I started with a few fizzes. First was Domaine des Baumard Cuvée Millesime Tirage Brut 2004 which was a bit mute (or too cold) but showed lovely minerality, healthy fruit, refreshing acidity and I think I like it very much though it wasn't terribly aromatic.
Then followed a Ratzenberger Bacharacher Kloster Fürstental Riesling Sekt Brut 2002. I have several times spoken highly of the 2001 on this forum, but this 2002 is lovely also. Very expressive scent of Pure Riesling; high acidity, elegant mousse, pure, mineral and interminable. Gorgeous stuff.
The Champagne, R&L Legras Blanc de Blancs Brut Grand Cru was nice also, but it was quite heavy and ripe though it did show a lovely Bl de Bl purity and white fruit. Does Chouilly usually show in a heavy mode? I don't remember tasting any other wines from Chouilly so I don't have a clear picture of what they should be like. I know it will be blasphemy to the fizz-geeks here but I preferred the Ratzenberger.
After the fizz, I tasted through a range from Weingut Franz Hirtzberger from Wachau. The Steinterrassen Riesling Federspiel 2006 was quite a lovely drop: perhaps in a heavy style for Federspiel (vintage or producer style? Or both?), but it was still a very pure and mineral example of the grape in Wachau. Dry but fruity, powerful and even a bit spicy. Nice!
The Rotes Tor Grüner Veltliner Smaragd 2005 was a huge wine, I thought it had an orange peel aroma as if it were botrytised but I really don't know about that. It was big, heavy, but still retained some of those lovely green fruit aromas I so love with the grape. Only decent acidity - or then the fruit overshadowed it. Anyway, too big now, but I think it would be fun to try this with much more age on it.
Their Muskateller Federspiel 2006 was quite a delight: very mineral and elegant despite the grape's usual grapeyness. Dry and mineral but substantial. Fun. The Pluris Grauburgunder Smaragd 2003 wasn't as much fun - I guess a victim of the vintage - since it was just too heavy. It had some spice and glue aromas and actually pretty decent acidity for a 2003 but the whole was still quite ponderous.
Up next were a couple Chardonnays from Weingut Kollwentz-Römerhof from Neusiedlersee-Hügelland. The Chardonnay von Leithagebirge 2007 was just lovely: unoaked, strongly mineral white fruit, citrus and brazil nut scents (I had always associated them with light oaking, but I guess not!); bright and crisp, focussed and long and mineral. I like it! The high-end Chardonnay Tatschler 2006 was very oaky IMO. I guess this is one more case where I prefer the basic wine to the fancy cuvées. But don't pay attention to me on this wine, because oak to me tends to obfuscate whatever else there might be in the wine, and many people that I trust were very enthusiastic about this wine. FWIW, they were comparing it favourably with some very classy names in Burgundy and stated that it transcends what the grape usually can produce in non-Burgundian regions. I hate having this oak-handicap: I would have liked to taste something like that, too.
From Weingut Umathum I tried first the Gelber & Roter Traminer 2007 which was floral and with the typical rosewater scents but not at all over the top: rather it was mineral, pleasantly acidic and refreshing. Very enjoyable.
Unter den Terrassen Pinot Noir 2006 was pleasant enough but frankly not all that memorable. Correct. Ried Hallebühl Zweigelt 2004 was perhaps my favourite of the reds: a lovely, dark fruit aroma, ripe and concentrated but a bit leafy, perhaps a bit of oak showing still but not in amounts that would bother me. Medium body, lovely refreshing tannins, moderate acidity, very moreish though could do with a bit more age. The Kirschgarten Blaufränkisch 2004 was showing more oak, but still had some nice dark fruit and an almost meaty scent. Full body, again a lovely refreshing acidity. I have tasted a couple high-end Umathum reds with about a decade on them, and they didn't have any sense of the oak I had in these, so I guess these will turn out to be to my taste - certainly even at this youthful stage they had much of interest to me despite the slight oak aromas.
Umathum's Scheurebe Trockenbeerenauslese 2007 was massive stuff: almost syrupy in texture, full of tropical, exotic fruits, but with good minerality, too, and the rot wasn't over the top. Massively sweet, but with high acidity, too. A tasting portion was great fun to drink, but a little goes a long way.
But this TBA was a featherweight compared to the Weingut Feiler-Artinger trio that followed! Ruster Ausbruch Pinot Cuvée 2006 had over 200g/l RS and c.10g/l acidity and was syrup. Botrytis and sugar and acid. Fun, but extreme. Ruster Ausbruch Chardonnay Essenz 2006 was like the Pinot Cuvée in scents and aromas except with that brazil nut scent creeping in past all the rot; amazingly even sweeter at some 300g/l RS or so! But that is puny compared to the Ruster Ausbruch Essenz 2006 at some 400g/l and enormous acidity, low alcohol (5% IIRC) and massive intensity and sweetness. I don't know what to say about such extreme wines, but amazingly they stayed intact and were balanced in a freakish way. They are much fun in tiny amounts.
After sampling copious amounts of bright, refreshing and mineral Cuvée L'Eau de Tap, I moved on from the Austrians to try some Bruno Giacosa. His Roero Arneis 2007 was a fun wine but I don't have much experience with Arneis so I am having difficulty putting my experience into words. It was a full bodied wine, not very high in acidity but refreshing and mineral, with a phenolic grip to give all the flesh further support. But the scent? Delicately nutty? Delicately herbal? But it wasn't delicate but rather very expressive and suggestive of the full body of the wine. Anyway, it was a very positive experience and I want to try it and other Arneis again.
Dolcetto d'Alba "Sorano di Treiso" 2007 was a little bit reductive but fun: dark fruit, lovely tangy tannins and bright acidity. Dolcetto is supposedly an easy drinking quaff, but this was quite serious. Barbera d'Alba "Falletto di Serralunga d'Alba" 2006 was a little oaky to me, but had great tanginess - I really like how vivacious it is on the palate, so a shame about how strongly the oak came across on the nose.
I tried a couple wines from Domaine Clavel in Languedoc-Roussillon. The cheap Le Mas 2006 was huge fun. Under screwcap, with sweet and dark fruit, garrigue, lively palate, not overdone in anyway but still showing the southern sun. Very much fun. Sadly the high-end Copa Santa 2006 smelled only of Barrique to me. I hate it when this happens: first get my hopes up with a wine very much to my taste and then comes a supposedly premium cuvée in which I only sense oak.
Artevino also imports Domaine du Pégau, which is one of the CdP producers that has somewhat intrigued me. Sadly none of the Pégau was on show, but I did try the Châteauneuf-du-Pape Sélection Laurence Féraud 2006 which was sweet and pruney, had some depth and was a decent enough drop, but frankly missed out the magic that made the few Pégau CdPs genuinely interesting for me.
To clear my palate, I tried Weingut Josef Leitz Riesling Qualitätswein trocken 2007 which was quite a delightful drop. Though I am still not over my prejudices of trockener, I am usually impressed by Leitz. And this was indeed lovely: mineral, strongly enough fruited that it doesn't need the sugar, pure Riesling. Nice!
-O
