As has become customary over the last several years, I joined friends Matt, Gerry and Blair for an extensive day of tailgating at a New England Patriots home game last month. We made a ton of fantastic food (homemade chili, pulled pork, multiple chicken wing offerings, etc.) and brought along a real interesting selection of wines to go with it all. We had perfect weather, encountered only one slightly corked bottle, and the good guys won--so it was a hugely successful afternoon all around.
Before the game:
2000 Gaston Chiquet Champagne Special Club. It was a great way to begin the afternoon with this classy beauty, which smells elegantly of apple, lime rind, chalk, flint, herbs, talc and light ginger ale. In the mouth, it tastes delightful—full of driven and expansive yet refined flavors of yellow apple, lemon and yeast in a nicely brisk and clean package that has a fine mouthfeel and a long, lasting finish. I really enjoyed it.
2005 Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben Riesling Erdener Treppchen Spatlese Mosel Saar Ruwer. This wine offers up beautiful aromas of slate, petrol, peach, lime and soft baking spices in a luscious, open and giving bouquet that is a little sweet-toned but oh-so inviting. On the palate, it is much the same—full, broad, juicy and loaded with concentrated mouth-filling flavor. The lime, peach, cherry and occasional sweet tropical fruit notes are harmoniously interwoven with the minerality and soft acidity and the whole thing is long, lasting and lovely. It is clearly on the sweet side of Spatlese and some may yearn for sharper acidity, but I just love the way it slides across the palate and gives up its pleasures in such an open and welcoming fashion.
1998 Hubert Lignier Morey St. Denis. Our first red of the afternoon pours a bit cloudy and garnet-tinged from the bottle and provides the taster with an extremely earthy nose to consider—with a wide range of dark cherry, sous bois, peat, tea leaves, leather, barnyard and toasted orange peel aromas coming through in waves. In the mouth, it is a bit leathery-textured and certainly feels grippy on the tongue. Also, the persistent streak of acidity that runs underneath it can get a bit aggressive at times, but it seems to work in solid harmony with the rest of the wine’s earthy, muscled personality and its tobacco, meat and black cherry flavor profile. Although there are these tougher edges to the wine, the fruit on top remains pure and almost elegant in tone, and something about that combination I find rather appealing.
1996 Mount Veeder Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley. I think this was a great showing for this wine. First of all, it is a nice healthy color and displays a fanned out bouquet redolent of dried cherries, mixed currants, warm bricks, tobacco leaf, green herbs, green pepper, coffee grounds and a little dusting of cocoa powder. In the mouth, it is still showing plenty of life and density of flavor, but is velvety-smooth in texture and resolved of tannin at this stage of its evolution. It dries out a bit on the finish, but through the middle delivers a good dose of creamy-textured flavors in the green pepper, tomato leaf, leather and cassis vein. The longer one stays with it, the more the fruit turns toward the blackberry and black currant end of the fruit spectrum. In any event, this is a dark, earthy and herbal mountain-fruited Cabernet that is smooth and resolved and drinking about as well as it ever will, more than likely. Drink up and enjoy.
1991 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon The Montelena Estate Napa Valley. The nose here is cool, dark and serious in nature, with aromas of baked cherry, black currant, tobacco leaf and traces of leather melding together nicely. As for the palate, the first word that comes to mind is “significant”—for this is a weighty, earthy, toothsome, old-fashioned Napa Cabernet deserving of introspection. I really like the matte texture of the wine and the sinewy nature of the cassis and red cherry paste flavors that are nicely sweet on the attack but drier and more earthy through the mid-palate. It has a wide base to it and piles the flavors up layer by layer, finishing muscled yet embracing. It has a lot still in the tank, but is quite impressive today. My wine of the day.
After the game:
2002 Chateau Gloria St. Julien. After the hard-fought win, we celebrated with some young Bordeaux. First up was this wine, which has a solid if unspectacular nose of black cherry, mixed currants, smoke and herbs that probably needs a few more years to stretch out. However, on the palate, it is quite drinkable right now. In a sort of dialed-down way, it is similar to the 02 Pichon Baron in that it is cool, smooth, lithe and very black-fruited in tone and tenor. It feels ropy and tensile, with lots of pure black currant and blackberry fruit flavors atop a dark earth, smoke and iron ore grounding. The balance is really well done, the tannins are under control and the wine has good energy and freshness. Matt, our resident non-wine-geek, liked this wine the best of the day.
2003 Chateau Gloria St. Julien. The nose here is just a tiny bit musty and I’m afraid this is mildly corked—tamping down the muted aromas of currants, spices and stones quite a bit. However, I have to say that on the palate, the wine is so velvety and exotic that a lot of the wine’s inherent core qualities still shine through with ease. I easily taste a whole lot of wild berry fruit and sexy spices framed by a boatload of glycerin texture and plush tannins. There is no heat or blowsiness to this wine, but it is definitely more flamboyant than I’m used to from this estate. Sadly, as time goes on, the TCA wins the battle and wine becomes very difficult to enjoy.
2002 Chateau Pichon Longueville Baron Pauillac. This will be my sixth tasting note on this wine in the last 4 years and I think I’ve had a few bottles I didn’t take notes on, as well. And the truth of the matter is that the wine is essentially identical each and every time, with the texture coming along nicely but the core elements rock solid in their consistency during this time. In the case at hand, I find the nose taut and polished, with slinky aromas of blackberries, black currant, dark chocolate, charcoal and faint bits of incense smoke. In the mouth, it is sleek and shiny as a gun barrel, with utterly black flavors as always—including black currants, blackberries, black leather, smoke and cool stones. It has smooth and cool flow to it and is just so consistent bottle to bottle.
-Michael