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)
Browse Tag
red
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 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)
Coquelet-o…gamay come & me wan’ go home
Coquelet 2009 Beaujolais (Beaujolais) – The razory, sharp sort of “house style” at Coquelet is here mitigated by the corpulence of the vintage, creating something neither razory nor corpulent, but in fact much more recognizable amongst its peers…albeit from different vintages, because in this one said peers do somewhat frequently veer into rotunditry. So: bursting mixed berries, a bit darker than the norm, a dusting of soil that’s almost-but-not-quite peppery, and a fulsome finish still nicely crisped by acidity. I could drink a lot of this. In fact, I have. But I think this was the last bottle. (8/12)
On a pony she named Wildfire
Firesteed 2008 Pinot Noir (Oregon) – Charred berries, a quality that seems to afflict the vast majority of cheap pinot noir from this country. There’s really not much else worth saying. (8/12)
Fifty Cent (x2)
Druet 1997 Bourgueil “Les Cent Boisselées” (Loire) – There is a spectacular classed-growth 1975 Bordeaux on the table, yet this wine makes an aggressive bid to steal the show. It’s a ’97, yes, and thus a showy vintage that’s mostly in full flight or slight decline by now, but wow does this make a spectacular attempt at brilliance. Mixed pepper dusts with a lavish velour texture, plus an intense, humid, almost sweaty aspect; I feel transported to some remote Zulu hut during the intensity of a war council. Yes, ridiculous analogies are the bane of tasting notes, but a wine this good deserves only the most abstruse flights of fancy. In the end, it’s like drinking dryness, but the most exciting dryness you’ve ever experienced. Wow. Just: wow. Purchased at the property. (7/12)
Just in Cases
Léoville Las Cases 1975 Saint-Julien (Bordeaux) – Cedar leaves (I know, I know) and silk. Beautiful, elegant, and long. Magisterial. Bordeaux’s actual soul, rather than the all-too-common Las Vegas version, on display. This is a very short note for a truly beautiful wine, but I don’t think an avalanche of verbiage is needed. (7/12)
Here today, Gonnet tomorrow
Gonnet “Domaine Font de Michelle” 1995 Châteauneuf-du-Pape “Cuvée Etienne Gonnet” (Rhône) – Softened in its age, no doubt thanks to the still-sweet, almost malty oak notes, though there’s a lovely, herbal Châteauneuf-du-Pape somewhere inside the makeup, yearning to be free. Alas, though, if Tiki drinks could age, this might be what they’d taste like.
I don’t want to over-condemn. This is a good wine. A very good wine, in fact. I just don’t like the wallpaper. (7/12)
The Felton teen rabbit
Felton Road 2001 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – This was a somewhat mistaken ager, in that I thought I was hanging on to one of the Block bottlings. Time has done nothing but weakened it, and while the fruit’s matured a bit, mostly the wine’s just softer and more muted. A bit plummy, some of the old blood orange rind that I used to think marked the region (I now believe it to be a clonal issue, since I’ve tasted it from the Waipara and Martinborough as well), some muscular earthiness, all at about volume 5 rather than the former 8 ½. Drink up, if you’ve got any. (7/12)
Call of Dutheil
Couly-Dutheil 2008 Chinon “La Baronnie Madeleine” (Loire) – A lovely, light-bodied Chinon, with pale earth, mixed dark green herbs, and tangy red fruit. The thing is, while it’s all nice enough, it feels as if I’m drinking it through a gauzy mask…as if the wine’s full expression is being held back somehow. I don’t mind something in the middle range between bistro Chinon and the “real” thing, but I don’t think Couly-Dutheil’s history suggests that it should be inhabiting that range, and yet it fairly often does. Or maybe I’m being overly demanding. (7/12)