Friends dropped by on Friday night for ribs and chicken wings. They brought this:
2021 JM Cellars Chardonnay Concrete Chardonnay Stillwater Creek Vineyard Royal Slope (WA)
The friends brought this and served it to me blind. Nose immediately said 'chardonnay', and so did the palate with apple and pear typical of the grape but there was something else here that was seductively floral with a whiff of baby powder talc. From WA's new Royal Slope AVA, it's more attractive and complex than merely unwooded chardonnays due to excellent body and an 8-month fermentation in a concrete egg and a year of bottle age. Really, really liked it. Btw, these friends know I love Chablis, and they expected me to guess Chablis because the winemaker, who they know, said that people mistake it for Chablis so they figured it would fool me. It didn't. It smelled and tasted of new world chardonnay in the freshest way possible; it just lacked the butterscotch or tropical notes typical of overt ripeness and oak aging in the same way that it lacked the steely, slatey minerality of real Chablis.
2021 Dossier Wine Rosé Columbia Valley Rosé Blend
The friend above is a very successful wine blogger and sometimes I pop new things to help her expand her repertoire, and so was my intent behind opening this new brand that involves NFL player Sam Rice. Soft pale orange-y pink, more the color of malbec rose than syrah though supposedly it's 100% the latter. Dilute fruit flavors have some roasted notes--not fire smoke per se but like the difference between broiled and raw tomatoes. Not impressed. And at $28, overpriced.
2021 Dossier Wine Sauvignon Blanc Yakima Valley
What a change after the disappointing rose. This is outstanding, possibly the best WA sauvignon blanc I've had. 42 hours of skin contact built serious structure into this 100% SB for fermentation in primarily stainless steel with some in neutral oak. Excellent weight (without Semillon, which I get a bit tired of) and complexity with a long finish.
2018 Stéphane Ogier Côtes du Rhône Le temps est venu Red Rhone Blend
The friends brought this. They know a lot about WA wine but very little about wines from the rest of the world, and I just happened to be in their kitchen the day they unpacked the sample box this came in. I got so excited they saved it for me. Red fruits, earth, black pepper, garrique and minerals nicely evolved with the 60% grenache out front--a big winner in the Outstanding QPR category. If only I could set the clock back a few years and buy a case. Or two.
2019 Pášxa Syrah River Rock Vineyard The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater
And so I opened this, my first from this producer. On the one hand, here is a very pleasant Washington syrah. Easy fruit and tannins. On the other hand, here is an $80 Rocks District syrah made by arguably the best winemaker in the state, Todd Alexander, that doesn't have the presence/depth of an $80 wine nor the personality and funk of Rocks fruit. Blind, I'd have guessed that it didn't cost more than $40. Seemingly not built for aging; winery instructions included with the bottle suggest opening only 30 minutes prior to serving. Best by 2025.
Skipped wine on Saturday and last night we started our evening with a bowl of raw cauliflower for pre-dinner nibbles and this:
2008 Taittinger Champagne Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut Chardonnay
Flawless. There might be champagnes I could like as much, but I can't imagine one I'd love more.
Dinner was a shared Asian platter of ice cold iceberg lettuce and a bowl of very spicy ground pork, shiitake mushrooms, onions, bamboo, nappa cabbage, serrano chiles, Lan Chi garlic sauce and oyster sauce wherein you grab a piece of lettuce and scoop this pork mixture into it. I decided to try this newly delivered syrah with it:
2018 Lost & Found Syrah The Nines Vineyard Sonoma Mountain
Dull, green olive notes with dark fruits on the downhill side. Rather blah; we added a dash of cheap cabernet to give it some personality. Might be travel-shocked.