Browse Month

April 2009

A Peyrouses is a Peyrouses

[label]Voge 2006 Côtes-du-Rhône “Les Peyrouses” (Rhône) – Cornas without all that soft, easygoing gentility. Well, OK, actually not. It’s feral and twisted, bent and almost broken, but manages to cling to black’n’blue’purple, heavily-bruised fruit around the perimeter, just hanging on as the bottom falls out of the center. Structurally angry. Sadomasochistic wine; there’s pleasure to be had, and you’ll remember it later, but there may be some consequences. (4/09)

Tyrrell’s ribbon ’round the old oak tree

[vineyard]Tyrrell’s 1999 Shiraz “Reserve” (McLaren Vale) – Massively acidic. This is exacerbated by the relative daintiness of the fruit, which is tart, red-berried, and overtly crisp; much Beaujolais is actually fuller-bodied than this wine, though it somewhat makes up for its occasional foray into mincing with a sharp blast of intensity. There’s a cloud of pepper dust that lends it varietal character, but otherwise it’s hard to see this as a shiraz, nor has time led to the development of what I’d call tertiary character. Is it good? It’s…particular. It’s fun with food. It’s an enjoyable quaff. And maybe that’s enough. It’s best use might be to blind-taste your Australian wine-hating friends; they’ll never, ever guess. (4/09)

Tools

[label]Craftsman 2006 Királyleányka (Neszmély) – The label promises a chenin blanc/viognier-related experience, and that isn’t too far off, as there’s a chalky, sun-drenched greenness thickened with a healthy dollop of oil here. Floral suggestions follow. There’s good flavor and appeal, but the wine’s rather abrupt. (4/09)

Crazy stone

Wild Rock 2007 Pinot Noir “Cupids Arrow” (Central Otago) – Dense, chewy, meaty, and somewhat blackened; in the pinot-as-syrah sweepstakes, this deserves at least an honorable mention. There’s acidity and a plummy brightness that combine to make the wine other than ponderous, but in the end its defiant scowliness and meaty density are hard to ignore. (4/09)

Gallina milk

[label]Lustau “Almacenista” Oloroso Pata de Gallina “Juan Garcia Jarana” 1/38 (Jerez) – Rich brown spices tinged with molasses, slow-baked stone fruit, fuzzy earth tones, and a certain gelatinousness. The wine comes in rolling waves, but those of a receding tide; the spaces in between are a little bare, leaving only a thick film of sweetness in their wake. I’ve always said that I appreciate sweeter styles of oloroso, and this is quite good (albeit probably not quite worth its tariff), but it would be better with a little less covering sugar. (4/09)

Left in the Lorch

[vineyard]Kesseler 2004 Lorcher Schlossberg Riesling Kabinett 009 05 (Rheingau) – Open and taking huge, lung-filling breaths of reflective, almost transparent minerality. It’s not a big wine, though it’s insistent, with various apples cut by nut skins and then, later, softened by a certain roundness to the acidity. Interesting. (4/09)

A nice game of Bulles

Jean-François Mérieau Touraine “Bulles” (Loire) – 80% chenin blanc, 20% chardonnay, sparkling. A little bigger than average Loire sparklers, a little gauzier than the best Loire sparklers. Chalk and aspirin, yes. A hint of honeysuckle? If so, it’s dried out…more like bee pollen, really, with a little bit of the wax in the mix as well. I’d call this more pétillant than sparkling, but its delicacy is here a virtue, allowing a very quiet wine to state its case. Nice. I wouldn’t really go beyond that, but “nice” is definite. (4/09)

Listen to this, Eddie

[label]Graziano 2004 Zinfandel Eddie Graziano “Old Vine” (Mendocino) – 14.5%. While I suspect that, somewhere deep in the interior of this wine, there’s pleasant and approachable wild-vine, dark-berry fruit, it’s impossible to perceive through the hard screens and blockades of structure. I suspect that the grapes were just not up to being pushed towards such a serious destination. With the right (fatty) food, it’s a little better. (4/09)

We three kings

[bottle]TreRè Nocino (Emilia-Romagna) – Very spicy-sweet, like one of those hundred-year barrel-aged stickies from Australia. The texture is of something balsamic. There’s not all that much actual walnut aroma, though the skin bitterness of the nut is certainly present. And it finishes in – or perhaps on – fire. I like the idea, but the alcohol’s just too dominant for my tastes. (4/09)

The perfect club

Kesseler 2005 White 001 06 (Rheingau) – 70% sylvaner, 30% riesling. Less (appealingly) vegetal than many examples of the grape, with a little bit of a sharp edge that may be from the riesling, but retaining the clingier texture of the majority partner. There’s a bit of welcome rockiness, as well. A good value, though I think similarly-priced pure rieslings are a little more defined. (4/09)