Neudorf 2003 Pinot Noir (Moutere) – Reductive and tight, with leafy earth tones and waves of beautiful graphite. Very structured and narrow up front, but it grows on the palate, showing strawberries inside a smooth velvet interior. The finish is even more expressive, bringing spiced grapes and spicier black cherries in an ever-expanding blend. Beautifully balanced and ageable…in fact, it needs age. (3/05)
moutere
How dry I am
Glover’s 2003 “Dry” Riesling (Moutere) – From Kahurangi Estate’s grapes. Those things get around, don’t they? In any case, despite the iconoclasm, this is a much better interpretation than anything from the source winery, with massive minerality unfortunately muffled by reduction, white pepper, and salt. Sharp and quite “wet”-tasting (by which I suppose I mean juicily acidic), this clearly needs time. The wine would appear to have a potentially good future, but I do worry that once all the sheathing is eroded by time, the core will be too severe for its own good. However, that’s a pure guess. Maybe this is (or rather, will be) terrific. I just can’t tell. (3/05)
Oh Moutere, I’m in love
Glover’s 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon (Moutere) – Chunky blackberry with rosemary. Very, very tannic, but the raw materials here are much more supportive of this kind of structure, and there’s something approaching what anyone (other than Mr. Glover) might consider balance. (3/05)
Frozen
Glover’s 2003 Riesling “Icewine” (Moutere) – A flat nose of sweet, simple apple. Short and disappointing. Given the originality shown elsewhere in this lineup, I expected this most idiosyncratic of wines to be better. Alas, it’s not. (3/05)
Graperlate
Kahurangi Estate 2003 “Late Harvest” Riesling (Moutere) – From the oldest vines on the property. Gravel and diesel, with sweet lemon, ultra-ripe apple, and lilies. Botrytis is clearly present on the finish, to the extent that the wine begins to tip over into the realm of rot, but otherwise this is balanced and long-finishing, and unquestionably the best wine in the entire lineup. (3/05)
Moutere ri(e)s(l)ing
Kahurangi Estate 2004 Riesling (Moutere) – Lots of petrol here, with tart and zingy grapefruit and a hint of pear. Starts strong, finishes very flat. Eh. (3/05)
Kahurangi Estate 2004 Riesling “Reserve” (Moutere) – Green-leafed apple and concentrated steel – the latter mostly apparent on the finish – amidst a mild overlay of residual sugar. A bit of petrol is also present. The wine shows a fair amount of intensity, but it’s not a consistent expression. One suspects that more could be done with these grapes, but then that assumes an inherent strength of the terroir about which I am ignorant. (3/05)
Moutere, I’m in love
Kahurangi Estate 2002 Sauvignon Blanc (Moutere) – Zingy, showing capsicum and minerality with a tart, grapey quality. Which would all be fine, except that there’s also a generous serving of canned peas along for the ride…not an unusual fate when one ages a sauvignon blanc that probably wasn’t meant for aging. (3/05)
Five…is right out
Five Oaks 2004 Sauvignon Blanc (Moutere) – Ripe apple, green plum and lemon. Ripe and rather fine. Why is this so much better than most of the rest of the Kahurangi sauvignons? The difference is rather dramatic. (3/05)
Estate sale
Kahurangi Estate 2003 Chardonnay (Moutere) – 70% malolactic, and subjected to a mix of barrels and staves, showing clove-spiced apple with a good deal of orange juice on the finish. Basic and pleasant enough in this style, though without anything else to say. (3/05)
Bea
Kahurangi Estate 2003 Chardonnay Mt. Arthur (Moutere) – 100% American oak (which is strange, as I’ve written elsewhere in my notebook that Day claims to use all French oak…no doubt one entry or the other is an error). Sweaty banana with other tropical aromas, crisp on the midpalate and then bitter and resinous on the finish. It’s woody, to be sure, and though there’s certainly fruit, the wood imprint here is off-putting more for its character than its quantity. (3/05)
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