WTN: Crasto Thalabert Barroche Alonso Branaire

Lunch notes:

2007 Ch. La Garde – this white Bordeaux wasn’t showing significant sauv blanc character despite probably being predominantly that varietal. It was showing enough like chard to elicit a couple of guesses for that, and it had some colour to it and a lemon and stone fruit nose, fairly full on palate and finishing cleanly.

1999 Prince von Hessen Johannisberger Klaus Riesling Auslese – lovely golden colour, botrytis hints but not much petrol, sweet and long. Good.

2005 Antonin Guyon Beaune Clos de la Chaume Gaufriot Domaine Hippolyte Thevenot – wins prize for longest wine name this time. Quite pale with obvious pinot nose, with hints of nutmeg and red fruit, fruit only adequate, a lighter weight wine with a clean acidic finish. Has time but good now.

2003 Quinta do Crasto Old Vines Reserva – darker wine with plenty of cassis and blueberry fruit in the nose, fairly ripe and earthy, with raspberry coming in later, but low acidity.

2005 Jaboulet Dom. Thalabert Crozes Hermitage – Thalabert is normally a very long ager – perhaps the most of any Crozes, yet this one, which had a dusty black cherry nose, had a smooth entry, soft tannin, good weight and a sweet pleasing finish, and doesn’t seem to warrant more than a very few years more age.

2004 Dom. La Barroche Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Fiancee - rich ripe nose with some earth, middle weight, sweet and full, perfect right now. Not overly sweet in the finish, which I value.

2004 Alonso del Yerro Maria (Ribera del Duero) – I had seen some reviews of this saying it was getting on, and though I didn’t believe that was possible, I thought I’d open a bottle and see. Anyone that thinks this is getting on is either cellaring it in their hothouse or lacks a basic palate sense! Dark, ripe, with dark/black fruit nose, this presents as very concentrated indeed on palate, huge in the mouth and sweet with great length. I don’t plan on opening another bottle for 8-10 years!

1998 Marques de Murrieta Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especiale - medium colour, an attractive nose with some floral violet notes, medium weight, tons of acidity, almost elegant. Not an outstanding Ygay but a decent one.

1997 Montecillo Reserva Rioja – mature colour with some browning at the edges, and the nose primarily a very pleasant caramel, showing nice development and good acidity. Very decent.

1982 Ch. Branaire Ducru – this mature claret was somewhat pale in colour, with a good classic cedar nose, was lovely and smooth across the palate and showed significant soft tannin. This wine has peaked but there would seem to be no rush.

[David M. Bueker]

Not a bad lunch.

1999 German Rieslings are finally starting to come around to my taste. For a long time they were just sweet and flat. More nuance is showing these days.

Thalabert is not the same wine it used to be. Parker just savaged the wine for years, and so it became richer, fleshier and more approachable to please his palate. It might still age well, but who knows.

Thalabert was my favourite Crozes, and aged for decades, but as you say, perhaps another victim of Parkerization.

[David M. Bueker]

Well we don't know that it won't age for a long time. I've got a couple of the 2009 I am stashing away.

Yeah, hopefully that is the case.

[Jenise]

Thalabert was my favourite Crozes, and aged for decades, but as you say, perhaps another victim of Parkerization.

Wrong. There was no Parkerization. You just like hapless, characterless sterile wines!

Per the great man himself: "Following in the 1980s was the fixation, primarily emerging from California, of "food wines". What that meant was wines that were low alcohol, dull, sterile filtered, insipid and so innocuous as to not interfere when eating your favorite tofu. That is not a food wine; that is a hapless, characterless and sterile wine. Of course, this didn't last, because it was another gimmick and winespeak advocating mediocrity, and had no merit. That was followed, of course, by "Parkerization", which was a theory that attempted to define my palate in black and white terms, ignoring 35+ years of wide-ranging wine writing and the most comprehensive coverage of diverse styles and wines that has ever existed in the world's wine writing community. Of course, it still gets parroted back and forth among small group think tanks that Parker only likes high alcohol, over-oaked, and excessively extracted wines. Again, there is no merit to this position whatsoever, and it is easily proven false...."

That must be it!

"the most comprehensive coverage of diverse styles and wines that has ever existed in the world's wine writing community"

Damn, I'd love to see what profile he'd come up with for himself with on a dating site, this paragon of modesty and objectivity.

Funny that he should deny that he likes the very big extracted wines that he clearly gave higher and higher scores to in his final years as a critic - to the point where I finally wrote him off as far as his Australian reviews as being unreliable (this was back when he still did the Aussie wines himself). Before that I had a high degree of overlap with RP - we liked similar sorts of wines and I could factor that into my buying strategies (when I couldn't taste before buying) but hebecame less and less useful to me as our tastes diverged. Yet he says that he never went that way!

I commented to one wine friend that reading his reviews was rather like listening to music by a composer who was going deaf, so he liked louder and louder music. We pondered whether RP was suffering from age and his palate was becoming less sensitive to subtlety and required 'louder and louder' tastes to impress him.

[Jenise]

"the most comprehensive coverage of diverse styles and wines that has ever existed in the world's wine writing community"

Damn, I'd love to see what profile he'd come up with for himself with on a dating site, this paragon of modesty and objectivity.

You could date him! "Holding hands on the beach at sunset...."

[Jenise]

Funny that he should deny that he likes the very big extracted wines that he clearly gave higher and higher scores to in his final years as a critic

He denies that he likes them exclusively, but then goes on to suggest that anyone who prefers low alcohol also prefers mediocrity.

...these Euro-elitists have it wrong. They often quote from ancient texts. How do they explain the following extract from the late Richard Olney's book, "Romanée-Conti - The World's Most Fabled Wine", published in 1995 by Rizzoli International Publications, New York, New York. Page 79 contains this passage regarding the diary notes of the estate's proprietor: This is from the diary notes at Romanée-Conti by the proprietor J.-M. Duvault-Blochet, who published vintage notes for 47 years, from 1822 to 1868. He defined quality as, "At 11.5% one makes barely passable wines, at 12% one makes decent, marketable wines, at 12.5% above average, at 12.75% lively, firm and ruby, at 13% and 13.5% one makes great wines, at 14, 14.5, 15 and 15.5% one makes altogether exceptional, incomparable wines." Why is it that nearly 150 years ago the proprietor of the world's most famous vineyard then (and probably now) knew more about quality than today's neo-intellectuals and extremists? Moreover, what about some sommeliers and retail wine buyers who refuse to purchase any wine in excess of 13 or 14% alcohol. How would the broad litmus test fare in the mid-1800s with the wines of Domaine de la Romanée Conti? Sommeliers following such nonsense would have wine enthusiasts drinking "barely passable" wines.

Come on, admit it. You just like barely passable wine!

[David M. Bueker]

One of the reasons I have enjoyed posting on eBob lately is getting to call him out on his own stupidity.

[Jenise]

One of the reasons I have enjoyed posting on eBob lately is getting to call him out on his own stupidity.

You have to be a subscriber to be there, right? I'm surprised you still subscribe. That aside, does he respond to your taunts?

[David M. Bueker]

Yes he does. He is quite infantile and defensive. It's interesting that he bothers to comment on wines/regions he clearly does not know.

I subscribe in the eternal hope that David Schildknecht might actually write something.

[Jenise]

Yes he does. He is quite infantile and defensive. It's interesting that he bothers to comment on wines/regions he clearly does not know.

Not surprised. He sounds both of those in the January article from his site that I've been quoting from. And bitter. All the best grapes and regions are known, high alcohol and ripeness are the key to outstanding quality, and there's a reason the unknowns are unknown. He openly derides all who won't take his word for it. I laughed all the way through the piece but in the end was pretty surprised by the venom and name-calling toward those who see things differently.