TN: Blind Tasting White Wines

Notes from a summer themed white wine tasting, al fresco.

2017 Zenato Lugana Metodo Classico Brut – yellow colour, fine mousse that increased with time opened, yeasty nose with clean floral and fruit notes. Good.

2007 Huet Le Mont Vouvray Sec – mid amber colour, with an interesting almost lactic nose, smooth on palate with ripe apple fruit and good length. Showing very well at this age.

2016 Foreau Domaine du Clos Naudin Vouvray Sec – my wine. Very much lighter colour and with a nose of waxy fruit and citrus and honey notes in mid palate with a log clean finish. Very good. It should be notedthat I resisted a white that would have stumped everyone – a Picpou de Pinet, in favour of this much more interesting wine.

2005 Huet Vouvray Demi-Sec Le Mont – also dark and carrying a fair bit of clean acidity, good fruit and length. Surprising for the age!

2008 R. López de Heredia Rioja Blanco Viña Gravonia – fair bit of colour, a faintly oxidative nose of honeyed fruit and some toasted nuts showed up after a bit of airing. Clean dry finish.

2017 Domaine Eden Chardonnay - this Santa Cruz wine was all vanilla and fruit – I thought they were a tad heavy handed with the oak. Smooth on palate and a pleasant wine.

2020 Rochioli Sauvignon Blanc – very light colour and lean nose, although wih some nice hints of toasted pine nuts. Finished cleanly and with decent length.

2015 Synchromesh Riesling Gibson Block Storm Haven Vineyard – from a small BC winery that specializes in Riesling. This wine had a good varietal nose with a hint of petrol and lots of waxy tropical fruit. Off dry but perhaps around a Spatlese level and well integrated. An additional wine from me, offered not blind as a run up to the next wine that was tasted blind.

2000 Weingut Prinz von Hessen Johannisberger Klaus Riesling Spätlese – amber colour, nose of petrol, and unusually, a definite saffron hint. Pardon me if I say that Spatlese is my ‘sweet spot’ for German wines – enough RS to give character without going overboard. This one was the cheese wine, and out of my cellar. I tend to like my German Riesling (especially spatlese and auslese, with some age.

[Jenise]

Bill, no time at present to comment much, will circle back to this later, but I add that I took the remainder of the Rochioli home--I don't usually do that, but I was too curious about it's rather stunted flavors and wanted to recheck later. Here's the note I posted on CT this morning:

2020 J. Rochioli Sauvignon Blanc Russian River Valley
Almost colorless, opened for a blind tasting lunch in which it offered little flavor and varietal character. To be fair, it followed a gaggle of aged Huets which isn't easy. Took the remainder of the bottle home and tasted it again last night. Glad I did because though atypical for Cali in a more taut, less ripe style than I'm used to even from Rochioli, the varietal character was there in spades. If you own these, decant in advance or let them sleep awhile longer.

Interesting that it opened up like that.

[Jenise]

Whites can shut down just like reds, but we rarely give New World whites the chance to show that. In this case I have already opened three bottles of that and knew what we experienced on Thursday was a mere shadow of the wine I'd had before.

[Jenise]

[quote="Bill Spohn"]Catching up on my notes!

2017 Zenato Lugana Metodo Classico Brut – I brought this. It's a delicious, fresh yet bold, style sparkler that stumped everyone, as I hoped it would. Grape is trebbiano or, as they prefer to call it, turbiana. One doesn't expect this kind of body and zest from the more or less same area that produces prosecco.

2007 Huet Le Mont Vouvray Sec – amber gold, lightly but pleasantly oxidative.

2016 Foreau Domaine du Clos Naudin Vouvray Sec – Pale color. Lemon and white pepper, dry. Very good.

2005 Huet Vouvray Demi-Sec Le Mont – Lightly sweet but also refreshing. Very complete. By far my favorite of the chenins.

2008 R. López de Heredia Rioja Blanco Viña Gravonia – what you said, though as someone who already drank four LdH's in the last three weeks, this is a really perfect richer style Gravonia and could easily be mistaken for a Tondonia.

2017 Domaine Eden Chardonnay - What you said.

2020 Rochioli Sauvignon Blanc – My wine. Lean, pale and none of the opulence I know from prior bottles. Like it's asleep.
(which my addendum above confirms)

2015 Synchromesh Riesling Gibson Block Storm Haven Vineyard – what you said.

2000 Weingut Prinz von Hessen Johannisberger Klaus Riesling Spätlese – My first note was "I'm just mad about saffron...." so can confirm your comment. Also creamy with strong apricot notes and a tough of orange marmalade. Only 9.5% abv. Love that.

[David M. Bueker]

Good showing for a 2000 German, the last notably (non-climatic) problem vintage in Germany. Lots of not so noble rot in many wines of that vintage.

I also thought the 2005 Huet Vouvray Demi-Sec Le Mont was the best of the three chenins, though all were quite nice. But it had layers of flavours and greater complexity than the others. The R. López de Heredia was the wine of the day, in perfect shape and beguiling as these whites can often be. My first thought was, I have tasted this wine before, it seemed quite familiar, but didn't come up with the producer and wine right away. The Synchromesh riesling didn't have the high acidity which is usually the norm from this producer. The Weingut Prinz von Hessen was a very nice cheese wine!