Blair and Kelly invited a gaggle of folks over to watch some World Cup football last month, and we all descended on their place with a mish-mash of wines and food to watch a pretty good match with a positive outcome for our side. It was a great day all around.
Whites:
2000 Pierre Gimonnet Champagne Spécial Club 1er Cru Brut. This was empty by the time I arrived, but word was that it was top-notch.
2006 Domaine Guy Roulot Bourgogne Blanc. This wine presents a clean nose of apple and pear flesh, lemon rind and soft minerals. In the mouth, it is cool and well-constructed, with tastes of chalk, graphite, citrus and apple in a solid sphere of flavor staying a bit tightly-contained but well-rounded. It is a bit fine-tuned more than giving or exciting right now, but pretty solid overall.
2007 Huët Vouvray Sec Clos du Bourg. Here one finds rather crisp but fine-wrought aromas of lemon peel, river rocks, lanolin, wax and green herbs. In the mouth, it is dry and crisp, with a solid backbone of acidity around which swirl mouth-filling flavors of citrus, minerals and chalk. The full flavors are fine and classy, with a fine tangy quality and a great minerally crunch. This is just going to get better and better, so I would sit tight for a while.
1998 Müller-Catoir Mußbacher Eselshaut Rieslaner Spätlese Trocken Pfalz. There is a really lovely bouquet to this wine—redolent of apricot, nectarine, copper wire, petrol fuel, minerals and herbs. The fruit smells sweet, yet fresh and tangy—quite interesting. In the mouth, it is crisply dry and a bit tingly with prickly acids, but it also reveals plenty of giving and rounded tropical and citrus fruit flavor. Right now, I prefer the nose to the palate, but otherwise I think this can be enjoyed today.
Reds:
1998 Louis Jadot Echezeaux Grand Cru. This wine is a delight on the nose, offering up gentle aromas of red flowers, creamed cherries, red berries, soft cedar, and lovely allspice and cinammon accents. It is a very pretty, feminine bouquet that feels languid, floral and inviting. It is similarly carressing on the palate, with an easy balance, a lacy, medium-bodied feel and a nice little tickle of spices all the way through to accent the cherry and berry fruit. This is drinking just great and was probably my WOTN.
2001 Frederic Esmonin Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru. This is a whole different expression of Pinot Noir, but no less compelling. It is richly-layered and sexy on the nose, with all kinds of perfume, incense and funky musk elements mingling together with wonderfully deep notes of cherry fruit and sous bois undergrowth. For all that, it feels vivid and bright despite the intensity and lush character. In the mouth, it is smooth and lithe, kind of lanky and long—with very fine delineation to the black and red berry fruit, fine acidity and mace-tinged spiciness. It has a fine sense of pace and flow and a nice cohesive character—finishing long and promising. It has plenty of life ahead, but is very tasty drinking today.
1996 Domaine Henri Gouges Nuits St. Georges 1er Cru Les Saint Georges. This wine presents a full-on nose of creamed cherries, red currants, fireplace ashes, earth and a bit of mocha. It is a more masculine expression, with lots being held still in reserve. On the palate, it is smooth-textured but showing a fair bit of chalky tannin all the way through. It doesn’t quite hit the high notes of the previous wines and never seems to quite find its highest gear, content for now to play it a bit safe. It is showing solid fruit, good length, a moderately firm structure and a growing acidic grip. It needs another 2-4 years before trying again, I would think.
1999 Domaine Denis Bachelet Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes. There is something terribly wrong with this wine. It smells of nasty, rotting vegetables, compost heap and volatile notes that are just brutal. It is at least a bit drinkable on the palate, where it shows some fuzzy, almost furry red cherry fruit, plush spices and still plenty of wood. It comes across as still quite youthful, but to be honest it is all a bit academic, as it is tough to even stick your nose inside the glass without gagging. A flawed bottle.
2005 Nicolas Potel Volnay. There are nice bits of cinammon, mince pie, rhubarb, cranberry, cranapple, smoke and ash aromas here, with deeper bits of cherry and raspberry fruit in the mix over time. It feels a bit modern and sleek, but rather pleasing, too. It is dry and a bit tannic in the mouth, with elements of mace, earth, leather and black fruit showing very young and tangy and in need of a few more years in the cellar.
1980 Kalin Cellars Pinot Noir Cuvee JL Sonoma County. This wine had been shipped to me a few weeks earlier and arrived leaking from beneath the capsule. However, I did not sense any cooked elements at all in it, though I do have to say that it is a wine that almost defies tasting note descriptors, as it seems to change and morph pretty much every time you come back to it—ping-ponging back and forth between sublimely good and on the verge of shot to hell. In the end, sublime wins out for me, but I’m not sure that was the case for 100% of those present. In any event, the nose offers up all kinds of secondary and tertiary aromas wafting around beneath the core of cherries and mixed berries. At times, there are some high-toned VA and sweet tomato paste notes to contend with, but those fade in and out as considerably more intriguing notes of cedar dust, farmyard scrabble, sweaty funk, dried herbs, exotic spices and sweet fruits take over. In the mouth, it is finely-layered and absolutely fully-flavored for a wine of its age. The abundant red fruit and soft spice flavors totally fill all corners of the mouth and lead to a long, lingering finish of great character. It has a dry quality to it despite all the sweet fruit and it seems like it constantly walks a tightrope—making for a very individualistic and intriguing bottle of wine to sit with for a while.
2001 Ridge Lytton Springs Dry Creek Valley. This is 76% Zinfandel, 17% Petite Sirah and 7% Carignan. It is very ripe indeed on the nose, with a glossy feel to the aromas of blueberry, black fruits, spice cake and melted chocolate. It shows a ton of briery blueberry and blackberry fruit flavor to go with lots of ceamy chocolate flavor in the mix. To my taste, it is fairly high-octane version of Lytton Springs, showing more pure Zin character than I often encounter from this bottling.
2001 Hartford Zinfandel Highwire Vineyard Russian River Valley. There are lots of pumpkin spices right off the bat here, with some black licorice and fennel notes, campfire embers and briery berry aromas coming on strong after that. There is also an absolutely tell-tale aroma of electrical tape that I dislike and invariably get from this bottling--I don’t know what it is, but it would give this wine away to me blind just about every time. In the mouth, it is absolutely vibrant with fruit, spices and a bit of obvious alcohol. There are definite tannins to contend with and it is a big, chewy wine despite a fairly glossy and slippery texture through the middle. There are some elements here I like, but it is yet another Hartford Zin that leaves me cold when all is said and done.
2006 Turley Zinfandel Old Vines California. This is an absolutely voluminous wine on the nose and takes a good while to settle down and find a bit firmer footing. Even so, scents of white pepper, purple fruits, purple flowers, chocolate and rubber are still a bit of overload at times. On the palate, it is real lithe and glossy but also hugely mouth-filling and fruit-driven—with a woody spiciness running all the way through it. There is a burn of alcohol to contend with, too, and the whole thing just feels way too young to drink now.
2003 Poggio Bertaio Cimbolo Umbria IGT. This Sangiovese presents a velvety, plush nose of rich chocolate, plum, blackberry, blueberry and soy that is luscious and inviting, with a caressing feel to it that just invites one right in. It is not at all overdone for the vintage and is frankly a whole lot more balanced and inviting than any of the Zinfandels drunk before it. In the mouth, it is absolutely seamless and plushly-textured, with a fine chocolatey character to go with the rich plum and spicecake flavors. It is not overly-heavy to my taste and shows no overt heat or roasty qualities. The tannins do begin to get a bit intrusive after a while, though, and my feeling is that this could improve further with a short bit of additional cellar time. Pretty good showing, though.
2006 Galil Mountain Winery Yiron Galilee. CORKED.
1999 Whitehall Lane Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley. This wine has a really strong and direct bouquet redolent of crème de cassis, cherry pie filling, turned earth and a dusting of white pepper. It is full of cassis flavor on the palate, and brings along with it a good bit of vanilla and soft oak, too. It is pretty creamy, with solid body and stuffing, but with persistent tannins and toasty barrel spices that need time to integrate a bit better. There is good stuffing here that will likely need 3 to 5 years to show its best. Still, I’m not sure this will ever be quite as good as the 1996 or 1997 versions of this wine.
2001 Anderson's Conn Valley Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Estate Reserve Napa Valley. This one was drunk up by the time I picked up the empty bottle to pour, but I heard a number of people say it was among their favorite wines of the day.
2006 Provenance Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford Napa Valley. This wine is a very dark, opaque color. It smells of cassis, black raspberry, cedar and dark earth—showing a bit of mystery to it that I like. It is super-fudgy on the palate, featuring sweet fruit, a rich texture and teeth-staining tannins to go with a fair bit of toasted oak and exotic spice. It is a fleshy, low-acid wine that is pretty enjoyable at times, but certainly needs to be cellared for maximum enjoyment.
2005 Château de Ribebon Bordeaux Supérieur. This is 60% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Cabernet Franc. I didn’t care a whole lot for the nose of this wine (though a bottle tasted some weeks later was a bit more nuanced). This one shows aromas of rubber, nettles, meat and warm mixed berries that are ripe and a bit unstructured for such a young Bordeaux. In the mouth, it does possess a good amount of fruit, but also obvious tannin, wood and smoke. It is more structured than on the nose, but is a bit tough and chewy. The acidity is pretty decent, but the wood and tannin levels need to come down before it is able to provide any more than just cursory enjoyment.
2004 Château Branaire-Ducru St. Julien. I’ve tasted this wine about five times now, and the real pretty bouquet is definitely beginning to tighten up over the past few months. This bottle features taut aromatics of red currants, black cherries and cranberry fruit, with some forest greenery, savory spices, pencil lead and fresh pencil shavings that are quite classic, but not as overtly appealing as earlier in the wine’s evolution. However, on the palate, this particular bottle seems to be showing more body and heft to it than the last few I’ve tasted. It is a wiry sort of wine, with a nice acidic twang to the black cherry and mixed currant fruit. It is not overly tannic at all, though at times it seems to show a bit raw and obviously youthful—especially on the slightly green, astingent finish. Overall, though, I am encouraged by the weight this seems to be putting on, if this bottle is any barometer.
-Michael