Browse Month

February 2010

Fat pants

[vineyard]Grosjean 2005 Pinot Noir (Vallée d’Aoste) – Stumbles and tumbles out of the bottle, showing a clumsy, almost sticky, light berry aroma with zingy acidity and a lot of disjointed seams of minerality. But as it airs it coalesces, melding fruit and stone, wrapping its structure about itself, and broadening the complexity of its finish. By the final glass, it’s a rather extraordinary study in the interplay of grape and soil. The lesson, I guess, is patience. (2/10)

Gli club

Frecciarossa 2008 Oltrepò Pavese Riesling “Gli Orti” (Lombardy) – A bit on the heavy side for riesling, taking an unquestioned concentration and overdoing it a bit. Having now experienced a grand total of two Oltrepò Pavese rieslings, I can see that this weight is suggested by the terroir, but that not everyone handles it in the same way. Here, preserved lemon and leaden minerality are pleasant, and little accents of makrut lime and lemon verbena (both in tisane, rather than fresh, form) are even more welcome, but the wine’s just a bit too tiresome for complete enjoyment. Maybe age will help, though I’m skeptical. (2/10)

Orientali express

[vineyard]i Clivi di Ferdinando Zanusso 2004 Galea Colli Orientali del Friuli (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Drinking a young Galea can be a little like trying to slake a hearty thirst with an icicle. This is no exception, and even though it’s decanted early and aggressively, not much can be coaxed from it over the course of an hour, other than beige minerality and a firm structure. I love these wines, but I love them with age, and since even the 1997 (the first vintage of this wine) isn’t yet fully mature to my palate, I see no reason to submit any additional stocks to this manner of infanticide. (2/10)

Bicycle nose

[vineyard]Velenosi “Querci Antica” 2008 Lacrima di Morro d’Alba (Piedmont) – Lacrima di morro is so lurid that it can be a problematic food match. However, the exotic spice of a (non-traditional) veal tagine provided an opportunity, and thus it was time. Lurid it is, showing neon fruit in the blue-purple range, a bite of scraping tannin, and very fresh acidity, but there’s some peppery complexity as well, and the overall impression is one of striving rather than laurel-resting. Even if those laurels taste more like Chihuly glass. (2/10)

Estate, taxing

Roederer Estate Brut (Anderson Valley) – That this wine seems to grow a shade more leaden every time I taste it might be my imagination, or maybe it’s the case; there’s no way to go back and taste young Roederer Estates from ten years ago, of course, and aged versions won’t settle the issue. It’s good, flavorful stuff, leaning more on its weight and darker fruit characteristics than it would from the soils of Champagne (where even the black-fruited wines rarely carry this much raw density), but all that weight comes at a cost: there’s little deftness and decreasing life. If this is a stylistic choice, rather than just the voyages of my palate, then here’s a vote for an alternative path. I still like the wine, but the similarly-priced alternatives exist in quantity. (2/10)

Chiavennasca lines

[nebbiolo]Nera “La Novella” 2008 Chiavennasca Bianco Terrazze Retiche di Sondrio (Lombardy) – Brisk and almost sandpapery, showing pear concentrate lashed with skin and a weighty press of immediacy. Very aromatic, but those aromatics are direct. This remains a killer blind-tasting wine, but I can’t possibly see how anyone could, other than blind luck, guess nebbiolo as the grape. (2/10)

Mack truck

Sipp Mack 2005 Pinot Blanc (Alsace) – Bigger than expected, and comes galloping out of the gate with an insistent simplicity: pear, apple, paper. Doesn’t really go anywhere, though. Party wine. (2/10)

Tulocay for the straight guy

[logo]Tulocay 1999 Zinfandel (Amador County) – 15%. Though this wine will unquestionably age a good deal longer, changing as it does, I’m quite attracted to its present charms…poised on a pinnacle between the boisterous fruit of youth and the textural lavishness of maturity. The berries, dark and spicy, aren’t quite so wild anymore, but neither has the wine edged into one of those realms in which it can be mistaken for a different grape, as so often happens with well-matured zinfandel. I like that stage, too, but there are other ways to get to those places. Zin of this quality (and with these qualities) is something to be cherished on its own merits. (2/10)

Hoyas

[bill easton]Easton 2008 Pinot Noir Duarte-Georgetown (Sierra Foothills) – 14.2%. Despite positive verbiage on the label and the accompanying tech sheet (this is a free sample from the winemaker), I’m dubious. OK, pinot noir may have a history in the Sierras, but I suspect there must be a reason it doesn’t have a present. Certainly it would be an easier sell than the ubiquitous syrah, wouldn’t it? Well, anyway, first impressions don’t challenge my predispositions, with a vinyl, overworked quality to the sappy red fruit. There’s acid, and there’s minerality, but neither one works pleasantly towards a pleasant wholeness. So I leave the bottle alone for a while. One day becomes two, and two become three, and then I revisit. At which point I’m forced to walk back some of my criticisms, because the plastic element has disappeared, the structure has integrated, and the fruit is far more appealing than it was on the first day. There’s still minerality, and now there’s balance, and so now one wonders if there might be ageability. Is it a great pinot? No. Neither the Russian River Valley, nor the Central Coast, need quake in their boots (I’m not sure the Anderson Valley, for all its qualities, can quite afford boots yet). But it’s interesting, it’s markedly different, it’s from a trustworthy producer, and…well, who really knows? Worth a revisit, but mind the pop-and-pour mentality, because it doesn’t work here. (2/10)