Longoria 2000 Pinot Noir Bien Nacido (Santa Maria Valley) – This has held very well, but it has neither complexified nor maintained steady-state, but has instead regressed into very simple old-pinot aromas of bark, soil, dust, and autumnal berry. I’ve another bottle, and maybe it will show differently, but as hard as it would have been to convince myself at the time, I think I should have consumed this at release. (6/12)
Browse Tag
red
Colonel Potter
Brun “Terres Dorées” 2009 Morgon (Beaujolais) – Surprisingly open, given that from this year, site, and producer I’m expecting little other than a dense wall of go-away. Instead, there’s dusty morel and sappy blackberry, an almost shockingly nervy structure, and the promise of more insight as the glasses pass into digestive oblivion. (Well, you know what I mean….) I don’t know that it couldn’t go longer, but I do know that it’s nothing to be scared of at the moment. (6/12)
Calatroni, the Lombardese treat
Calatroni 2010 Oltrepò Pavese Pinot Nero (Lombardy) – Dirt and blackish fruit with a fair bit of space between its components. Slightly gritty but non-aggressive, structurally, yet with the balance to age for a bit. There’s even a bit of swagger. I’m intrigued. (6/12)
Tapping Jeremy
Tablas Creek 2010 “Patelin de Tablas” Red (Paso Robles) – Syrah, grenache, mourvèdre, and counoise, 14.1% alcohol. Immediately appealing. Warm berries, hints of mushroom, herb, and soil. Some spice, some pepper. Everything moderate to low-volume, but well-knit. The kind of wine of which one could consume a lot, which is (of course) the intent behind this newish bottling. (6/12)
Secateurs, Georgia
Badenhorst “Secateurs” 2010 Red (Coastal Region) – Thudding fruit with bitter vinyl that I cannot believe isn’t pinotage-derived (it isn’t: the wine’s blended from cabernet sauvignon, carignan, cinsault, and grenache). Maybe it’s the cinsault…which is, after all, one of pinotage’s absentee parents. A chore to drink. (6/12)
The Katarina’s out of the bag
Rivuera Orebic “Korta Katarina” 2006 Plavac Mali (Peljesac Peninsula) – A Croatian cou-zin owned and brought into the nethers of central Minnesota by Scandinavian locals. Gotta be a terrible vanity project, right? Not so. Oh, there’s a faint whiff of eye-on-the-market winemaking here, but it’s faint, and what’s most impressive is the old-style zinnishness of it; big bursts of black fruit, in berried tones both familiar and un-, with sprightly microburst acidity and a rollicking undertow of pure fun. If domestic zin still tasted like this, people would drink a lot more of it. And if you’re in the Brainerd Lakes area (and who among my readers isn’t?), go get some. (7/12)
Waltzing Martilde
Martilde 2009 Barbera “Sportello” (Lombardy) – From what I call the “third way” of barbera vinification: neither an acid razor nor a floozied-up international travesty, but the crisp yet full-fruited version, here done in darker berry (even a bit of black cherry) tones, yet retaining the essential, food-desiring throb of crispness. Delicious. (6/12)
Serene republic
Domaine Serene 2006 Pinot Noir “Evenstad Reserve” (Willamette Valley) – This is a winery that receives an enormous amount of attention, and while an unfortunate percentage of it is self-generated, an equally unfortunate amount is decidedly uncomplimentary…both in reaction to the aforementioned and other stuff not particularly germane to this note. In any case, let’s dispense with the trappings and get to the heart of the matter, which is an entirely nice wine. A touch overpriced, yes, but that’s true of most pinot noir…domestic or foreign…so there’s no special damage done here. The fruit tends darker but without excess heaviness, the palate hovers somewhere between lush and silken, and everything’s solid and lengthy enough, and in fair equilibrium, for an enjoyable trip through its quantity. It is not, I should note, free of the trappings of a “made” wine, especially in its overt smoothness, but there’s certainly a place for it. (6/12)
Masùt doesn’t fit
Masùt da Rive 2007 Isonzo del Friuli Pinot Nero (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Faded, earthy fruit. Seems prematurely…mature, though I don’t know whether to credit grape quality or aggression/timidity in the cellar. Either way, it’s a pleasant quaff, but not much more. (6/12)
Columbier day
Domaine du Columbier 1999 Hermitage (Rhône) – Hard as nails at uncorking, and this tight clench takes hours to loosen. Thickened by ultra-fine tannin to neutron star-density, even for Hermitage this is hyper-reticent and parodically masculine. After the aforehinted hours of aeration there’s some dry black fruit residue to contemplate, and a little more textural generosity. It’s hard to say if this is on the decline or not yet done with its journey, but with more confidence I can fit this into a longstanding personal narrative in which, for me, even the best Hermitage (and this is not) is more a wine of cold intellectual fascination than pleasure. I’m getting mightily tired of its opposite as well (the glou-glou genre), so maybe this is just another manifestation of my curmudgeonry. It won’t be the last… (6/12)