- N.V. Drappier Champagne Carte d'Or Brut - France, Champagne, Reims, Champagne (4/9/2006)
Dark, verging on rosé! Lovely fruit forward yet savoury nose - simple perhaps, but so perfectly balanced that the slight lack of complexity doesn't matter. The palate is similar: fruit forward but with very nice acidity and length. Quite a lovely cheap champ. - 1988 Domaine Bernard Defaix Chablis Vaillons 1er Cru - France, Burgundy, Chablis (4/9/2006)
A very strange wine. The lightest yellow with some green - utterly unevolved. The nose was strange too: grassy, mineral, peach stones, but also vanillary rancid butter. Did Defaix use oak? I thought not, but was this an early experiment? The palate is much better with no hint of rancid butter: nice aged, sweet fruit, but lovely tart acids and minerality backing it up. Also no hint of oak on the palate. Immensly long aftertaste of hedge and minerals. The nose was nice enough despite the hint of rancid butter but the palate was good. As a whole, I can only repeat myself: a very strange wine, but not unappealing. Seems much younger. Better from a Montrachet than a Chablis glass. - 2004 Weingut Robert Weil Riesling Spätlese Trocken - Germany, Rheingau (4/9/2006)
Light as water. The nose was funny. At first I would have sworn someone had substituted the contents with Albariño when I wasn't looking (a joke that my friend might very well have done): peach, sea breeze, warm fruit; but with air the Riesling aspects began appearing and especially the minerality and citrus fruits came well to the fore. It is tight but promising. The palate had the loveliest acidity and minerality, fine fruit, typical intensity, fine aftertaste, just perhaps a little lacking in complexity but very, very fine indeed. - 2003 Weingut Robert Weil Kiedricher Gräfenberg Riesling Spätlese - Germany, Rheingau (4/9/2006)
Light gold. Sweetly fruity nose with all the typical young Riesling aromas but slightly diffuse - it isn't as tightly wrought as such a young Riesling ought to be. The palate is sweetish, ripely acidic, savoury, rather complex and mineral - but as with the nose, it just isn't as compact as it should be: nice but a tad diffuse. A year ago I thought this to be an exception to the 2003s in that it was fine and lacked the signs of overt heat, but this has developed rather fast. I am not anymore convinced of the structure and the focus. It is just too soft.
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