Browse Month

June 2009

Frank Nobile

[label]Fià Nobile 2007 Cerasuolo di Vittoria (Sicily) – Spiderwebs of red fruit that come off as insistent, but are actually rather soft-hearted. Volcanic dust, as well? Yes, some (alongside more organic brown earth), and this is a wine with a fair measure of soil amidst the berries. Balanced and highly approachable. Yum. (6/09)

A bridge udvar

[vineyard]Királyudvar 2005 Tokaji Sec (Hungary) – Broad, waxy, and complicated. There’s a certain fatness here, but it’s a dry fat, expressed more as lingering tactility than plushness. Hues and tones range from brown to tan with streaks of grey, and there’s a hefty dash of mineral salt to the finish. This is awfully good. (5/09)

Zwei settle for less?

[vineyard]Heinrich 2003 Zweigelt (Burgenland) – Despite the year, the wine’s youthfully delicate aromatics have firmed up to something more Bordeaux-like and masculine with age. But there’s been a simultaneous Balkanization of the wine’s former cohesiveness, and while nothing’s yet out of balance, I don’t think that state of affairs will last forever. Grey-black dust has been revealed by the splits and seams, though it was perceivable from the beginning, and the fruit-sweetness has faded. Aging this dubiously-ageable wine was an interesting experience, but I can’t say the result has been improvement. Just change. (5/09)

Rubentis redis

Ameztoi 2008 Getariako Txakolina “Rubentis” (Northwest Spain) – Not strawberries, but a papyrus representation of strawberries on which has been spilled a considerable amount of sharp, frothing soda water. Comes at the palate like the churning maelstrom at the bottom of a very, very small waterfall. Anyone who doesn’t like this may not actually hate wine, but they probably hate life. (6/09)

No sand?

Edmunds St. John 1999 “Rocks and Gravel” (California) – I’m not enraptured by the way this has developed, in that the bubblegumness of grenache is not only on full display, but dominant. There’s appealing herbed hearth and a few slabs of meat in the background, but they struggle to push past the strawberry gobsmacker (not that this is a “gobby” wine). Moreover, alcohol is prodding at the boundaries. Did I hold this too long? Maybe, because I think I liked it more a few years ago, and the grenache/alcohol tandem doesn’t bode enormously well for the future. (5/09)

Eva Majoli

Sella 2007 Coste della Sesia Rosato “Majoli” (Piedmont) – Pink nebbiolo is my favorite (still) pink of all, I’ve learned. It’s a shame that there’s so little of it. This is a more aggressive interpretation than many, less so for its structure – the tarry bite of tannin is shed, and the acidity has loosened into full-blown juiciness – than its fruit, which is as much orange as it is red and pink, and sounds the occasional braying, brassy note. So it’s a rosé that demands attention, and keeps it by remaining balanced throughout (lacking the so-common rosé flaw of excess alcohol). But it’s not a “serious” wine, whatever one prefers that term to mean. (6/09)

W’s slope

[vineyard]Porter Creek 2001 Chardonnay George’s Hill (Russian River Valley) – Showing the baked nuts, light toast, and faded fruit of a fully mature wine, this faded a lot faster than I’d have guessed from its youthful vibrancy. Oh, well. (5/09)

Upright Piane

Coste Piane 2006 Prosecco “Tranquillo” (Veneto) – This grape seems to lend itself very well to representations other than the dominant one…so much so that I wonder if a lot more exploration along these lines might be beneficial. And just as fully dry sparkling Prosecco is often too parched and barren for its own good, so too do the barely-sparkling and still versions benefit from something that one can’t quite call sweet, but rather “soft”; they might call this sec-tendre in Vouvray (though I should note that I actually have no idea of the actual residual sugar level in this particular wine). Here there’s a yellowness that’s neither lemony nor stone-fruited, sun and freshness, and a kind, subtle nervosity about the meniscus that lends the wine just enough edge to avoid turning into a drinkable pillow. Yet there’s the dusty memory of earth, as well, and a little bit of crispness that clarifies. But no…these are too many words for this wine, whose pleasures are simpler than all this verbiage. (6/09)

Adding accents

[vineyard]Jorge Ordóñez & Co. 2006 Málaga “Seleccion Especial 1” (Málaga) – Intensely sweet, like candied fruit…though that’s not quite right, since the fruit isn’t sugary or slightly synthetic, it’s just nearly solid in its sucrosity. Orange peel? Or blossom? Why not both? There’s not really all that much complexity, but I don’t think it’s necessary. And despite all the sweetness, there’s a bit more “wine” to this than the higher-numbered bottlings. (5/09)

I want Candia

Donati 2007 Malvasia di Candia Frizzante (Emilia-Romagna) – Straight from the bottle (which was, I believe, previously-opened), there’s a bit of traditional-lambic funk; alongside the spritz and the nippy acidity, this is like a far less painful Cantillon. These elements settle and cohere with air and rising temperature, bringing out some proto-peach and grapefruit precursors, a tactile but not gustatory salinity, and that ever-present spiky buzz of sparkle. If there’s a quibble, it’s that the wine is monotonic in pitch. But there’s a lot going on in that note, and so the quibble remains no more than a quibble. (6/09)