1999 Alzinger, Riesling Loibenberg:
13% alcohol; after many years of being a light yellow and having enough structure and acidity to make me think this would never come around, it has. Deep golden now with hints of red in the highlights; potent and penetrating nose of honeycomb, resin, minerals and Alpine flowers; rich but not cloying, deep and pure, the structure now supports remarkable concentration, the balance is excellent but outsized and the finish as very long. Twelve years in bottle has served this wine and it needed them all.
With Caesar salad and grilled chicken, superb.
2010 Folk Machine, Jeanne D'Arc:
100% chenin blanc from Mendocino picked at 24 brix and fermented with naturally occurring yeasts for about a month, on the skins, until dry, without sulphur additions. Got a small shot of sulphur at bottling.
Has an apricot, chenin, resinous note that still is identifiable as chenin; not so in the mouth, where it is creamy but tart, strongly flavored and still a bit angular, stuffed with concentration and already displaying intensity and some complexity; quite long.
This actually reminds me of the skin-fermented sauvignon that I do, although this is true to its variety. Based on the intensity and structure, this is just beginning its development and can take years in the cellar. If it develops like my sauvignon, which I do anticipate, it will soften, flesh out and deepen in color.
A pretty remarkable wine at a bargain basement price of $18, full retail.
As near as I can tell, available only at a small tasting room in Healdsburg, CA, and at Hobo wines.com.
Best, Jim