This finally gets me up to date with very good ones from Bordeaux, Burgundy and Nahe as well as some younger less "serious" wines.
2013 Domaine Valambelle Faugères Millepeyres - France, Languedoc Roussillon, Languedoc, Faugères (5/21/2015)
At the present stage, I enjoyed this new vintage less than the two previous which I opened with a few months more bottle age. Good colour and fruity nose. Medium/full bodied palate with attractive fruit and spice as before but with the balance more tilted towards the former and acidity fiercer than before leading to an impression of greater rawness. Good wine though and I guess that with a few more months it will rival its predecessors.
2004 Château Giscours - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux (5/21/2015)
Lovely still youthful 11 year old showing medium/full body attractive primary fruit, plum and cherry, with a slight gracious sweetness, balsamic, mineral and vanilla touches, fresh acidity, well balanced tannic structure and expressive aromatics which lasted long on the palate. Very good and I guess with a good future.
2011 Château de Javernand Chiroubles Tradition - France, Burgundy, Beaujolais, Chiroubles (5/22/2015)
Served at wine fridge temperature (c.12°C), this medium bodied Chiroubles needed 2-3° warming in the glass to bring out generosity and some complexity in its prune tinged red fruit which together with lively acidity and mineral touches made for nice but not exceptional Beaujolais fix.
2011 Château de Cruzeau - France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan (5/23/2015)
This wine is 100% from SB, is technically well made and may appeal to many people, but it's not really my thing. Well developed fruity nose with a touch of gooseberry infused boiled sweet and a faint hint of feline urine. Boiled sweet was more prominent on the medium bodied and slightly off-dry palate along with a touch of RS (I guess 5-7g/l), lively acidity, vanilla notes and firm slightly caramelised backbone. Maybe a year or two more will produce a better integrated result which I would like better but I wouldn't count on it.
2004 Dönnhoff Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle Riesling Spätlese #10 - Germany, Nahe (5/25/2015)
Lovely pale yellow with green tints. Pretty aromas of white fruit, some citrus, and minerals, just a little hydrocarbon and just a little spice. Medium/light bodied seamless wine light on its its feet and long with marked sweetness offset by a mouth-watering acid spine so that it worked as a food wine. Very good.
1996 Domaine Maume Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Lavaux St. Jacques - France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru (5/26/2015)
This is a muscular virile Burgundy just as Gevrey-Chambertin is supposed to be. Colour deep red with scarcely any bricking. Nose well developed with dark fruit, liquorice, ivy and balsamic touches. Palate is quite full bodied, savoury and dark complexioned with more ivy, liquorice and balsamic notes together with still lively acidity and tannic backbone. Not the suave elegant style of Burgundy and Germaine says rustic but I say upright and classy and an excellent match with pigeon and pleurotte mushrooms. Very good.
1999 Philippe Alliet Chinon Coteau de Noiré - France, Loire Valley, Touraine, Chinon (5/27/2015)
This is a better bottle than one last August judging by my then notes. Medium body with some depth, clay and lively acidity still apply but the fruit seems slightly sweeter with raspberry notes more than sour cherry and the wet leather notes are much less marked. Still a firm finish but I did not note shortness this time.