Ambos 2006 Bierzo “De 2” (Northwest Spain) – Fantastically aromatic, well-baked and dry but with plenty of desert-edge floral life, dark fruit, and tons of earth. Yet it’s not a heavy wine, exactly; perhaps muscular but agile would be a better description. I wouldn’t age it too long, but I don’t think it’s in immediate danger of falling apart, either. (5/08)
May 2008
Vieille Prunier
Prunier 2000 Auxey-Duresses (Burgundy) – A good wine that I don’t like, probably because I’ve fallen completely off the chardonnay bandwagon and can’t seem to get back on. It’s lush, waxy, moderately oxidized, and shows plenty of old, dry caramel and an intense texture with remnants of coriander and fresh tumeric. (5/08)
New mountain
Valdesil “MonteNovo” 2006 Valdeorras Godello (Northwest Spain) – Thick minerality braced by effortless ripe-apple acidity and smoother, softer textures of melon and the less-sweet types of stone fruit. Builds in reaction to food, then subsides into a pleasant cocktail in food’s absence. A fun wine. (5/08)
Q, M, 007
Quintas de Malgaço “QM” 2006 Vinho Verde Alvarinho (Monção) – Spice in the form of a tightly-packed carbon froth, crystallized lemon-lime, dulled-razor acidity, and a quasi-electric texture. A few bottles of the half-dozen tasted are starting to water up, but the rest retain their full intensity. Do these wines age? It seems almost like a waste to find out. (5/08)
Euganeics
VR dei Colli Euganei Prosecco Spumante “Extra Dry” (Veneto) – Overly-buffed yet sharp at the core, and somewhat flavorless. An essentially meaningless wine. (5/08)
Tobe orbe notbe tobe bebe
Martínez Laorden 2004 Rioja “La Orbe” (Center-North) – Roasted red fruit, a bit wan in parts, but simply presented with neither pretense nor haphazardness. I’d like a little more…I don’t know, something…from this wine, but maybe time will bring it. There’s wood, but it’s certainly neither overwooded nor dried out. (5/08)
Descendents ascendant
Descendientes de J. Palacios 2006 Bierzo “Pétalos” (Northwest Spain) – I’ve struggled with this wine, often finding it too leaden and tasting too much of primary barrel influences. But here, it’s singing with floral spice…still quite heavy, but bringing so much more to the party than thick black fruit that it doesn’t seem to matter. And, a food-pairing note: this wine is absolutely tremendous with smoked duck in a rich, heavy-on-the-chocolate molé sauce. (5/08)
Dutch trading companies
Lustau “East India Solera” Sherry (Jerez) – Very sweet, molasses and maple with heat-concentrated brown sugar but a fairly uninteresting finish of simplistic sweetness. (5/08)
Aragorn
Hidalgo “Alameda” Cream Sherry (Jerez) – Nutty syrup, thinned and with a slightly varnished texture, with the wine’s intense sweetness balanced by an airy midpalate. Finishes a little disappointing, though. (5/08)
Slander & Laible
Laible 2006 Durbacher Plauelrain Traminer Spätlese Trocken 09 07 (Baden) – Solid cool-climate gewürztraminer flavors of rose petals and an exotically leafy lychee rind, with good acidity and a rod-like pillar of translucent minerality around which the rest of the wine is draped. It’s not spectacular, but it’s eminently drinkable, and age might reveal a little more character. (5/08)