Browse Tag

chardonnay

Champy at the bit

Champy 1999 Meursault (Burgundy) – Shy. Mild hazelnut and chanterelle laced with minor oak aromas. The structure is proportionally reticent. Soft and far too restrained, nor does food help it. Very, very bland. (4/06)

Charmes school

Guy Bocard 2002 Meursault-Charmes “1er Cru” (Burgundy) – Caramelized spice, dill, and lots of wood. Somewhat stale and falling apart. And a little oxidized? There are a few signs. (2/08)

Morgeot or less

Jean-Noël Gagnard 2001 Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot “1er Cru” (Burgundy) – Light wood, cream, mild spice, and sand. Pretty but overly soft. There’s not really all that much to this. (2/08)

Green nay

Greenhough 2004 Chardonnay (Nelson) – Fig, clove, ripe peach, apricot, white nectarine, and an exotic, almost boisterous aroma of dried, then baked, flowers. Soft, with a lush and luxurious texture on the finish. Not my style, but it’s a very good wine (3/05).

Rocky start

[les pierres]Sonoma-Cutrer 2004 Chardonnay Les Pierres (Sonoma Valley) – Appealing for about three seconds, after which it turns highly synthetic. Aromas are all on the bright, sunny side, but I’m not sure any of them are identifiably from nature. It feels almost oppressively “worked,” and about halfway through a glass it requires an effort of will simply to take another sip. (3/08)

Fuissé you, Fuissé me

[vineyard]Jadot 2006 Pouilly-Fuissé (Burgundy) – Good, clean, simple white Burgundy, with light dried lemon, dry peach, and faint wood ear mushroom aromas. Gentle but unpersuasive, though one doesn’t want to ask too much of this wine. (2/08)

Rimu & Zooty

Rimu Grove 2002 Chardonnay (Nelson) – 100% barrel fermented, whole-bunch pressed. Dense with spice (especially cinnamon) and semi-rich. Long and intense, but not showing much fruit at the moment; mostly, what one tastes is what’s been done to the fruit after harvest. It’s showing signs of mellowing, but it’s not there yet, and my belief is that the intensity of the winemaking has overwhelmed the fruit, though certainly not in an obscene fashion. (3/05)

Holy Roman

Louis Latour 2004 Corton-Charlemagne (Burgundy) – Very sulfurous, showing melon, underripe apricot, and cinnamon bark. Fat and obvious. This doesn’t appear to have positive places to go. (2/07)

Patrick & Lalou

Duval-Leroy 1997 Champagne “Blanc de Chardonnay” (Champagne) – Ripe lemon curd, skins, and incredible intensity. Clean, with bubbles taken down to powdery fineness. (2/07)