Browse Month

September 2012

Pagani-nation

Ridge 2001 Zinfandel Pagani Ranch (Sonoma Valley) – 88% zinfandel, 8% alicante bouschet, 4% petite sirah. 15.4% alcohol, and brining every bit of that alcohol to the table on its eleventh birthday. This is pretty regularly my least favorite of Ridge’s “primary” zinfandel blends, though I suspect that the qualities that sometimes turn me off (excess alcohol, pruney fruit) are exactly what appeals to lovers of that periodically popular form of the grape. This is dark, grapey, plummy, and then it works itself into reduced boysenberry syrups and such that quickly reduce its appeal. The burn follows. I also wonder if holding it this long may have contributed to my ambivalence. (8/12)

Maule-ing

Maule “La Biancara” 2010 “I Masieri” (Veneto) – 100% garganega. A beautiful wine that sneaks up from behind, at first showing little other than a thinly floral note, but really broadening as it rests and warms. There’s terrific minerality here, vastly more complex flower-shop aromas than at its outset, and something honeysuckle-like in its insistent appeal to sweetness-without-sucrosity. (8/12)

Stray cat strut

Setzer 2006 Kreimelberg Roter Veltliner (Weinviertel) – I usually find roter veltliner a bit weird, and this is no exception. It’s as if grüner veltliner and Alsatian pinot gris had some sort of illicit vineyard union, because the fruit takes on an almost powdery, raspberry sorbet-like tone. I like it, but it keeps gesturing towards sweetness that might not be there, and thus functions as if it is in fact sweet; remember this when considering food matches, or do as I did and serve it as a fun apéritif. (8/12)

Throaty

Pelletier 2008 Saint Chinian “l’engoulevent” (Languedoc) – The lightest Saint Chinian I’ve ever tasted, which is more or less suggested by the name, and there’s a certain leveling of its grape and site identifiers due to its appeal to easy drinkability. But it’s hard to deny how good it is. Soft, graphite-like structure dissolves in a fine mist of medium-toned fruit skins and apple-toned berries. I really like this. Really, really like this. Does it taste like Saint-Chinian? Well… (8/12)

Language lessons

Magnon “Rozeta” 2009 Corbières (Languedoc) – Ripe strawberry and rose hip with a more insistent, denser fruit than its otherwise bright, fresh-faced appeal might indicate. And it gets darker as it finishes, even adding a touch of wild fierceness to the departure. A very appealing wine. (8/12)

For Samsung too

Forsoni “Sanguineto I e II” 2010 Toscano Bianco (Tuscany) – This is a wine I’ve struggled with in other vintages, finding it clumsy compared to their succulent red, but in 2010 they’ve reached my palate. There’s a fruit salad element to it, yes, but not in a clumsy, pushed-ripeness New World sort of way; rather, the sort of careful selection of complementary fruit that often finishes an Italian meal. Just balanced, maybe tilting still a bit towards fruit rather than structure, and letting it get too warm brings out an overweightedness that does the wine few favors. Whether this vintage is an aberration or the new norm, I can’t say. Yet. (8/12)

Carballo or lease

Carballo 2009 Tinto Negramoll (Canary Islands) – Juicy, gluggable, transparent. Blackberries with a swirl of bretty funk and spritz. Light. Fun, though the stench won’t appeal to everyone. (8/12)

Raspay with my little eye

Primitivo Quiles 2004 Alicante “Raspay” (Levant) – Like a blend of zippy naturalism and stronger, darker, warm-climate mass, this straddles – not always comfortably – a bit of a chasm between its refreshing fruit and its obvious structure. Whether it will get better or worse with time I can’t tell, but its quality (of which it has a surplus) does, at the moment, demand food. (8/12)

It’s the magic number

Jorge Ordoñez & Co. 2006 Málaga “3” (Málaga) – Richness upon richness. Almond oil, fruit syrup, spice, and weight…but not too much of the latter, allowing it to helix into something more complex as it lingers. Beautiful stuff. (8/12)

It doesn’t know, yet

Edmunds St. John “Wayward Pilgrims of the Vine” 2002 Syrah “The Shadow” (California) – If this wine has gone anywhere since my last check-in a few years ago, it’s not evident from this particular bottle. The rest stays in the cellar, for now. (8/12)