JJ Prüm 1990 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Fully past its primary (and sulfurous) phase, but giving only teasing hints of what’s to come…other than the texture, which is already silky and luscious. There’s length and prominence, but there’s also firm conviction and a pressing insistence. Minerals, yes, and also very ripe apples bathed in clotted cream, but mostly just texture and incessant promise. (8/07)
Browse Month
July 2008
The Berres necessities
Christoffel Berres 1996 Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Auslese (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Creamy and rich, though I don’t find much complexity yet, with the requisite spice somewhat tamped down by palate weight. It’s a little shorter than I’d like, as well, though that’s a nitpick. Still, there’s much to enjoy, and a little more time might help things move in one direction or another. (8/07)
Arturo
Finca Sandoval 2004 Manchuela (Central Spain) – I’ve liked the lighter “Salia” on more than one occasion, but this…. Berry concentrate slurried into a concrete sludge with a barnyardy funk plus well-ridden horse. Oh, yum. There’s dense, peppery tannin, but otherwise this wine is formless and, despite the tongue-encasing texture, void of life; a solidified memory of fruit and animal preserved in amber. Obviously and by intent, it requires a whole lot of age but this is the absolute opposite of fun. (8/07)
Marcoux plotters
Marcoux 1999 Châteauneuf-du-Pape “Vieilles Vignes” (Rhône) – Heavy, practically ponderous “fruit” (again with the scare quotes; this time, I’d call it “low-hanging meat” from a world in which berries are consumed exclusively by carnivores) that weighs everything down to a stop. Not helping are a thick chocolate sludge, tar, asphalt, and a dressing of somewhat rancid butter on the finish. This is most decidedly not my sort of thing. Which is a shame, because I think this meat-berry idea has legs. Literally. (8/07)
Goin’ to the chapel
Jaboulet 1995 Hermitage “La Chapelle” (Rhône) – La Chapelle is one of the more maddening wines from this region; sometimes it’s terrific, sometimes it’s meager, and sometimes it’s simply disappointing. This is one of the former, though that may have more than a little to do with its surprisingly forward nature. Firm minerality is delivered, stone by stone and with a gentle hand, amidst a humid vapor of generalized meatiness and herbality. The wine is as structured and solemn as the little chapel that is its namesake (even if the grapes themselves are from elsewhere), but for whatever reason it’s drinking quite well at the moment. (8/07)
The sultan of Vernay
D&R (GAEC) Vernay 1998 Côte-Rôtie (Rhône) – Feral and yet weirdly elegant, like some jungle primitive dressed up in a tuxedo and somehow making it work. Except the tux is made of meat. And I guess a from-left-field elegance isn’t all that unusual for a Côte-Rôtie. The “fruit” (the scare quotes are always necessary in this appellation) is a dark and dried berry residue stomped by herds of somewhat leaky cattle, violets in the barnyard, and some leather as well. It’s a little chunky and obvious, but it is full of typicity, and that’s not someone one can always say about wines from here. (8/07)
MTM spinoffs
Ogier 1998 Syrah Vin de Pays des Collines Rhodaniennes “La Rosine” (Rhône) – Still not entirely open, and there’s something Ogier does (or doesn’t do) to these wines that makes me wonder about TCA for the first few minutes after opening. With enough air, however, worries dissipate. There’s old bacon here…not rancid, but that’s lost its smoked porcine verve…grilled pork, and smoky leather over a bed of gravel; it’s the latter that forms, for me, a sort of signature for this wine, along with a more vibrant acidity than one often finds in Northern Rhônes. All that said, I believe I’ll leave the rest in the cellar for a few years yet. (8/07)
Old unfaithful
Ridge 1994 Geyserville (Sonoma County) – This is tight and flailing away at any attempt to make it less so, with primary wood and a not-altogether-pleasant liqueur character dominating all else; it’s a combination of fairly prominent alcohol and syrupy fruit (though just what that fruit is remains fairly opaque, even if a few of the famed ollalieberries make their presence known in a brief, shy encounter). There’s also unmistakable balsamic on the finish, which I just do not want to taste in my zin. And then, the tannin whips the palate, the acid pokes a bony finger forth, and the coconut wood covers everything in a blanket of shaved tropicality. This is a strange performance vs. the last bottle I tasted, which was much more complete and generous despite being quite primary itself. Ah, the mysteries of bottle variation. (8/07)
Sacco & Vietti
Vietti 1997 Barolo Villero “Riserva” (Piedmont) – I’m not entirely sure I could identify this as Barolo or nebbiolo, if served from an unmarked container. However, some of the aromatics are definitely there – roses turning to potpourri, black minerality disintegrating into wet dust – along with dark chocolate and a concentrated, present-but-not-unpleasant cherry confiture spread over the top. There’s plenty of tannin, but it’s mostly ripe (though the tannin-averse should still avoid this wine), and very little acidity. If this note sounds conflicted, it is; based on the producer and vintage, I want to be more suspicious (or even cynical) than I am. But I do like the wine, as a beverage. Concerns about its typicity, or even its core philosophy, can wait for another day. (8/07)
I see your Truchot colors shinin’ through
Truchot 2004 Morey-St-Denis Les Blanchards 1er Cru (Burgundy) – Extremely balanced and ever so subtle, with strawberry and tarragon rising very slightly above a gentle breath of red fruit. Supple. The finish is long but increasingly linear, which gives me slight pause. Still, the wine’s hard to resist. (8/07)