Last weekend, out to dinner, a sommelier friend of ours who knew we'd been drinking some Chinon lately dug up an off-list bottle of 2010 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny "Les Poyeaux" -- not a wine we'd ordinarily shell out for, even if we could find it, and certainly not at restaurant markups; but he made us an offer we couldn't refuse. Straight out of the bottle, characteristic graphite and greenness on the nose, but with a really enticing violet aroma hovering above that, reminiscent more of certain Syrahs than of Cabernet Francs, in my experience. Concentrated, intense, red fruit, very long, minerally, not explicitly woody, though there's a fair bit of tannin on the finish especially early in the bottle. Over the course of the evening the wine relaxes, loses the initial violet element, and becomes both a little more green and a little more savory and meaty, but never flattens out. Really delicious, and I wish I had a half-case to put away for a dozen to thirty years -- kind of like I used to wish I had a pony or a spaceship or something else that ain't gonna happen. Very happy to have had a chance to try this.
Yesterday, back at a Spanish and Catalan restaurant close to home that we used to frequent a lot, but hadn't been to in a while. We've never really tried to learn our way around Spanish wine, and we didn't want to stick with the one or two bottles on the list we were confident we'd like, so we had to ask for advice. After a slightly disjointed conversation we took a chance on a Toca i Fito & Roig Parais 2012 Empordà "Tocat i Posat", a 50-50 blend of Garnacha and Carignan that was described as being "Pinot-like." I'd say it was Pinot-like only in the way that some Etna reds can be; medium-bodied, with decent acidity, also a little bit of violet at the beginning (says Andrea; I didn't perceive this), followed by rich cherry fruit, a little wood around the edges but not too bad, and some minerality. 14.5%, but carried it well. If this is at all representative of the DO, it seems worth exploring more.