook (Heart of Italy) - Betsy did an Abruzzian lamb chop with olives, while I made a Ligurian green bean recipe. Betsy also made a non-Italian wheatberry and spinach salad. Thinking Campania abuts Abruzzi (I'm wrong), I opened the 1995 Mastrobernardino "Radici" Taurasi. Cork a little crumbly, and I was concerned at first as there were some hints of VA and pruniness coming off bottle. But with 10 minutes of air everything was hunky dory. Ripe kirschy red fruit, some black plum, leather. Tannins still there, but not as overt as when wine was released. Drinking well and I;d expect to hold up well for several years. B+

Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.  

Before doing a note about this wine under NewTopic (no one could ever have done a WTN on a Blatterle!), I decided to be cautious and first do a search. Lo and behold, I was wrong. Dale had reported on one, the same one in fact as mine. Actually, since Mayr just might be the only producer of Blatterle it's not surprising that the two would be the same.

Blatterle, I learned from Dressner, is a rare old white indigenous to the Bolzano/Bozen area of Alto Adige. How rare? Rare enough not even to get a mention in Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine. As we'll soon be visiting Alto Adige, I picked up this bottle on sale at $20 in Washington.

The overwhelming sensation is of dried fruit; prunes, figs, perhaps some molasses. It's dry with a minerally Muscadet-like aftertaste and a medium mouth feel. We very much enjoyed it and look forward now to visiting Mayr's estate and also, perhaps, coming across more Blatterle in Alto Adige.

Hi Dale -

Thank you for the interesting notes. I had the "2007" Mayr/Nusserhof Blaterle a couple of years ago (technically, it's a nonvintage wine) and enjoyed it then. Haven't tried any of their reds, yet, though.