Browse Month

January 2009

Henry

[barrels]Signal Hill 2005 Syrah (Stellenbosch) – Very confident, with a grainy structure, solid leather, blackberry skins, and a welcome hint of bacon. Balanced, long, and promising, but there’s just a little something missing. Perhaps it’s that the wine’s initial swagger isn’t quite matched by its raw materials, which are a little more timid than the wine’s proud bearing seems to promise. (11/08)

Bayly bread

Peter Bayly 2004 “Cape Vintage Port” (Calitzdorp) – Tired, roasted, and dried-out. Already. Less actively unpleasant than just…eh. (11/08)

Galpin ghost

[barrels]Bouchard Finlayson 1998 Pinot Noir Galpin Peak (Walker Bay) – Soft fruit, grey minerality, drying structure, and a keening sweet-fruited character that is, for me, often found in New World pinots as they develop. It’s balanced, but showing indications of fading, and there’s no sign of the lovely autumnal complexity that makes aged pinot so compelling. Good, but just barely hanging on to that status. (11/08)

Joan Wilderer? Joan Wilderer?

Wilderer Pinotage Grappa (Paarl) – Like wines made from the grape, a giant explosion of fruit. Kind of a doofus spirit, or perhaps it could more charitably be termed a beginner’s grappa, and yet it ends up being appealing despite its simplicity. (11/08)

The rites of springbok

[table mountain obscured]The truck shows no signs of stopping. In fact, it might be speeding up. A horn blares. The right wheel is aimed directly at me, the left at Theresa’s glasses, which are still skipping and swirling over the pavement, buffeted by the howling gales that cyclone around us. There’s nothing to be done except save myself, and I leap back onto the sidewalk…just as the glasses are given their most violent wind-whipping yet. They sail skyward, hurdling the truck and crashing to the ground right at my feet. I reach out to grasp them…

…continued here.

Le Pew

[harvest]Pepe 2001 Trebbiano d’Abruzzo (Abruzzi) – Smells, unmistakably, of kriek lambic, with all the sourness and brett that implies…and not some easy-drinking Lindemans bottling either, but an extreme, take-no-prisoners Cantillon version. The texture is of drying soup, with fantastic minerality enveloped in lanolin. Very complex and strikingly long, with fine balance. Not that this is any surprise, but the wine is very divisive; among a half-dozen tasters of this bottle, about as many despise it as adore it. (12/08)

Matt

[vineyard]Dillon “Les Plantiers du Haut-Brion” 1974 Graves Blanc (Bordeaux) – Molten aluminum, creamy, and very long. A touch of brown sugar hints at the age, but this has held up extremely well. Very, very good wine, but drink up. (12/08)

Louvière blinds

Lurton “Château La Louvière” 1979 Graves Blanc (Bordeaux) – Young-tasting, believe it or not. Lime with hints of Sprite – the wine’s a bit slurpy – but this eventually resolves to tonic and sorbet. Filaments of metal drift through the finish. Precise. Very good, but almost excellent. (12/08)

Star power

[bottle]Gros “Domaine de Montbourgeau” 2000 l’Étoile “Cuvée Spéciale” (Jura) – Racy minerality in a wind tunnel. If there was such a thing as chalkfruit, this would have it. Intense and pear-textured (but not -flavored), with a tartness that really emerges as the wine airs. Extremely good. (12/08)

Berres do it, bees do it

CH Berres 2001 Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Auslese 12 02 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Raw iron and light petroleum, perhaps some aluminum. Shockingly primary (almost raw, actually); this not only is far from maturity, it’s not even close to closing up yet. (12/08)