It was my birthday dinner last night and my parents prepared a sumptuous repast at their place. We comsumed the following wines -
Christian Moreau Chablis Grand Cru "Les Clos" 2004 - barely straw in colour and as the wine warmed in the glass delivers a bevy of flinty nuance suggestive of underripe green melon, white flowers, saline, seaspray, chalk and minerals. The palate offers a tightly coiled package riddled with classic Chablis chalky/stony minerality, although there's a wealth of matching fruit and a sensational dry/crisp finish of enormous length. A keeper but worth trying one now, it's that good. 93
Marc Pavelot Savigny-Les-Beaune 1er Cru "Narbantons" 1999 - high fill level with almost zero permeation up the cork. Excellent colour for the age. Fantastically complex nose of sous bois, hung game, sweet wet earth, cherries and sap - very sexy as is typical for this variety. The palate similarly endowed with a vein of lively acidity providing a nervy edge to but not overdone. Resolves beautifully with ripe tannin and something resembling a peacock tail. Properly long and svelte to finish. FWII, awfully darn smart. 92
Wynns Coonawarra John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon 1988 - another "well into neck" fill level and a very good cork extracted in one piece. Still a healthy medium ruby colour, classic Cabernet aromatics of sandalwood, leafy greens, herbs, capsicum and some Coonawarra mint later. Somewhat different (almost a tad undeveloped) to previous bottles over the last year but extremely easy to drink with green olive, cedary oak, tar and subtle blackcurrant notes providing adequate counterbalance to the "shrubbery". Not surprisingly, there's some lovely lacy tannin and lively acid providing terrific grip. This label has a propensity of "keeping on". This rather cool vintage produced a wine with very low A/V and it shows. I still very much enjoyed the wine and thought it worthy of 90 points.
We were feeling a bit merry at this stage so I opened an old port I had dug out of the cellar - Seppelt Rutherglen Vintage Port 1972 - notable for the unusual (in an Australian sense) grape varieties used - touriga, bastardo and alvarelhão. This "monster" fortified wine showed massive development characters on the nose bordering on muscatels and prunes with contributions of old books, ancient leather and quite a degree of volatility that disturbed the probiscus. The palate was far too astringent (almost explosive), way too early in the mouth, suggesting this bottle had seen better days. It was drinkable, but gave this taster very little pleasure. I could only manage a score of 75 points. Oh well, 3/4 was not too bad an average for what was a nice evening with the family and a good friend!
