Browse Author

thor iverson

Writer, educator, communicator, consultant. Wine, spirits, food, cocktails, dining, travel. Authoring a book on the sensorial theory of wine & cheese pairing.

Levrette Dirksen

[marnes blanches]Domaine des Marnes Blanches 2013 Côtes du Jura Chardonnay “En Levrette” (Jura) — Soulful. Rocks, well-earned sweat, deep amber sunglow. Everything’s present but everything’s elusive. I love this wine. (11/16)

Ridge lyin’

[geyserville]Ridge 2001 Geyserville (Sonoma County) — Unraveling a bit, but the yarn is still beautiful. Mixed berries, their acid more on display than usual, and a fraying oak/tannin structure. Drink soonish. (10/16)

Hot Todd(y)

Dashe 2012 Zinfandel Todd Brothers Ranch “Old Vines” (Alexander Valley) — Everything flawlessly in place, just awaiting age. As always, there’s a tightly coiled structure beneath slightly less generous fruit than Dashe’s other zins. Meant for the cellar. (11/16)

We are bourg. Gewurztraminer is futile.

[blanck]Blanck 2001 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg (Alsace) — Lychee and steel, crystals and bite. Off-dry, for sure, but there’s plenty of acidity. Hold longer? No danger in doing so, but no real reason to either; I don’t think this has bacon in its future. (10/16)

Muscat on a hot tin roof

Boxler 2012 Muscat (Alsace) — Surprisingly reticent for a muscat, taking what used to be a fairly common alternative Alsatian expression of “extremely floral riesling” more seriously than most. (10/16

No-tell Potel

Potel 2001 Monthélie “Vieilles Vignes” (Burgundy) — Clinging bravely and attractively, if not exactly beautifully. All grace notes, but the melody’s growing faint. (10/16)

Golden flea

La Pousse d’Or 2005 Pommard 1er Cru Les Jarollières (Burgundy) — A polished wall of fruit, but the insistence that this is unapproachable is misguided; it’s nothing magnificent at the moment, for sure, but it’s eminently drinkable. I had fears regarding storage for this bottle, hence the infanticide. (10/16)

Fewer Coynes in the fountain

[coyne]Thomas Coyne 1999 Syrah Detjens Farms (Livermore Valley) — Pepper, herbs, liquid smoke, a lot of humid airspace. Whatever maturation was going to happen has, I think, happened, and now it’s a process of thinning. Drink up. (10/16)

Auxward states

Blanck 2012 Auxerrois “Viellies Vignes” (Alsace) — Very nervy for auxerrois, which so much more often provides the flesh for pinot blanc’s verve in bottles only labeled the latter. But there is flesh, and weight, and yet it’s the cut that’s so exciting here. Should it age? Auxerrois’ not known as a long ager, but why not? (10/16)

Dr. Galea

[galea]i Clivi 2002 Colli Orientali del Friuli Galea Bianco (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) — Memory engraved in amber and then preserved in wax. Like drinking patina, bee-etched, cool stone slopes reflected the last bronze of a sunset above a field of sleeping vines. (8/16)

i Clivi 1999 Colli Orientali del Friuli Galea Bianco (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) — At first, this was so aromatically mute I worried it was corked. But it wasn’t. It blossomed and burled all night, and by the time I took it home it was singing a full-throated song of lanolin and bone echoing off the spine of a distant mountain. (11/16)