WTN: Bests, Reynvaan, Balbo, Serra Nuove, Pradeaux, De Lisio

Notes from my monthly blind tasting lunch – a particularly interesting batch of wines this time.

2008 Springfontein White – this Cape wine with a needlessly cryptic label (you have to get out a magnifying glass to find out who made it) is 100% sauv blanc, but maybe they call it just ‘white’ because they intend to vary the blend in future. It had some colour and a nice stony nose with a bit of grassiness and considerable fruit, almost lush in the mouth. Very good.

2006 Christian Moreau Chablis Vaillons 1er Cru Cuvee Guy Moreau –a nice clean chard nose, some light pear flavours and a clean long finish.

2009 Shannon Vineyard Rockview Ridge Pinot Noir (Elgin Valley) - South Africa is not the first lace you head for Pinot Noir. This wine had a spicy slightly woody nose , and was forward and sweet and tasty on palate, very smooth. May have to start looking at this area for PN! They also make a late harvest sticky from Pinot….?!?

1998 Bests Great Western Bin #0 Shiraz (Victoria) – not sure why you’d start numbering casks with zero instead of one… Anyway, it has been a long time since I had a Bests wine, but I remember them fondly. This one didn’t seem like a 1998, it seemed more under control and a bit younger. There was still some purple at the edges, and a very nice sweet blueberry and vanilla nose. Medium to large frame, soft tannin, very enjoyable. We seemed to be on a Southern Hemisphere bent.

2008 Reynvaan Family Vineyard ‘In the Rocks’ Syrah – had heard good things about this Walla Walla winery, but had never tasted their wine before. A sweet currant nose that morphed into more raspberry with time, sweet entry, soft and with good length. Delicious. Obviously one to watch for.

2006 La Serre Nuove dell’Ornellaia – this is the second wine from Ornellaia, a Bordeaux blend with merlot, cab, cab franc and petit verdot. It had a dark colour and a nose I call ‘vitamin tablet’ (guess we need to figure out what compounds create that sensation). The only hint as to origin was lots of up front acidity. There were coffee mocha hints and soft tannins. Excellent and drinking well now but no rush at all.

2003 Susana Balbo Brioso (Mendoza) - this red Bordeaux blend from Argentina had a good Bordeaux style nose, , was quite sweet on entry with some currant, had lots of fruit and tannins at the end. 68% CS, 19% Malbec, 10% petit verdot and 10% cab franc. May develop further.

2001 Ch. Pradeaux Bandol – picked up on a trip to France last year, I failed to nail this one. Medium dark with rich peppered plum nose and obviously old enough to have shed any give-away Mourvedre funkiness. Lots of soft tannin, lots of acidity, maturing but nowhere near the end of the road. Very nice.

2004 De Lisio Catalyst – this was a love it or hate it wine (I liked it quite a bit). Purple edges, very dark, a smoky sweet nose with blackberry and currant notes and hints of vanilla, but less oak than many Oz wines. It has huge concentration and a good, very long finish, ending dry. Blend of shiraz and Grenache, this is a smooth well educated wine, not a brawling lout like some, and gets French oak rather than American. No rush. Makes a great cheese wine at the end of a meal.

[Jenise]

The diversity yesterday was sure notable, as was the absence of the more usual suspects like Bordeaux and Chateneuf!

2008 Springfontein White – fresh cut grass and minerals usually signal a leaner wine than this, but there was an enchanting sweet fruit in the nose and some limeade on the palate that managed to provide freshness without sacrificing sophistication or dryness. Excellent.

2006 Christian Moreau Chablis Vaillons 1er Cru Cuvee Guy Moreau – bright and clean with good chablis character. Presented at the level of a very strong Premier Cru, could have been a Grand Cru. Excellent for the vintage.

2009 Shannon Vineyard Rockview Ridge Pinot Noir (Elgin Valley) - Warm red color. Very complex, spicy nose with raspberry fruit (I suggested it might be New Zealand) and a malted, smokey palate. Very intriguing wine and hard to place on the planet, but in a good way. Killer value at $36 Canadian.

1998 Bests Great Western Bin #0 Shiraz (Victoria) – Big blueberry and black currant nose tamed with a tiny bit of iodine and some toffee notes. Sweeter and with some alcohol, so not surprised it's an Aussie. Very good, and an interesting foil for my wine:

2008 Reynvaan Family Vineyard ‘In the Rocks’ Syrah, Walla Walla: Bill expressed some interest in this producer after following notes on this board, so I decided to take one to lunch. Also, I really wanted to have more than the brief taste I'd had at a friend's home--he's a distributor and had been pouring that wine all over the county that day. And the first thing I have to say is that I didn't find this like my friend's bottle: that one, I recall, was very dark and big-fruited, smokey and with a lot of animale character, which I've never had outside of the Northern Rhone. At the time I thought it had too much fruit for a Rhone but too much old world essence for domestic, so I guessed South Africa. To make sure I released all those animals, I decanted this for 12 hours overnight and put back in the bottle about six hours before serving it yesterday, but alas, it didn't remind me of Gabe's bottle at all. Not as ripe, not as dark, no animals, no smoke. Instead, raspberry and passion fruit, reminding me a lot more of a Sine Qua Non grenache I had about ten years ago than anything I've tasted from Washington. Not bad, and in fact quite good. Just not what I was expecting.

2006 La Serre Nuove dell’Ornellaia – Vitamin B, powdered sugar, chocolate, espresso, black cherry and tobacco. Excellent.

2003 Susana Balbo Brioso (Mendoza) - Bordeauxish but tangier, new worldier and loaded with mint. Not much secondary development yet, will be interesting to see where this goes. Good.

2001 Ch. Pradeaux Bandol – Raisiny dark fruit with coffee, pepper and blood. Doesn't have the sweaty horses one expects of Bandol, but it's excellent and surprisingly more advanced than I'd have expected based on the bottle we opened in France last year at this time. I'm so disappointed Coop wasn't there to share this with; I'd counted on that when we chose the wine.

2004 De Lisio Catalyst – Huge, sweet, saturated and alcoholic. Has that velveteen texture with an underlying hint of sour milk so typical of McClaren Vale reds, but seems stranded somewhere between a dry wine and a late harvest. Btw, I mentioned that I own some of this label? I checked this morning; it's the 05 I have at 15.5% alcohol vs. this wine's 16.4. Even then, I found it oversized and after tasting one bottle, marked the rest down for ten years out.