Notes from a blind tasting with a most interesting theme – grapes with thin skins. These include Sangio, Pinot Noir etc., but exclude most Bordeaux varietals. A theme that actually had us doing some studying.
2004 Radford Dale Black Rock – This Swartland wine It is a blend of 75% Chenin, 22% chard and 3% Viognier and it wasn’t bad – interesting nose, lots of colour, fairly flavourful on palate with some tropical elements.
2003 Leyda Pinot Noir Lot 21 – Chilean pinot that was masquerading as American – raspberry and spice nose, a tad warm (14%), balanced medium long finish. Very decent. 250 cases made.
2003 Jean-Claude Boisset Gevrey Chambertin Lavaut Saint-Jacques – a huge producer as these things go in Burgundy, this wine was showing orange peel and raspberry in the nose, attractive with reasonable fruit levels, but I thought it a tad simple through the middle. Medium length sweet finish.
1999 Remoissenet Savigny les Beaunes – lighter colour, a nose more of strawberry than raspberry, sweet entry, obvious age and thinner on the palate with tons of acidity. I’d say past best drinking time.
1997 D'arenberg Ironstone Pressings - 70% Grenache, 20% Shiraz, and 10% Mourvedre. Good depth in the nose with sweet earth and fruit with hints of anise and vanilla. Medium to full body and long sweet finish. Good.
2000 Fontanafredda Barolo La Rosa – darker colour, cabbish nose at first, which then opened to reveal some tar and floral elements, lots of acidity, and very ripe – a fairly new world presentation by an often traditional winery.
2003 Kettle Valley Pinot Noir – corked. This and the next bottle from the same person – monumental bad luck!
2006 Sandhill Sangiovese – corked wine from this BC winery.
2002 Clos de Gamot (Cahors) – from one of the only two or three wineries to have made it through the hard times after phyloxera hit this area, and one of the wines that continues to be made from 100% auxerois (Malbec). Ripe, sweet dark wine with a Bordeaux nose with plum and cedar, and a ton of soft tannin – so much so that one taster asked if it were a Joguet Chinon, though any green notes were absent. My kind of Malbec – I do not like the Argentinian Zinfandel wannabes, though I admire some of their more restrained and well made Malbecs. This bottle had a special meaning for me as I’d picked it up while in Cahors with a friend who was ill and who knew he wasn’t going to be around when I opened it, and he asked me to open it some day with friends that knew him. Salut, Bruce!
2010 Blue Mountain Pinot Noir – pulled from my cellar for the person with the corky BC wines. Sweet nose with iron and roasted nuts, sweet in mouth and balanced, drinking well now but no rush.
2001 Ch. La Rame (St. Crois du Mont) – I actually guessed the area after the usual Sauternes/Barsac had been shot down. Light amber colour, great nose of apricot marmalade and nutmeg, medium sweet with good acidity and length. 80% Semillon, 20% sauv blanc (never did look them up to see if they qualified as thin skinned, but then our ‘rules’ don’t require the starter and finishing wines to comply.