Trimbach 1998 Riesling “Cuvée Frédérique Émile” (Alsace) – Not decanted. There’s some friendly disagreement about this wine; I think it’s still closed, another taster – also quite familiar with the wine – thinks it’s tiring. (It’s not, for the concerned, suffering from premature oxidation.) It’s true that it’s not showing much other than a milky mineralistic texture and a restrained yet tense structure, but the duration of its persistence without weakening is what convinces me that it’s intact and progressing properly. (5/12)
Browse Tag
white
Chaume E the way to go home
Baumard 2002 Quarts de Chaume (Loire) – Powerfully sweet, like liquid chenin candy, but with extra quartzage. Developing? Only in the notional sense; while this is far from as sweet as QdC can get, experience suggests that the wines are essentially immortal, or at least so on any human scale. It’s very, very good. Do I care that it may have been made with cryoextraction? (To be fair, I don’t know if this vintage was or not.) Yes, and indeed my enjoyment is proportionally tempered. (5/12)
Exit
Ollivier 2004 Muscadet Sèvre & Maine Sur Lie “Cuvée Eden” “Cuvée Vieilles Vignes” (Loire) – Drinking really nicely at the moment, its shells liquefied and its minerals having joined the party, which is now humming at a slightly higher volume than before. Everything is knit and in place. There are those who would hold this longer, and they’re not wrong, but I quite like the balance of strength and complexity right now. (5/12)
The knife
Macle 2007 Côtes du Jura (Jura) – 85% chardonnay, 15% savagnin. Brittle white clay flaking away in the relentless heat of a direct Mediterranean sun, century after century, exposing an acidic and uncured core. Liquid equipoise. Brilliant. (5/12)
Againsta
Castello di Lispida 2002 “Amphora” (Veneto) – A very, very sludgy performance from this wine, which is always big but usually shows more life. Less like drinking molten metal than drinking the mold into which the metal was poured, this just pounds, pounds, pounds away until you finally get tired enough of the pounding to push it off. (5/12)
Jar-Jar
Cowan Cellars 2010 “Isa” (Lake County) – Not, against the advice of the winemaker, decanted. And quite a journey, from attenuated beginnings to the near-absence of the embittering skin contact as the wine sort of settles into a low-lying pool of anonymous green-apple fruit, then coalescing again to something with a lot more confidence in its identity. The last sips are the most appealing, which I guess demonstrates the winemaker’s point. (5/12)
Aspirin
Léon Beyer 2008 Sylvaner “Tradition” (Alsace) – The classic Beyer starkness is a little less bleak here, which one can probably attribute to the vintage, but on the other hand sylvaner is a grape that does well with inner space…as long as there’s intensity in parallel. This has just enough of the latter, in a classic grassy/green tomato mode. There are some grayed-out suggestions of minerality, as well. While I don’t, as a rule, find drinking young Beyer to be a rewarding experience, this is surprisingly approachable, and almost – almost – friendly. (5/12)
Semper vino
Bellotti 2010 “Semplicemente Vino” Bianco (Piedmont) – Ah, if only the name were true. Not in this case, but in others. Icy, crisp, refreshing, aromatic, yellows and greens microbursting like grapey pop rocks. I can imagine this studding giant tubs of ice, bottle after bottle. Supply your own preferred outdoor scene. (5/12)
Cheezbourger
Blanck 2002 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg (Alsace) – As bronzed as bottle as I’ve yet had (I continue to work through a two-case stash purchased on deep, deep discount), even tipping a bit towards one of the forms older gewurztraminer can take in which there’s a slightly oxidative honey aroma that’s dominant. Lingering lychee has gotten equally sticky, and the finish is short. Were the other bottles not so variable, I’d be concerned at the performance of this one, but supplementary evidence suggests this is a bit of an outlier, and better-performing corks are sustaining the wine’s progression in a more predictable way. (5/12)
Elba room
Cecilia 2010 Ansonica (Elba) – Polished beads of incandescent fruit. In fact, more fruit iconography than actual fruit. Clean, with a brilliant sheen, but everything from initial aroma to the final fade is rounded off. (4/12)