Paul Achs Blaufränkisch Heideboden 2007
Quite deep ruby-black. Quite red-fruity (with perhaps a touch of Burgundian raspberry) and lightly dustily tannic, with nice acidity and a soft shalloty metal note, a very well-balanced, nicely mouth-cleansing, not too complex, medium-long wine, best enjoyed with food. Fine QPR buy. Rating: ~88(-?)
Bernard Ancely Minervois La Muraille 2005
Same as a bottle last month, a very pretty, natural-flavoured wine, but one that is best drunk the day the cork is pulled – an open bottle oxidized (not too badly, but noticeably) overnight. Rating: 88-/87?
Corte Giara Amarone della Valpolicella 2004
Ordered from a local restaurant wine list. Plummy ruby-black colour, tiny orange rim. Quite big, nicely warming and round. Baked plum. Touch of waxy-dried honey. Orange rind tannin. Suggestions of mace, curcuma and anise spice notes. Soft waxy acidity. Good body. Medium length. Rating: 88+/89?
Girolamo Dorigo Colli Orientali del Friuli Refosco 2005
Ordered from a local restaurant wine list. Lightly purple ruby-black colour. Modern-styled and bit oaky, some minerals and earth, gastronomical quality wine, glyceric and superficially ripe, if nutty and a bit tough underneath, which I doubt will please the Red Bull generation ordering wine by the glass. Medium-short finish. Rating: ~84-
Birgit Eichinger Grüner Veltliner Wechselberg 2008
Thanks to my parents, for whom I am always trying to find more QPR Wachau and Kamptal wines. Nicely concentrated and balanced but fruitier than the Hasel, “more multi-faceted” my mom said (she really used a Swiss German dialect word that I am afraid defies translation, more like “multifarious”, only that it has a negative connotation, implying distrust in or aversion to range, variety and/or richness), more elegantly spiced, softly minerally, with good but more integrated acidity, less overtly tannic, more absorbed CO2, perhaps a bit longer on the finish. Nice medium body. Rating: 87(+?)
Bodegas Estefania Tilenus Bierzo Crianza 2003
From a restaurant wine list, thanks to the Sommelier. From 100-year old Mencia, if I remember correctly aged 12 months in French oak (hardly all new, judging from the taste). Nicely animal, round and sweetly ripe, balanced and harmonious, with quite flavourful tannin, complex and long, attractive and really quite unique in expression. Terrific QPR buy. Still youthful and firm enough it needs half an hour’s worth of airing to show at its best. Rating: ~90
Cédric Flaction Cave des Cailles Humagne Blanc 2007
Thanks to my parents. Needed some air to show variety and terroir typicity (tasted like a good Chasselas at first), nice tree bark, hay, lemon, earth and mineral notes, nice body and firm acidity, faint glyceric viscosity, medium length. Rating: 84(+?)
Daniel Marugg Fläscher Blauburgunder Weingut Bovel 2007
From a restaurant wine list, thanks to the Sommelier. A bit blacker and fresher in colour than the Studach, looking less evolved, a more Beaujolais-like winemaking style, lighter and a bit tighter if less tannic. Minor (and typical) aluminum top note, soft black pepper, faint pebbly-stony minerality. Medium length. Rating: 84+/85?
Markus Molitor Haus Klosterberg Riesling QbA trocken #57 2007
Thanks to Oliver. Almost dry, a bit loose, some tannic apple, faint minerality. Rating: ~83
Château du Mourre du Tendre Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Tradition 2001
L. 1.01.01 Another bottle of the same to confirm (amazingly enough, this fairly Henri Bonneau like wine is both affordable and still available – thinking about ordering more), love the old-fashioned style. Youthful but reasonably approachable, should really have decanted this an hour in advance, though. Well-balanced, nicely resistant to oxidation (albeit a more oxidative style than the average modern CdP to begin with), really one of my favourite 2001s (and quite reminiscent of Bonneau’s Cuvée Marie Beurrier from the same vintage). Drink or hold. Rating: 92+/93
Penfolds Cabernet-Shiraz Bin 389 2006
Thanks to Christian, ordered from a restaurant wine list. A 52-to-48% blend aged for 12 months in 22% new American oak hogsheads. Full ruby-purple. Sweetish-plump nose (the first bottle was fresher aromatically, but the slightly artificial-flavoured acidity seemed fractionally less well integrated). Lightly sweet and fat, grapey-pruney (the first bottle was plummy in a livelier way) and jammy cherry coke touch (admittedly hate that drink), a little milk chocolate over what smells like prune reduction on vanilla ice cream (but not unnervingly oaky in an obvious way). Finely-grained tannins of no particular distinction. Medium-plus length. Almost too polished to be true, gastronomic and modernistic in style (went well enough with everything on the hot and cold buffet), inoffensive. Thought the slight bottle variation a bit disturbing (and typical). Rating: 88-/87?
Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling Spätlese #15 Wehlener Sonnenuhr 2005
Half bottle ordered from a restaurant wine list. Seemed almost Auslese-ripe and -sweet and a bit low-acid this time, lightly evolved in that it already showed a soft petrol note to nice peachy golden sultana, pit fruit (white plum etc.) and soft spring flowers. Smoothly oily for Spätlese, faintly viscous. Medium-plus length. Early harmony, very approachable for a young Prüm. Rating: 89+/~90?
Château du Retout Haut-Médoc 2005
36.5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 43.5% Merlot, 20% Petit Verdot. Again did not take a note, but will next time – was again impressed, a quite complex, flavourful mouthful of a Cru Bourgeois, thick morello and blackcurranty dried fruits with a touch of coffee, a nice backbone of tannin, slightly evolved for a 2005, but well-structured and not oaky at all. Truly exceptional QPR buy! Rating: 88+/89(+?)
Georg Schlegel Jenins Pinot Noir Réserve du Patron 2007
Thanks to my parents. Medium raspberry-red colour, soft black reflections. Fractionally oakier than the standard bottling, but if not much firmer, then also a little more complex and finesseful, essentially a similarly balanced and harmonious Jeninser Blauburgunder, with soft minerality and metal notes, and healthy acidity for the vintage, quite long on the finish. Rating: 88
Studach Malanser Pinot Noir 2007
Ordered from a restaurant wine list. Oakier and less dense than the Gantenbein from the same vintage we ordered last time, but nicely smooth yet minerally, a well-balanced, easy to interpret wine, not without brains yet easy to enjoy in quantity, with ripe fruit and pretty if soft acidity and tannin, and nice length. My mother, of course, did not find it metallic and rustic enough for the region, and to the surprise of us all, Sommelier included, preferred the Bovel. Rating: 89+/~90?
Úri Borok (Vince Gergely) Tokaji Aszúeszencia 1998
Thanks to Guglielmo. "Only" 260 g/l residual sugar at 6.6% alcohol left of the earlier 410-430 g/l in this declassified Eszencia (rain during harvest, the vines and thus the Aszú grapes soaked up water), as it was additionally “diluted" by the humidity it "attracted" during the time it was kept in a (used!) oak Gönci barrel instead of glass demijohn as full-blown Eszencia would/might have and, as a consequence, was able to re-ferment to a slightly higher alcohol level than expected (albeit low for Aszú-Eszencia). The to me important aspect is that this contains no base wine or must, so that technically/philosophically speaking it is debatable whether it qualifies as Aszú-szölö bor. One of the finest bottles of this wine I have so far tasted, this was recently bought in a shop in Budapest at a very reasonable price. Beautiful finesseful bee’s wax and honey, dried apricot and mace, date and white chocolate, cane sugar syrup, faintest tobacco, backed by fairly firm acidity, a suggestion of tangerine rind. Quite long on the finish. Fairly sweet, and yet, clearly not as concentrated as it should be. No rancio oxidation notes in this bottle whatsoever. Beautiful, probably deserves more bottle age, but not easy to tell how well this particular Gergely AE will age (in complete contrast to e.g. the already legendary, all-harmony 1993). Rating: 93+?
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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„J'ai gâché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ – Roger Conti