Browse Month

February 2012

Mann overboard

JL&F Mann 2005 Riesling (Alsace) – Not a producer with which I’m overly familiar (I of course know the more famous Albert Mann quite well). This is a fairly impressive entry-level riesling, full of iced-pear and sharpened-flake minerality. It’s on the short side, as is typical for Alsatian rieslings of lesser repute, but while it lasts it’s quite delicious. (2/12)

I Londer as I wander

Londer 2007 Pinot Noir (Anderson Valley) – 14.4%. Were I one of those fruit-concentrate California winemakers who screech “geosmin!” at the slightest hint of earthiness, followed by “flaw!” immediately afterwards, I’d be inclined to do a lot of screeching at this wine, which is full of mushroomy, loamy earthen qualities. There’s some fruit, yes, but it’s baked-pie darkness subsumed by the soil and its own mostly fungal fruits. Do I like it? Yes, a fair bit, but it’s in no way impressive or special. (2/12)

Busch league

Anheuser 2008 Kreuznacher Scheurebe 024 99 (Nahe) – Fruit salad and sugar, makrut lime, fading to more abrupt leafiness in the finish. Surprisingly primary, though its my recollection that this possessed more duration when it was young. (2/12)

Patelin upstream

Tablas Creek 2010 “Patelin de Tablas” (Paso Robles) – 14.1% alcohol, a blend of syrah, grenache, and mourvèdre with a little counoise. With this wine, Tablas Creek has perfected, to the extent that they hadn’t quite in the past, the fully-approachable collation of philosophies and agriculture that any winery’s entry-levels are supposed to provide. Vibrant, fulsome, yet non-boisterous fruit (black, purple, red, even a little meat-infused), dashes of liquid black pepper, a structure that hangs about in the background, unassertive but fully supportive…this is a Tablas Creek version of a fruit bomb without being anything like the boozy fruit bomb-esque duds that plague their appellation. I’ve been drinking the formerly lower-end Côtes de Tablas since before it was called that, and while it (I speak of the red here) was often quite approachable, it never released itself from yearning – sometimes more strongly than in other years – for seriousness. This is, aside from semi-commercial and mostly notional bottlings, the least serious red wine I’ve ever tasted from Tablas Creek. That is, by the way, a compliment, because I think that here, result very clearly proceeds from intent. (2/12)

The rest of the Chorey

Drouhin 2006 Chorey-les-Beaune (Burgundy) – Surprisingly mature, though I don’t know that one couldn’t hold it a little longer at need. Rough-cut earthfruit, strong in will but soft in texture, with gentled old red berries turning to amber, sumac, and fine dustings of earth. Starts, exists, finishes, with a little acidic abruptness to the finish (the only worrisome note, but also the aspect that keeps this a wine of its class rather than something greater). A very fine value Burgundy…and how often can anyone say that? (2/12)

Mader hen

Mader 2008 Riesling (Alsace) – Straightforward and correct, with the kind of dry muscularity that used to be the dominant paradigm for Alsatian riesling. Hollows somewhat as it lingers. (2/12)

Before the meeting

Institut Agricole Régional 2007 Premetta (Vallée d’Aoste) – Like drinking a mille-feuille, its dark-fruited minerality dense yet separable; one experiences this wine as a series of fine layers, each yielding to a moment of space before and after. (2/12)

100 whales

Harpoon “100 Barrel Series” Black IPA (Vermont) – What it says is what you get: IPA bitterness, amped up just a bit by the blackness but by no means overwhelming, with a char and liquid smoke envelopment. Impressive. I wouldn’t want to drink a lot of this, but some is very good. (2/12)

Pasta the mission

golden gate sunsetCowgirl Creamery Sidekick – Grilled cheese is nice.

Perbacco – A restaurant that feels a lot more mass-market and corporate than the food it serves, Perbacco is located where few would think quality Italian food would be on offer. And to be fair, it’s no La Ciccia. But neither is it some North Beach tourist trap. A menu of Italian classics is actually a menu of Italian classics, not the more common Italian-American alternatives, differentiated from the old world mostly via portion size; this isn’t a restaurant at which to arrive in a state of presatiation. The cooking’s good, mostly, though it lacks refinement.

The wine list, too, is long on the classics (and perhaps as a result, a little short on the adventure), but other than a bit of din I can’t find much to complain about.

Domaine Dupasquier 2004 Roussette de Savoie Altesse “Marestel” (Savoie) – Like drinking a wrench. An adjustable wrench. Firm columns of minerals in motion, circling a melting core of ice. See? A wrench! (11/11)

Alessandria 2004 Barolo Monvigliero (Piedmont) – Let me preface this note by saying that at the time I drink this wine, I’m in the early stages of what will eventually be a three-week misery of sickness, the worst I’ve experience since I was swaddled. So there’s every reason to suspect that my palate is not 100%, or at least of which 100% it might be capable. I mention this because I struggle to find aromatic interest in this wine, which is never a welcome absence in a nebbiolo. The structure, while certainly dominant, isn’t as forbidding as it could be. And there’s a lot of density to the wine. But other qualities…I’m just not seeing them. (11/11)

Chave 1994 Hermitage (Rhône) – At one time I owned some of this, back in the days when it was (relatively) reasonably priced. I don’t know what happened to mine, and I certainly drank it too early, because this bottle is where you’d want it…perhaps even a touch past that point…with a grittier, tooth-baring edge to its columnar masculinity. (Sometimes, a masculine column is just a masculine column. Or Chave Hermitage. Same thing.) (11/11)

Don’t cry for me, natural ferments

Péron 2009 “Côtillon des dames” (Savoie) – Slowly refermenting. That is to say, it starts out a little stenchy and a fair bit volatile, turns fizzy, starts to smell a lot worse, then ends up tasting like something we would have dared each other to drink in high school chem lab. (2/12)