A couple of Fridays back, a late afternoon e-mail soon turned into an impromptu poker game at my house, with 4 of us playing some Texas Hold ‘Em and drinking some good wines.
2005 Vollenweider Riesling Wolfer Goldgrube Spatlese Mosel. Pungently plump, dense and generous on the nose, this wine features lovely aromas of sweet citrus, lemonball candy, sweet chalk dust, candy cigarettes and a strong streak of petrol. In the mouth, it is lush and creamy, with a dynamic interplay between the sweet apple, pear and tropical fruit flavors and some zesty spritz and acidity. It feels seamless, a tad decadent, deliciously-flavored and plenty driven. It’s really an excellent Spatlese, in my opinion.
1999 Antinori Brunello di Montalcino Pian delle Vigne. Initially, this wine is wide open for business on the nose. It offers up delightful aromas of crushed red flowers, sappy red cherry, sweet licorice rope, fresh-laid road tar, chocolate, and dusty oak. In the mouth, though, I don’t like it nearly as much, as there’s an odd acrid streak running through the middle of the wine that detracts right from the start. There’s loads of black cherry fruit, but that bitter charcoal, green oak, green pepper and raw cedar vein just doesn’t work for me. Although the wine’s tannins do soften up a bit over time and those ungainly elements do slowly begin to better integrate, it also turns increasingly sticky and sweetly warm-fruited. On day 2, the nose isn’t nearly so nice, but the palate seems a tad more sorted out and mainstream, so I’m not quite sure what advice to give about this wine just now, frankly.
1999 Castello Banfi Brunello di Montalcino. This is both darker in color and darker in tone than the Antinori. It offers up penetrating aromas of black cherries, fireplace embers, tar, toasted orange peel and oak that grow more complex over time, but also tend to let the wood influence shine through a bit more. In the mouth, it is again fairly dark in tone by comparison—with strong flavors of black licorice, blackberries, black currant and dark earth. It has a distinct sweetness to it at times, but I don’t mind that a whole lot, especially since the texture here is so smooth and polished. Overall, it was sort of the middle of the road of this trio.
2002 Marchesi de Frescobaldi Brunello di Montalcino Castelgiocondo. The nose of the third Brunello is markedly earthier in tone—with slightly murky but mysterious bits of sour cherry, potting soil, persimmon, ash, leather and fur aromas in play. In the mouth, it is definitely the most traditionally-made of these three, with a lot of character and solid balance all the way through. The flavors of sour cherry, currants, chocolate, leather and earth are quite tasty and are carried along by fine sour-tinged acidity. There are still some polished tannins to contend with on the finish, but this is really nice to drink right now. I think it was pretty unanimous that this was the most enjoyable wine of the three.
1996 Vietti Barolo Castiglione. The color of this wine is a tad tawny and and bricking around the edges. Initially, everyone started out by commenting on the strong Girl Scout mint cookie aromas this exudes upon opening! But that fades pretty quickly and yields to the more dominant and persistently traditional aromas of dark earth, blended spices, dried red flowers, black leather and dark fruits—along with a high-toned acetone streak that adds more complexity, rather than detracting from the overall enjoyment. On the palate, the wine exhibits excellent sour cherry flavor intensity to go with some Christmas ribbon candy, earth and caramel complexity delivered across a rather Old World styled structure of dry acidity and firm but unobtrusive tannin. It is full of fine flavor delivered in waves of fruit and earth tones and always feels controlled, balanced and finely-toned. In structure, it still feels quite youthful, while in flavor and texture it feels nicely resolved—a really nice combination for my tastes. So, I think it is fine to drink now or hold a while longer, depending on your own preferences.
2008 Dusted Valley Vintners Cabernet Franc Columbia Valley. A few caveats on this wine: It is closed with a screwcap, it was initially opened two nights earlier, and Zach’s main reason for buying it was to get the free t-shirt that came with it. I’m sure the t-shirt is nice, but the wine really isn’t. It smells of oak, oak and more oak, with maybe some green pepper and pencil shavings in there, as well. On the palate, it is a bit hot, with dark cherry, sweet caramel and mentholated wood flavors simultaneously coating and burning the tongue.
N.V. Chambers Rosewood Muscadelle (Tokay) Rutherglen. This was from a bottle purchased in 2002. It is brown in color and totally coats the inside of the glass like molasses. It is loaded with aromas of raisins, dates, iced tea, spicecake and caramel and tastes of Fig Newton filling, caramel candy and raisins. It coats the tongue and is dense and rich in the extreme, with a fun sweet core to it. In subsequent days, it mellows out a bit and starts to show off more of its acidic backbone, which was largely obscured the first night. I like it both ways, actually.
-Michael