A Friday night dinner at home with a rack of store-bought barbecued baby-back pork ribs and some awesome macaroni salad.
2008 Benaza Godello, Monterrei, Spain
Monterrei is in the southeast corner of the Galicia province of Spain, just above Portugal, where whites are the predominant wines, and Godello happens to be one of the major varietals.
I’ve been buying and drinking this wine over the past 3 summers now from a local merchant who continually features it. I’ve never written a TN on it and so, I thought, why not write one now. Well, the nose on this wine emits tropical fruit with a slight gewurstraminerish notes to it. Beyond that, the wine is bone dry, lemony with mineral notes all over, slightly oily, and then there’s that nice under-layer of white fruit that keeps it soft and refreshing. With just enough complexity to go around, it remains an easy and pleasant summer quaffer at 12.5% abv. A good value at $12.99 (discountable). B
2007 Domaine Tempier Cuvee Classique Bandol, Provence, France
Whew! This is not one of Tempier’s single-vineyard products, but I don’t think it matters. This wine had that beautiful and inviting red ruby color, but with the dominating smell of Mourvedre funk/bret/sweaty horse, some milk, and wood. A couple of sips later, and everything is big, woody, black pepper all over, and a lot of that punishing and face-uglying harshness and angular mouth-feel. I don’t recall having had a Tempier red that’s produced from this decade, and just to sum it up: if you have any of these, and it’s really just the harshness of the wine that’s making me say it, bury it and stay the f#@k away for a long time. Or, if you really must, make sure to decant for a week. NR.
BTW, I just want to acknowledge OC who I recall had an earlier TN, with a title which I’m somewhat recycling here.
