Had a chance to try a bunch of nice wines today. Most impressed with Raveneau in this enlightened group.
2004 Raveneau Chablis 1er Cru Butteaux: Deep yellow in color. Nose is intoxicating, super Chablis, pineapple, wet stone, and vanilla. Texture is smooth, dense, almost fat, and full, but did not seem to be out of balance, good ability to handle its weight. Nice complexity with a super long finish. Very nice Chablis
2000 Raveneau Chablis Montee de Tonnerre: When it was first opened, it was tight, austere to the point of tasting like water in the mid palate with a metal tinge. But after about 4 hours in the bottle, man what a transformation, deep, complex, with truffle, minerals, some funkiness, and on the palate much the same but great texture, but again such great balance.
1998 Laville Haut Brion: rich with a bit of oil texture, fat, nose of lemon curd and honey. On the palate, great smooth texture, almost too big, but a mismatched medium finish. Nice but did not go back for a second.
1993 Serafin Pere & Fils Gevery Chambertin 1er cru Les Cazetiers: On the nose, tobacco, still good ripe berries, lovely texture, velvety tannins, with a medium plus body, and a nice persistence. Nice balance
1990 Louis Jadot Nuits-Saint-George, Clos Des Corve: much like the serafin, nice leafy tobacco nose, medium body, beautiful color, transparent, moving towards a tea color, lovely stuff.
1989 Domaine de Marcoux Chateauneuf du Papes: Many ohh’ed and ahhh’ed when this was pulled, but for me, this was a disappointment. Ripe and forward in fruits and berries. But there was a metallic tinge like a metal spoon and that stopped my enjoyment of the wine. I’m not sure if air would have helped this more as it was emptied pretty quickly.
1997 Turley California Zinfandel Old Vines: This wine has evolved and has shed some of its fat and density. Sweet fruit, good grip still but I’m thinking that Turley fans would drink this prior to it getting to this point.
1991 Graham’s Vintage Port: Starting to show some age as the flavours are definitely moving towards secondary notes. Still rather primal with ripe fruits, good structure, burnt sugars, perhaps a bit simple at this stage but still lovely.
2000 Gould Campbell Vintage Port: Ripe full bodied, dense, licorice, long finish, smooth texture. Should have a fine future ahead of it.