Browse Tag

white

Bourg invasion

Blanck 2002 Altenbourg Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Singing right now, and as this has been consistent over the last few bottles I’m thinking of drinking through mine at this stage…maybe leaving one or two orphans for latter-day experimentation. The fruit, always more peach than lychee, and with a significant contribution from cashew, has coppered in a very pretty way, and the minerality has started to reveal itself in ruddy glints and reflections. (8/12)

Pajzos Whedon

Pajzos 2009 Tokaji Furmint (Hungary) – There’s an overlay to dry furmint that inhabits an aromatic realm I can’t always pinpoint. Mint? Menthol? Something dry, herbal, and chilly, at least. There’s also whitewashed fruit and thin, repeating layers of brittle minerality. This is blockier than some I’ve tasted, but still nice. (8/12)

Maule-ing

Maule “La Biancara” 2010 “I Masieri” (Veneto) – 100% garganega. A beautiful wine that sneaks up from behind, at first showing little other than a thinly floral note, but really broadening as it rests and warms. There’s terrific minerality here, vastly more complex flower-shop aromas than at its outset, and something honeysuckle-like in its insistent appeal to sweetness-without-sucrosity. (8/12)

Stray cat strut

Setzer 2006 Kreimelberg Roter Veltliner (Weinviertel) – I usually find roter veltliner a bit weird, and this is no exception. It’s as if grüner veltliner and Alsatian pinot gris had some sort of illicit vineyard union, because the fruit takes on an almost powdery, raspberry sorbet-like tone. I like it, but it keeps gesturing towards sweetness that might not be there, and thus functions as if it is in fact sweet; remember this when considering food matches, or do as I did and serve it as a fun apéritif. (8/12)

For Samsung too

Forsoni “Sanguineto I e II” 2010 Toscano Bianco (Tuscany) – This is a wine I’ve struggled with in other vintages, finding it clumsy compared to their succulent red, but in 2010 they’ve reached my palate. There’s a fruit salad element to it, yes, but not in a clumsy, pushed-ripeness New World sort of way; rather, the sort of careful selection of complementary fruit that often finishes an Italian meal. Just balanced, maybe tilting still a bit towards fruit rather than structure, and letting it get too warm brings out an overweightedness that does the wine few favors. Whether this vintage is an aberration or the new norm, I can’t say. Yet. (8/12)

It’s the magic number

Jorge Ordoñez & Co. 2006 Málaga “3” (Málaga) – Richness upon richness. Almond oil, fruit syrup, spice, and weight…but not too much of the latter, allowing it to helix into something more complex as it lingers. Beautiful stuff. (8/12)

For the ankle, too

Fournier 2009 Vin de Pays du Val de Loire Sauvignon Blanc (Loire) – Bold without being fat, its strong diagonal lines of quartz-lined lemon bring sauvignon’s (usual) trademark aggression to the glass without the showy frippery of XXX-treme chile pepperiness. Gluggable. (8/12)

Cigarette Smoking Man

Chateau Ste. Michelle 2010 Riesling (Columbia Valley) – Almost-riesling. It actually doesn’t taste much like riesling, nor does it have riesling’s nerve, but it’s not unpleasant either. (8/12)

Savary & sweet

Savary 2008 Chablis (Chablis) – Pristine. Shells and stones, rocks and bones, with a white-noise intensity that muscles through the calcified debris. Quite striking. This is my kind of chardonnay…though admittedly there’s not much competition for my affections, outside the bubbly realms. (7/12)

Aqui-ous

Albola 2010 Aquileia Pinot Grigio (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – This “wine” achieves the remarkable feat of tasting like nothing. Most water has more flavor. Vodka has more flavor. Air has more flavor. This tastes like absolutely nothing, and I can’t imagine it to be an accident. (7/12)