Browse Tag

white

Weg the dog

Zind-Humbrecht 1998 Riesling Herrenweg de Turckheim (Alsace) – Past it, which…even though this is from the ripeness-fetishizing house of ZH…is a bit of a surprise from what was a good year for riesling. There’s plenty of size, still, but it’s dried out and curling like old paper. (6/12)

Brown-out

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

White menu

Clos Saron 2011 “Carte Blanche” (Sierra Foothills) – A little out of the norm for this wine in that the grapes for this blend were purchased from Lodi. A crazy-quilt blend of albariño, verdelho, chardonnay, and petit manseng…the varietal equivalent of what my Minnesotan family used to call “leftovers hotdish.” It takes a while to get up to speed, with sweet lemonade aromatics and a bubblegum texture, but eventually the full mass of the wine (and it’s surprisingly, if adeptly, large-boned) makes its impression. Juicy yet brooding, there’s an eventual sharpening to the finish worked by the etching qualities of the wine’s acidity. Finishes long and very dry, despite all the initial dalliances with sweeter notions.

Trees

Ken Forrester 2010 Chenin Blanc “Reserve” (Stellenbosch) – Burnished lemon, nectarine, peach, and even a bit of ripe papaya. This is the goofy fruitiness for which South African chenin is both praised and derided. But hold up. There’s wax and minerality, there’s good acidity, and I have precedent to assure the doubtful that, with some age, this turns into the waxed honeysuckle, pollen, and quinine that chenin shows at its best. No, I don’t think it will age like Vouvray, or Montlouis, or even a quarter as long as the better examples of either. But the easy appeal of the fruit hides a much more interesting wine, and in contrast to the grape’s banks-of-the-Loire profundity, this will reach its more mature realms much, much more quickly. (5/12)

Hail Faller, well-met

Faller “Domaine Weinbach” 2008 Riesling (Alsace) – Striving. And, it must be acknowledged, reaching. Even at the lowest end, these are wines of ambition and force, and the vintage provides an opportunity for a bit of strut and swagger. Green apple (ripe), key lime, molten aluminum. Striking, exceedingly well-balanced, and very long. No, it’s not the most complex or mineral-driven riesling of all time, but it’s the entry-level, and under that nomenclature it succeeds. Wildly. The price? Well… (5/12)

Murgia, Murgia me

Colli della Murgia 2010 “Erbaceo” (Puglia) – 60% fiano minutolo, 40% greco. Both grapes  are quite obviously present, with the wax and stick of the former mingling with the ashen acridity of the latter. There’s a lot of noise up front, but it’s way too quiet out back, and ultimately the wine promises much more than it delivers. Advice: better chilled than at “proper temperature.” (5/12)

Geordi

Lafarge 2005 Bourgogne Aligoté (Burgundy) – Perhaps a touch older than need be, though the interest grows with air and it’s possibly I’m underselling this. Old wax, slight oxidation, faded copper, somewhat acrid sweat-laced grapefruit skins. Much less tentative than it seems at first sip, it does build to something, but that something is mostly more of what it first promised, which isn’t an improvement so much as an escalation in volume. (5/12)

Badstube the good toe

Dr. H. Thanisch 2007 Bernkasteler Badstube Riesling Kabinett 15 08 (Mosel) – Iron-jacketed lime, iron hammers on steel. Ultimately, though, kinda boring. No, not kinda…a lot boring.  A stage? One hopes. (5/12)

Pull it

Ravines 2010 Dry Riesling (Finger Lakes) – Starts clean, finishes jumbled. Direct apple mainlining becomes feathery, a sense of minerals bound to acidity turns alternately puckery and sweet. It’s not bad, but it tastes of effort. (5/12)