Browse Tag

white

Moutere ri(e)s(l)ing

[label]Kahurangi Estate 2004 Riesling (Moutere) – Lots of petrol here, with tart and zingy grapefruit and a hint of pear. Starts strong, finishes very flat. Eh. (3/05)

Kahurangi Estate 2004 Riesling “Reserve” (Moutere) – Green-leafed apple and concentrated steel – the latter mostly apparent on the finish – amidst a mild overlay of residual sugar. A bit of petrol is also present. The wine shows a fair amount of intensity, but it’s not a consistent expression. One suspects that more could be done with these grapes, but then that assumes an inherent strength of the terroir about which I am ignorant. (3/05)

Moutere, I’m in love

[label]Kahurangi Estate 2002 Sauvignon Blanc (Moutere) – Zingy, showing capsicum and minerality with a tart, grapey quality. Which would all be fine, except that there’s also a generous serving of canned peas along for the ride…not an unusual fate when one ages a sauvignon blanc that probably wasn’t meant for aging. (3/05)

Ricky

[label]Kahurangi Estate 2004 Sauvignon Blanc (Nelson) – The 2004 vintage was rife with problematic and/or nonexistent ripening, and this wine (harvested under 20 brix) is no exception. indeed, there’s a definite Serrano chile character to the grassy, leafy, lime rind palate. Underripe, for sure. (3/05)

Five…is right out

Five Oaks 2004 Sauvignon Blanc (Moutere) – Ripe apple, green plum and lemon. Ripe and rather fine. Why is this so much better than most of the rest of the Kahurangi sauvignons? The difference is rather dramatic. (3/05)

Estate sale

[label]Kahurangi Estate 2003 Chardonnay (Moutere) – 70% malolactic, and subjected to a mix of barrels and staves, showing clove-spiced apple with a good deal of orange juice on the finish. Basic and pleasant enough in this style, though without anything else to say. (3/05)

Bea

[label]Kahurangi Estate 2003 Chardonnay Mt. Arthur (Moutere) – 100% American oak (which is strange, as I’ve written elsewhere in my notebook that Day claims to use all French oak…no doubt one entry or the other is an error). Sweaty banana with other tropical aromas, crisp on the midpalate and then bitter and resinous on the finish. It’s woody, to be sure, and though there’s certainly fruit, the wood imprint here is off-putting more for its character than its quantity. (3/05)

Get the wood out

[label]Kahurangi Estate 2004 “Unwooded” Chardonnay (Nelson) – No wood…and no malo, either. This is the estate’s biggest seller. Unfortunately, the wine is aromatically dead. Crisp, malic apple dominates the palate, along with greengage plum, but there’s just not much here. It’s inoffensive enough, I suppose. (3/05)

Non-EU ü

[label]Kahurangi Estate 2004 Gewürztraminer (Moutere) – 18 grams/liter residual sugar; the result of a deliberately stopped fermentation. Thick, oily peach and orange give this wine a syrupy texture, and a decided lack of acid (though a trace is noticeable at the very tail end of the finish) adds to this quality. There’s a touch of skin bitterness as well, which isn’t uncommon for gewürztraminer. Drinkable. (3/05)

Palaces

[bottle]Pilastri 2006 Faleria Palazzi (Marches) – Shattered-glass intensity, with sharp fruit and biting acids ripping and tearing at the palate. There’s lemon verbena and other pleasantly herbed green melons somewhere in the lime green explosion, but this wine is dominated by its structure and its sheer presence. Really, really fabulous. (12/07)

Odinson

[vineyard]Hirtzberger 2005 Grüner Veltliner Rotes Tor “Smaragd” (Wachau) – This practically sizzles with energy. It’s a little confused right now, writhing and snarling rather than cohering and calming – maybe they should have called it meerkat veltliner – with stream-washed stones and well-salted ripe white asparagus. Perhaps a touch of celery soda, but it’s not dominant. There’s weight, but it impresses randomly…that meerkat thing again…and there’s also length aplenty, so I have few fears about this wine’s future. But it needs time. (12/07)