Browse Month

September 2007

No reply Etoile

[bottle]Domaine Chandon Brut Rosé “l’Etoile” (Mendocino/Napa/Sonoma) – Crown cap. Very fruity, with strawberries to the fore, and perhaps a little sweeter and more neon-intense than I’d like. But there’s yeasty complexity underneath, and the wine firms up a little bit on the finish…though eventually it turns every so slightly candied again. Still, not bad, though not worth the price either. (8/07)

An Auxey to grind

[label]Drouhin 1986 Auxey-Duresses (Burgundy) – Feeble at uncorking, but after the aeration that older Burgundy almost always seems to need, it turns out there’s a beautiful old wine within. This has held wonderfully, with a delicate, spiced leaf aroma intermixed with old red fruit and gentle, mushroomy earth. The structure is fully resolved, though adhesion to the wine’s acidity is just starting to fray and pull a bit; the right food could counterbalance this. (7/07)

Maréchal law

[candle & wine]Maréchal 1995 Pommard Les Vignots (Burgundy) – Starting to fray, with dominant acidity and a sharp razor of tannin slicing deep into a crisp core of red cherry, raspberry and cranberry fruit. Some interesting floral/earthy aromatics skid across the top, but this wine has become mostly about structure. (7/07)

Fourrier transformed

[label]Fourrier 1995 Vougeot Les Petits Vougeot “1er Cru” (Burgundy) – Shy and dried out for the first thirty minutes or so, after which it does the expected Burgundy transformation. The result: muscular, dark plum and blackberry fruit with black truffle. This is a wine with a rather firm grip on itself. Another half-hour or so down the road, it begins to close up again (its lingering intensity argues against the suspicion that it’s drying out). Leave it for a while longer. (8/07)

Chorey dinner

[label]Drouhin 2005 Chorey-les-Beaune (Burgundy) – Dark, slightly singed fruit plagued by a surplus of tannin. I don’t think it’s ultimately out of balance, but it’s going to take a long time to present itself as an acceptable dinner companion. And, though this comes as no surprise to anyone given the vintage hype, it’s a massively poor value. Update: the wine is only overpriced in certain markets. Elsewhere, it’s around $20, and thus fairly reasonable given the overheated market for 2005 Burgundies. (9/07)

Grosjean, petitjean

[vines]Grosjean 2005 Pinot Noir (Vallée d’Aoste) – A difficult wine, giving nothing in a spirit of generosity (and certainly not fun). Soil and granite, some dusty red fruit in the background. Indifferent. I’m inclined to like wines that are all about dirt, and maybe this just needs some age, but it’s a bit too cranky for my tastes at this stage. (9/07)

Hallau, how are you?

Regli 2005 Hallauer Sonnenspross Spätlese (Hallau) – Mildly appealing, with lightly-structured but flat black cherries and a fine dusting of particulate white pepper. Tarragon and thyme are more suggested than present, and the wine’s a little on the wan side. Still, it’s appealing enough to be drinkable, especially with the right food…something similarly restrained and gently-treated. (7/07)

Regli 2002 Hallauer Blauburgunder “Barrique” (Hallau) – A chunky dullard of a wine, with tortured fruit buried under a pile of grape- and oak-tannin rubble. There’s a decent enough core of fruit somewhere under all that detritus, but there’s no ferreting it out now. Will it age? Sure, but I doubt it will get any better. (8/07)

More than a Hamilton

[bottle]Hamilton Russell 2005 Pinot Noir (Walker Bay) – Very, very large-scaled. It’s not that the fruit is overripe or the alcohol is prominent, and certainly this is recognizable as pinot, it’s just that the wine is massive. Also, there’s a thick, intrusive layer of oak doing its best to bury the fruit at the moment. There’s plenty of structure, and given the brilliance of their chardonnay I’m inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it will unquestionably need plenty of age to make any sense of itself. (7/07)

Backward falcon

[bottle]Peregrine 2003 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Intensely liqueur-like, with sweet-tasting fruit hanging exposed in a wine that lacks the requisite structure to support it. I’m not sure what’s happened here, as the wine was much better balanced in its youth (though the sweet note was always present); maybe this is what passes for this wine’s “dumb phase,” or maybe things have just fallen apart around its fruity event horizon. (7/07)

Coteau, Japan

[bottle]Domaine Coteau 2005 Pinot Noir (Yamhill County) – Dense and syrah-like, not least because there’s also a healthy infestation of bretty aromas that would seem much more at home in a hefty Northern Rhône. This is incredibly dense and unyielding, and I question whether or not it’s actually pleasurable, much less a worthwhile expression of pinot. Age is unquestionably necessary, and maybe it will be a lot more appealing with proper cellaring, because there’s plenty of structure and extract underneath the funk and weight. Certainly this is what some look for in pinot noir, but it’s not really my style. (7/07)