WTN: IGTs with Cribbage

Wine and cribbage notes

Duval Leroy Brut Champagne – light colour, some yeastiness in the nose, soft and clean on palate.

2004 Dopff & Irion Riesling Schoenenbourg Grand Cru – a real fuel oil nose on this one!Fairly rich in the mouth, and a fair bit of RS, but pretty well balanced. Nice surprise.

1998 Ricasoli Casalferro – this all sangiovese IGT offered red fruit, earth, and a hint of mushroom in the nose, a pleasant slightly astringent mouth feel, soft tannins and a nice smooth finish. No rush.

1998 Le Macchiole Rosso – another IGT, with a bit of added merlot presented a more dark fruit element in the nose, with a hint of anise, some soft tannin and a good clean finish with lingering acidity. The performance of these two in the glass indicated that the second wine was nearing the end of its plateau while the first one was still cruising on top.

2005 Ch. Partarrieu Sauternes - light colour, sweet somewhat candied nose, decent balance, if a bit soft and a pleasant afternoon wine. I took a look at Parker in the hope of gaining some knowledge of this house, and instead got a laugh when I noticed the note on the 2009, which was characterised as being “is nascent and in fieri” in the nose (for those who may not be familiar with that terminology, it simply means not yet fully developed). Is RP writing the notes on Bordeaux these days? Did someone send him a new dictionary that lists pretentious and redundant synonyms for words in normal usage? Or maybe his vocabulary (or whoever is writing this stuff) is simply nascent and in fieri….. I really hope Bob didn’t write that as I generally like his notes, being probably one of the vanishingly small few that look further than the numerical score and actually read what he thought of a wine.

PS - the good guys won at crib!

And how, pray tell, does alcohol consumption influence your card playing abilities??!!

I trust you skillfully avoided any '19' hands

And how, pray tell, does alcohol consumption influence your card playing abilities??!!

In the case of the distaff side, in a pronounced inability to add up to 31. We may have the words "17?....Go" put on a T shirt for her!

PS - the good guys won at crib!

Not much to say about the wines, Bill, but were you playing cribbage in teams? Though I love the game, I only know it as 2-, 3- or 4-handed, every-player-for-himself, game.

Mark Lipton

Mark
Doubles is a common variant - I still have my runner-up trophy from a work tournament in the `80s . Three handed loses a little of the head to head mind-games IMO.

I'm not sure whether it's common, or indeed anyone else plays it at all, but we did enjoy 'suicide crib', where the idea is you have to score as low as possible. Probably the best 'suicide' game I know with just as much thought needed. For me it's better three-handed than the original game.

regards

Ian

Agree that 3 handed isn't as good a game.

Pairs is pretty good, though, and when you only remembered to bring one board, that's as good as it gets!