Browse Tag

synthetic cork

Brown-out

Brun “Terres Dorées” 2004 Beaujolais Blanc (Beaujolais) – Dead. Frankly, well past dead and into decomposition. Blame the closure. (6/12)

Cusumano y mano

Cusumano 2009 Nero d’Avola (Sicily) – Perspiration fruit under black light, dark bluish-purple, with smoked walnuts in neon-like ultraviolet. Very straightforward wine that probably requires something that was very recently bloody, but good in that idiom. (5/12)

Treau & fru

Filliatreau 2005 Saumur (Loire) – The last of a mistakenly-held batch (synthetic corks), and more or less exemplary of the mistake: the fruit has developed in a leathery, meaty, blueberry-infused fashion that would, given proper structural support, actually be quite pleasant. But the acid is razory and the tannin desiccated, and each sip – there aren’t many before the rest goes down the drain – is like a pleasant vinous interlude followed by a vigorous tongue sanding. Well, it’s gone. (3/12)

Bill Roussel

Roussel & Barrouillet “Clos Roche Blanche” 2007 Touraine “Cuvée Gamay” (Loire) – Clinging, barely, to the tatters of a life shortened by a closure insufficient to the task. There are some lovely red soil aromatics, but everything around and beneath them has fallen into ruin. (3/12)

Gamaybe not

Roussel & Barrouillet “Clos Roche Blanche” 2007 Touraine “Cuvée Gamay” (Loire) – Probably the best of a bad lot, by which I don’t mean that the wine was ever bad, but that the accidental decision to cellar it without realizing the cork was synthetic has led to a lot of dumped wine. This, at least, clings to a sharp cranberried minerality, and there’s a hint of the generosity that was in the finish. Like the others, though, it’s attenuated and shrieking with bared acidity. Thankfully, there’s no more. (2/12)

Treau & fru

Filliatreau 2005 Saumur (Loire) – The usual crapshoot of a wine under plastic. This one’s OK, which is an improvement on most. Chewy, dirty, herbal, dark, with a hint of cough drop and that nasty, scraping, abrasive tannin that is almost a signature of synthetic cork failure (though the particular chemistry involved eludes me; it’s not how oxidation usually works). (1/12)

Bedroom eyes

Boudouresques “Domaine Massiac” 2008 Vin de Pays d’Oc Sauvignon (Languedoc) – All previous bottles have been aggressively advanced, as one might expect from the closure. This – the last – is, of course, the exact opposite. Vibrant, buzzing, fully alive…bronzed skewers of antiqued fruit and epic length. Delicious. I wouldn’t wait moment longer, however, if there’s any lingering in your cellar. The closure won’t allow it. (1/12)

Schiava heart

Nalles Magré 2007 Schiava (Alto Adige) – Prettily fruited, marrying blackberry and quince with salmiakki. Simple but very appealing, with a winning lightness. (1/12)