Browse Month

November 2007

Brun the day

JP Brun “Terres Dorées” 2001 Beaujolais Blanc (Beaujolais) – Light whitish-grey earth, dried almond skin, nut shells which transform to an old, dried-nut bitterness on the finish. The wine’s hollowing out, and while it’s long on the palate, it’s somewhat wan. Air helps, and after an hour or so there’s a lemon/grapefruit element in the mix, with a heavier mouthfeel and a zippy, cleansing element to the finish, but it’s still hollow. This was better a few years ago. (9/07)

Branaire cramp

[label]Château Branaire Duluc-Ducru 1989 St-Julien Beychevelle (Bordeaux) – This requires a long note. Heavy, tobacco and dark fruit skins with chunky oak tannin and walnut skin. Then: green pepper, red pepper…maybe turning to peppercorns (but freshly-cracked). And now, here’s bitter chocolate. There’s no generosity to this wine…it’s hard and severe, and somewhat overly acidic…and yet it’s classic in its own way. The complexity is undeniable, but it’s just no fun. Anyway, that’s the decanted, briefly aired, and then poured note. With extensive airing, however, things change a bit. The pointed acidity still renders the wine a touch sour, but overall matters have softened, with a more balanced nature and the chocolate turning to espresso. Much nicer, though still fairly firm. (9/07)

Oustal for time

Fonquerle “l’Oustal Blanc” Vin de Table “Naïck” (France) – Apparently, this is a blend of cinsault, carignan, syrah and grenache from vineyards in both Minervois and St-Chinian, hence the VdT designation. And I think this is the 2004 version, though of course there’s no vintage on the label. Anyway, it’s meaty and dense, with an excellent black trumpet-studded earthen foundation and nice structure. The wine seems like it should be blocky, but the aromatics are a good deal more vivid than one expects. It should age for a while, but it’s an excellent foil for strongly-flavored meat right now. (11/07)

Mâcon bacon

Guffens-Heynen 2000 Mâcon-Pierreclos “Le Chavigne” (Mâcon) – Quite woody, showing sweet melon and banana. Sickly spicy, with big, aggressive wood. Acidity doesn’t help. (9/07)

Rovetta stone

[vineyard]Grosjean 2004 Torrette “Supérieur” Vigne Rovetta (Vallée d’Aoste) – Mostly petit rouge, with some cornalin and fumin in the blend. If twin red Burgundies were separated at birth, and one was raised in the woods by a poverty-stricken family to achieve no more than about a 6th-grade education, this is what it might taste like. Its mild red fruit is choppy, and the texture alternately sharp and muddled, with spiky acidity and roughly-treated earth constantly churning underneath. There’s a lot to like here, but it’s very hard to get to it through all the discontinuities and confusion. Will age help? I have absolutely no idea. (11/07)

Radikal

[label]Radikon 2002 Venezia Giulia Ribolla Gialla (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Reddish-orange in color, blood orange and Rainer cherry on the nose, with plenty of tannin…this is, by all rights, a red wine that just happens to be made from white grapes. There’s big acidity throughout, with mineral soda elements abundant on the finish. Fascinating stuff. (10/07)

[label]Corte Gardoni 2006 Bardolino Chiaretto (Veneto) – While overt heaviness and alcohol can be a problem for rosés, Bardolino Chiaretto often has the opposite problem: too light, too thin, too acrid. Thankfully, none of that’s on display here. Instead, it’s a bright, smiling, linear beam of light red fruit. Some sort of Disney animation of dancing and frolicking animals, flowers and children under an animatronic sun wouldn’t seem out of place, at all. Summer was the right season for this wine, but drinking it now brings the summer right back. (11/07)

[map]Mongeard-Mugneret 2002 Echezeaux (Burgundy) – Massive but complex – in fact, the complexity itself is massive – with an earthy nose, and, and, and…well, this is the standard youthful Burgundy line, and you’ve read it before. This is a particularly fine example, and will reward age, but the quality is obvious now. (10/07)

[bottle]Stryker 2004 Cabernet Franc Angeli (Russian River Valley) – Woody and herbal, with a decent enough cabernet franc not quite able to emerge from the oak overlay. Fruit skins provide both character and mild bitterness. I’ve tasted worse. But I’ve tasted much, much better. (11/07)