Browse Month

April 2008

Dei off

[field]Bucci “Villa Bucci” 2000 Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico “Riserva” (Marches) – Mildly corked, and that’s not all that’s wrong with it. (4/08)

Come Salia away

Finca Sandoval 2002 Manchuela “Salia” (Central Spain) – Leather, dark blueberry, and soft, wood-like smoothness that turns to cedar on the finish. Really quite lovely, with a texture that alternates between silk and satin. It’s fruit-forward, but it’s balanced, and rocks lurk underneath. A very compelling wine; not “great,” but probably not intended so. I like this much more than its more ambitious big brother. (10/06)

Bas Skaggs

Grouet 1964 Bas-Armagnac (Southwest France) – Incredibly rich with mixed nuts and well-aged stone fruit. Yet somehow, it retains a vivid youthfulness. Maybe the best way to describe it is strong-willed. Truly excellent. (4/06)

Juscle a little Jurançon

Vigneau la Juscle Jurançon Moelleux (Southwest France) – There’s no vintage listed, nor is there a specific cuvee indicated, and I don’t even get to see the bottle…not that it really matters. For all I know, this isn’t even Jurançon, though it tastes like it might be. It tastes of light apricot and peanut, faint but clean, and the effect is more refreshing than luscious. It’s not worth a second look, but it serves its current purpose quite nicely. (10/06)

Roure of the crowd

Jaume Sabaté Mestre “Mas Plantadeta” 2004 Priorat Garnatxa Blanc Roure (Cataluña) – Big, heavy, and sun-baked. Minerality abounds, with moderate wood slightly masking peach and apricot fruit. So heavy it’s very nearly a syrup, and the structure is completely wonky, yet one can’t help but feel that with a different upbringing… (10/06)

Champy at the bit

Champy 1999 Meursault (Burgundy) – Shy. Mild hazelnut and chanterelle laced with minor oak aromas. The structure is proportionally reticent. Soft and far too restrained, nor does food help it. Very, very bland. (4/06)

Anonomay

anonymous Brouilly (Beaujolais) – Not the sort of Brouilly that geeks get excited about, but rather the simple kind poured by the pichet in restaurants all over France. It’s lurid violet and grapey, with fresh berries and more of those violets on the finish. And it most certainly has its place. (4/06)

Don’t rain on my café

[stirring coffee]On my very first day in Paris, I ascended the Arc de Triomphe to take in the view, then strolled down the length of this most famous of avenues. I remember the people, the chintzy foreign borrowings, and the over-the-top commerciality, but I also remember being somewhat swept away by the experience.

Well, I have no idea what I was thinking. Some memories are best left as memories, and I quickly come to resent each remembered step. What, exactly, is the appeal of the upper half of this boulevard? Except to business owners, I mean. Only as the street descends to the FDR Métro stop and commerce gives way to gardens does it become worthwhile. In fact, the stretch from there to the Place de la Concorde (my favorite “great space” in Europe) is quite striking. But my advice? If you’ve good memories of the Champs-Élysées, never, ever return. For these days, it’s little more than an avenue of regrets.

…continued here.

In fact, there is a mountain high enough

[mountain flower]Bikers sweat, struggle, and bleed their way up…then down…this shockingly precipitous, beautifully desolate mountain climb. They can have it. In a car, driving inches from an unguarded plunge into cartwheeling death, it’s…less fun. Considering how long it takes to get here, it’s all more than a bit frustrating, but after a half-hour’s climb, the swift onrush of imminent mortality becomes just too much to bear for the acrophobic.

…continued here.

More BWE notes

[jensen]If you like pointillism, all the notes have been posted — one-by-one — to oenoLog, but they’re in more coherent form over on the main site: Alsace & Germany (with apologies for getting those two back together, even temporarily), Bordeaux, and the U.S.A. (California, Oregon, and one Washington interloper).