Browse Month

January 2007

TN: Hima stat

Flerianos “Hima” 2003 Agiorgitiko (Peloponnesos) – Diluted, overroasted juice with some wan black fruit and very slight oxidation. With about 48 hours of air, the corners fill out a bit, bringing more black fruit into play…but the overroasting remains dominant. It almost tastes like oak, though the wine is unoaked. Avoid. (1/07)

Flerianos “Hima” 2005 Savatiano/Roditis (Central Greece) – Mild fun. A fresh fruit basket, heavy with green apples and green plums (but not forgetting riper tropical fruit), but lacking more than a modicum of acid. Thus, it just sort of sits there, waiting for something. It’s certainly not unappealing, but it won’t hold said appeal once it has it. At least, not for long. As I said: mild fun. (1/07)

TN: Threenot noir

[grapes]Hartley Ostini “Hitching Post” 2005 Pinot Noir “Cork Dancer 5.1” (Santa Barbara County) – A separated wine, with zippy strawberry and raspberry, clingy acidity, and a light, scraping tanning all sitting in their corners glaring at each other. It’s got a picnic-style appeal, but doesn’t bear close scrutiny. (12/06)

Evesham Wood 2004 Pinot Noir Seven Springs “En Dessous” (Willamette Valley) – Difficult at first, showing thick, almost brooding fruit under a smooth wave of tannin. With an hour or so of air, complexities emerge from the murk, and the wine picks up an earth-floral component – still in the tone of brown, but with promise and possibility for the future. The finish is long and, eventually, elegant. There’s nothing but upside here. (12/06)

[label]Dog Point 2005 Pinot Noir (Marlborough) – Concentrated plums in the key of jam, with little shreds of orange, walnut and beet zest. Call it a Midwestern Jello “salad,” of sorts…except that it’s much better than that. All the elements are in balance, and the package is unquestionably tasty, but the wine is a little on the monotone side, and eventually grows slightly tiresome. A persistent, nagging weight problem doesn’t help this. (12/06)

TN: Turning the Tablas

[bottle]Tablas Creek 2002 “Côtes de Tablas” Blanc (Paso Robles) – Elegant and seemingly fully mature (though it would be a somewhat surprisingly early exit for this wine), showing blended nut oils with sun-desiccated flower and herb characteristics. It seems fat, then scratchy, then faded…it’s a little hard to figure this bottle out, and one immediately wonders if there might not be some very low-level taint or mild oxidation at work – but under the layers of difficulty there’s enough spicy, low-acid complexity to make it worth the effort. (12/06)

TN: Whites in triplicate

[label]St. Innocent 2005 Pinot Blanc Freedom Hill (Willamette Valley) – Striking green grape and zingy, underripe apricot with fresh-cut grass and spiky acidity. It’s got a nice, clean, pure appeal, but it carries too much alcoholic heat, and as a result loses most of its claim to freshness and approachability. (12/06)

J. Christopher 2005 Sauvignon Blanc Maresh (Dundee Hills) – Green fruit and herbal sodas with a shattered crystalline minerality, dustings of sea salt, and a lot of exciting, almost frothy complexity along a sharp, clean finish. This is fantastic sauvignon blanc, individualistic and nervy, with structure to spare. (12/06)

[label]Hendry 2005 Chardonnay “Unoaked” (Napa Valley) – Friendly peach, grapefruit, ripe lemon curd and apple. Deliciously appealing, and there’s plenty of bright, balancing acidity as well. Despite a well-justified fear of aging any unoaked chardonnay that isn’t from Chablis, I’d consider holding on to this just to see what happens…but then again, it’s awfully nice now. (12/06)

TN: 41 bottles of red on the wall

Marietta “Old Vine Red” 41 (California) – Every year, this wine disappears further into its own shadow. This version is fading to transparency (and I don’t mean visually), showing anonymous spicy fruit underneath somewhat strident oak…not that much of that latter, but more than enough to subdue aught else. Not only is this no longer the value it once was, I’m not even sure it’s recommendable as a bargain quaffer anymore. Let’s see what the next release brings. (1/06)

Benoni 2002 Syrah “Three Vineyards” (Napa Valley) – Simple plum-berry aromas with a little bit of water-soaked leather and a good deal of dry, papery tannin. Good old Napa, doing to syrah what it does to zin: drying it out. (12/06)

TN: Diamond in the Outback

[bottle]Rosemount Estate “Diamond Label” 2004 Riesling (South Eastern Australia) – This is mega-corporate wine. This is also quite good within that paradigm, and completely decent without it. Green apple and grape with the usual piercing, slightly overdriven acidity (perhaps all the acid lacked by so many other Aussie wines ends up in the rieslings) will brace and cleanse just about any food, no matter how biting. There’s not much of a finish, but then one hardly expects such things from titanic industrial winemaking. The bottom line: this is as solid a supermarket buy as you’ll find these days. (12/06)