1998 Dom. Laroche Chablis Les Clos – this grand cru comes from a troubled vintage in Chablis with spotty weather posing a real challenge for winemakers. Showing some colour now and a nose with citrus and nuts at first, but the oak kicked in fairly quickly (I thought it was over done). Not bad, but I thought it lacked the tension you look for in a good Chablis, and the oak was there in sufficient quantity to have use guessing all over the place including wines made from grapes other than Chardonnay.
1979 Ch. Montrose – no problems nailing this as a mature claret but we did go round the houses searching for vintage (which I got because the age was obvious but it didn’t seem as generous as a 78 would be) and chateau, which I think we got pretty much by chance as you couldn’t identify specific house characteristics. Medium colour, nose of slightly muted fruit and a fair bit of wood, mellow but the balance was only fair and I felt that it dried out a bit in the glass over and hour or so. Reading that, it will seem that I am being pretty hard on the wine, but not so – I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it wasn’t a great Montrose, just a rather nice old claret.
2004 Ch. Montrose – the person that brought this would normally have held it until much later but jumped at the chance to show it beside the earlier wine. Not sure what he was thinking opening it at all – it needs a decade of aging! Good if a bit closed nose of vanilla and fruit, very dark in colour (the 79 and the wine that followed the 2004 looked like light bookends). Tannins still pretty assertive and needless to say no perceptible secondary development was detectable yet. Love to try it again every 5 years until it hits stride.
1983 Ch. Boyd Cantenac – slightly darker than the 79, this wine had a cheesy nose (I mean that in a good way) with some high notes that were familiar but I can’t lay a word to describe it properly. Sweet in the mouth with good acidity and persistence. Surprised me – I’d have predicted a much more modest showing for this one. Nice.
2000 Ch. St. Jean Cinq Cepages – the first iconoclast that didn’t offer up a claret! Still pretty dark, with a mature cab nose that was actually pretty decent, smooth and medium long. Decent but no better.
2001 Cuvee du Vatican CNduP – this was the regular cuvee, not the Sixtine. The nose was slow to open up, showing roasted meat and then later some cocoa and cassis. Nicely rounded fruit, smooth on palate and medium long finish. Nice wine – time I dug some of mine out!
2001 Montes Folly – this 100% Syrah from the high altitude Apalta vineyard was brutally expensive on release here (around $85) or more than double any other Chilean wine we’d seen in this market, other than the Montes ‘M’ their reserve cabernet, and this was the first bottle I’ve opened. Dark impenetrable colour all the way to the edges, and a ripe sweet blueberry nose immediately ruled out any possibility of anyone thinking it a French Syrah, and while there was some pondering about Antipodean possibilities, they did finally settle on Chile. Hugely concentrated on palate but not overly sweet or ripe in the mouth and with very good length, finishing with a little mint. Very good and should continue to age well for quite awhile – possibly needs another few years to peak.
1998 Katnook Odyssey – from a Chilean Syrah to an Aussie cab., and from an excellent vintage. Dark, with a minty cassis and vanilla nose, very good fruit levels without being overly sweet, and with very good length. I liked this one.
Finally with cheese:
1963 Dows Port – this was from a shipper called Burton-Dinn Inc. in San Francisco and it came in a very odd sized bottle that was familiar to me because I’d bought one on a cellar buy out around the turn of the century (opened and drunk about 3 years ago. It is a squat bottle of 1.8 litre capacity – more than a magnum but less than a double mag (or for that matter, a tappit hen). Medium garnet colour, a nose that was only slightly warm, and lovely pure figgy fruit with really excellent length, warm but not hot and with nutmeg hints right at the end. This shows considerably younger than the same wine from single bottle (which I tasted a year ago) and could age another decade or more with no problem. Beautiful wine. Obviously this was a standard size of bottle at least for this wine in this vintage – anyone else seen this or any other wine in a 1.8 before?
End bottle at the dinner I did 3 years ago.
