Stuff from the last few weeks...
2001 Meulenhof Erdener Treppchen Riesling Spätlese
Awesome stuff that sums up everything I love about this vintage in Germany. The fruit's still incredibly fresh, pure and youthful with floral and slatey tinges, but it's also showing the beginnings of developing creamy and more savoury flavours. There's moderate sweetness but that '01 acidity keeps it incredibly well balanced, light and precise and each glass disappears quickly. Fantastic Riesling.
2010 Alain Graillot Crozes-Hermitage
Really young and tightly wound right now, one of those wines that shows very little initially but does open up after a couple of days in the fridge. First impressions are all olives and dark fruited flavours, but with time peppery and gamey elements emerge. There's a lot of fine grained tannin and a nice acid spine here, and the flavours have a sense of real freshness to them. Very nice (with air), though very much about potential now.
2010 Domaine Auguste Clape Côtes du Rhône
Bought this on a recommendation from Zachary Ross, who as usual is on the mark. This is a superb value, offering bright, pure Syrah fruit, savoury earth and anise notes and a faint leatheriness that emerges with air, all on a very elegant, medium weight frame. It doesn't have the rusticity or power of a Cornas, but at this price point it's a hell of a buy that - as Z pointed out - is on par with a lot of top St. Joseph.
2009 Jemrose Viognier Egret Pond
One of my favourite Californian producers, not only because I like the wines but the people behind them are fantastic. So I had a strange bottle a few weeks ago that showed remarkably alcoholic and strange, almost slightly sweet and very inconsistent with my prior experiences. Noted it on Cellartracker, and got an email from Jim Mack (who owns Jemrose) soon after offering to ship me a replacement. A bottle arrived from across the country a couple of days later, opened it last weekend and it was much better with bright floral and mineral notes around a core of fresh peaches and citrus fruits. Medium weight with a sense of real purity and freshness to the flavours, bright acidity and impressive length. Lovely stuff, still the only Californian Viognier I've been consistently impressed by, and an experience that affirms why I keep buying from Jemrose.
2009 Philippe Pacalet Gevrey-Chambertin
Very, very young, though this certainly benefited from double decanting. At first it's all about bright red fruits accented by high toned herbal and lightly floral notes, but with time more savoury earthy and mineral elements emerge. There's fantastic balance, a sense of clarity and purity to the flavours and I wish I had more. That said it's not particularly deeper or showing much more than the '07 and at twice the price I paid, not worth it. Pacalet's pricing is now moving towards the absurd.
2010 Jean-Marc Burgaud Morgon Côte du Py James
Incredibly stemmy at first with the fruit disjointed and dominated by woody and stalky flavours, but it comes together with a few hours of air and turns into a very elegant, floral expression of Morgon full of pure, bright red fruits with the stemmy elements integrating nicely. There's good structure here; fine grained tannins and bright acids, and the balance is excellent. I expect this will be wonderful with age, though right now it really needs a lot of air and patience.
1998 Pierre Damoy Chapelle-Chambertin
Could perhaps substitute for toothpicks? TIMBER!
2006 Franz Hirtzberger Riesling Smaragd Singerriedel
Quite a powerhouse. Packed with ripe orchard fruits, floral, spicy and mineral flavours, all conveyed with incredible intensity and power. There's a lot of material here and it feels rather dense at first, though with air it calms down a little as the fruit takes a step back and the mineral elements come to the foreground. Impressive, though the alcohol seems a bit much and I'm not sure how it'll age as even right now there's a faint tinge of alcoholic heat on the back end when it warms up even slightly.
2010 Franz Hirtzberger Riesling Smaragd Singerriedel
Leaner and more high toned than the '06, the flavours are more floral, saline and herbal here with the fruit still ripe but not as overwhelmingly intense. There's tremendous power and depth again, but also fantastic acidity keeping it very precise and vibrant, and a very long finish that just resonates. Tremendous, kaleidoscopic wine that I'm glad I went fairly long on.
2001 Müller-Catoir Haardter Bürgergarten Riesling Spätlese #2134
Surprisingly deep in colour (wonder if a shitty, crumbling cork had anything to do with it) but it's drinking very nicely - ripe grapefruit, citrus and peachy fruit on a mineral base tinged with mature smoky and burnished elements. Underneath there's that '01 acidity keeping it very precise and fresh. Great stuff.
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