My wife and I hosted a dinner party recently for another couple and their young son. While the kids played in the other room and occasionally joined us to eat, we enjoyed some really delicious wines.
N.V. Barons de Rothschild Champagne Brut. Our first wine of the evening features lovely aromas of toasted bread, yeast, nutmeg, baked apples and pears that are elegant and classy in tone. In the mouth, it displays a refined sense of structure to go along with clean, driven flavors of toasted bread, apple and pear that revolve around a solid acidic backbone. This relatively new venture seems like it’s off to a real good start.
2003 Peter Michael Chardonnay La Carrière Knights Valley. This wine delivers an exotic tapestry of butterscotch, vanilla paste, hazelnut, grated nutmeg, popcorn, Frangelico, chalk, oak and granite aromas that swirl up and out of the glass with luscious ease. In the mouth, it’s fairly oily in texture, with languid flavors of hazelnut, butterscotch, pear and barrel spice carried along by a glycerin-laden texture. It’s beautiful, but between this and the last bottle of this I drank, I’d have to say it is starting to show a bit narrow through the middle, and probably ought to start being drunk up as a result.
2001 Hexamer Riesling Meddersheimer Rheingrafenberg Hochgewächs Nahe. This is a gorgeous wine on the nose, with a precise quartz-tinged cut to the multi-faceted aromas of pear, slate, apple flesh and powdered minerals. In the mouth, it’s juicy and tangy all the way through, with delicious flavors of ruby grapefruit, pineapple, white peach and apple that show wonderful tension to go along with a pure but moderated sucrosity I really connect with. It seems to be Kabinett in style and weight, showing great nervosity and lift throughout. For my tastes, it’s just a tremendous Riesling.
2012 Hexamer Riesling Schlossböckelheimer In den Felsen Feinherb "Porphyr" Nahe. The nose here is spritzy off the top, with strong aromas of graphite bordering on volcanic dust leading to some crabapple, gooseberry, fresh herb, pea tendril, honeysuckle, green melon and fruitcup aromas that are very light and airy. In the mouth, it’s rather bitter-tinged by the ash, white pepper and dust notes, but there’s also some serious prickly acidity and sharp gooseberry fruit to contend with. Although I find limited pleasure in it today, I am curious to see how things play out over the next few years, as the wine seemed to get better out of the fridge over the next several nights.
1991 Beringer Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Chabot Vineyard Napa Valley. I knew from prior experience that this wine demands a healthy decant, so we gave it about 4-5 hours of air time. By the time I take my first sniff, it’s absolutely singing with lovely aromas of wild blueberries, leather, dark chocolate, limestone, classy earth, kirsch and tobacco leaf that just get better and better with each return visit. In the mouth, it’s plush and gorgeous, with much more pillowy and yielding tannins than the last time I tasted it. The exceedingly tasty flavors of cassis, raspberry, blueberry, cinnamon and pretty oak spices are velvety smooth and fine-flowing despite obvious structure and backbone to the wine. It finishes long and luscious—a real winner all around.
1986 Château Canon St. Émilion. The Canon is appropriately more Old World on the nose, with classy aromas of baked cherries, damson, frozen persimmon, leather, menthol, smoked meat, coffee bean and old attic furniture that are quite appealing in a more restrained package. In the mouth, it features juicy, pasty fruit flavors of mixed currants and cranberries, with earthy, savory undertones of limestone and white pepper. It’s solidly-built, with a grippy texture, medium to full body and a juicy fresh finish that’s impressive and quite pleasing. It has plenty of life left, too.
1989 Hexamer Riesling Meddersheimer Rheingrafenberg Auslese Nahe. This was just wonderful with dessert, giving up fabulously pure and crystalline aromas of petrol, Asian pear, white peach, blue slate and chamomile tea that delight the senses. It has an intriguing musky quality to the fantastic flavors of melon, lemon oil, white peach, honey and flowers that aren’t really all that sweet or unctuous, but demonstrate great vivacity, clarity and precision. At the same time, it’s totally giving and layered, pulling the taster right in for another sip. It’s a restrained Auslese, but all the more beautiful for it in many ways.
N.V. Yalumba Muscat Museum Show Reserve Rutherglen. This was from a 375 ml bottle purchased in 2002. It looks like maple syrup in terms of color, and it smells strongly and immediately of raisins, figs, caramel, molasses and toasted walnuts. In the mouth, it’s all about unctuously-sweet yellow raisin, prune, praline, toasted walnut and warm spirit flavors. It’s rich, dense and weighty, but is carried along by a bright streak of dark citrus acidity that works really nicely. We had some homemade brownie sundaes going, and this went really nicely.
-Michael