WTN: Duhart Milon, Roederer, Bouchard, Arcadian, others

[Jenise]

1998 Château Duhart-Milon Pauillac Red Bordeaux Blend more
Showed reasonably well for a PnP; more taut than relaxed, but decent fruit with graphite, tobacco, and the usual left bank stuff typical of a good producer in a middlin' vintage a year or three beyond peak.


2003 Roederer Estate L'Ermitage Brut Anderson Valley Champagne Blend
Voluptuously elegant and substantial. Big and creamy but precise at the same time with focused flavors of lemon curd and biscuit. Coop said it's the best California bubble he's ever had; I agree.


2005 Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Millésimé Chardonnay
Coop's bottle. Floral and a bit sweet-flabby, not much substance, especially for a Grand Cru.


2009 Brandborg Pinot Noir Umpqua Valley
Recent purchase. And a poor one: fading, tired fruit, astringent. Fortunately, a one-off.


1995 Bouchard Père et Fils Corton-Le Corton Corton Grand Cru Pinot Noir
Manny's bottle. Outstanding nose and palate for it's age; does seem 20 years oldish but it's not in decline and if anything the wine built in the glass. Swoonworthy.


2005 Arcadian Syrah Stolpman Vineyard Santa Ynez Valley
Stewed fruit, simplistic, lighter body. Nothing here showed syrah typicity and it's a wreck as an example of California syrah in general and Arcadian quality in particular. Took to a wine lunch with friends and was totally embarrassed. Possible heat damage? Am disgusted to admit I have two more bottles. Oh woe.


2008 Saint-Laurent Merlot Wahluke Slope
Black fruit and black coffee nose marred by whiff of plastic. Restrained midpalate that never gets to where it seems like it might go with more time in the glass (at least in the hour or so we gave it), dry/too dry, with bitter finish. We were unable to finish a second glass/dumped the rest.


2010 Domaine Eden Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains
Good vintage for this wine. Textbook pinot noir nose with extra minerality, spice, tomato skin and thyme. Currently showing everything it's got but will age gracefully from here. Wish I had more bottles.


2011 Le Vieux Pin, Equinox Chardonnay, British Columbia
Took to dinner at VOLT. Creamy and toasty, neither of which I recall about the wine from a year and a half ago. Then it struck me as Chablis-like, now it shows more like a Puligny Montrachet and I was questioning if what I was tasting was borderline oxidation. Can't swear it wasn't, though the wine was pleasant to drink.

[David M. Bueker]

That Roederer Estate L'Ermitage is delicious stuff. It also ages remarkably well, handing 8-10 years post release with no issues.

1995 Corton - sounds about right. Nearly 20 years for one of the notoriously tough vineyards.

[Jenise]

David, that was my last bottle of that 03--a vintage I mostly avoided as it was too hot in all the places I generally buy wine from--and I'm so sad to have run out. But my friend Coop was a worthy guy to share it with--he and his wife are really into good bubbly and this bottle rather shocked him--he was familiar with the NV but had not had the vintage, and good as the NV is he wasn't prepared for what a step up in concentration and French-like quality this was, and from a vintage like 03 no less.