Thanks Marc (long time no see!) for your hospitality and an intensely flavourful yet remarkably light dinner of Arctic char on green asparagus with basil and olive pestos, Irish Angus beef steak on rucola (rocket or arugula) salad with Parmesan shavings and roast potatoes, and for dessert, Buffala sour ice cream with fresh strawberries!
Domaine du Centaure Scheurebe Les Eliades 2008
Thanks to Oliver. Pale green, lots of CO2 bubbles. Typical enough Scheurebe florality (not the exotism of the best German examples), smells a bit like some German 2003 Rieslings, with an acidity more reminiscent of many 2001s. Nicely thick apple. Bit tannic, nicely fresh (assisted no doubt by the residual CO2). Pretty stone dust minerality. Medium-plus length. I had never heard of this before, not bad, but I would certainly drink this on the early side. Rating: 88-
It was at this point that I served my wine buddies three 2007 Bazaltbor wines from Badacsony. Tasting notes on those should follow shortly.
Emmanuel Rouget Vosne-Romanée Cros Parantoux 1998
Contribution of mine. What a wonderful, positive surprise! Not only exceptionally clean for a 1998, but what a lovely wine, what great terroir expression of one of my favourite Crus! Tender red beet hue to healthy the medium raspberry ruby-black colour. Very well-balanced. Youthful but drinking well. Spicy-meaty, nicely concentrated (definitely expected a lighter wine), deep berry fruit, centered around raspberry with a lightly heavy florality (purple foxglove perhaps – Oliver described that top note as “Rabajà-like”, Barbaresco, that is). Soft roasted nuts, marzipan sweetness from (per se not at all overly prominent) oak. Some roasted duck meat, if not a surface layer of Rhône-like bacon fat. Soft cigar tobacco (as if including the cedar box). Tiny botrytis here only (less so than in Hubert Lignier’s Clos de Roche from the same vintage, which I had a weeks ago), and clean as in a top drawer Recioto. Barely any red beet heaviness at all, nor is there much leadiness to the acids. Lovely spicy-sweet finish, fairly long, but as Wolfgang says, not the finish of a great vintage. Fascinating to observe that, even if this no doubt falls just short of greatness, returning to it after Henri Bonneau’s awe-inspiring 1998 Cuvée Spéciale, it stood up to it more easily than Dunn’s 2004 Howell Mountain! Currently prefer Rouget’s 1998 Cros Parantoux to the (in the context of the vintage similarly successful) 1997, although the latter is likely to outperform the 1998 in the long run. The 1998 may add some more mature/tertiary characteristics in a few more years’ time, but despite the balance of component parts, it seems unlikely that it will improve, let alone achieve perfect harmony – I am afraid that once the baby fat will be gone, the wine will turn craggy. Retasted half a glass’ worth after 12 hours, held up well, simply love the slight Rhône characteristics, spice and minerality here. More finesseful and rather sweeter with airing, too (but impressively resistant to oxidation). This is really one of the finest 1998 Burgundies I know. Rating: 94(-?)
Dunn Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Howell Mountain 2004
Thanks to Oliver. Identical to a bottle a couple of weeks ago. More tannic only because every bottle seems fractionally more closed than the last. Love the violet-tinged blackcurrant fruit, a bit like a unusually tasty cough syrup. Good sweetness, also of the oak. Nice but definitely less intense and iodine-like minerality. Very good but not great length. Wolfgang prefers the 2002 (incidentally the other oakiest vintage in recent years, albeit still less modernistic), I like neither as well as the 2001 (let alone the best of the old school). Fair enough as a stylistic compromise perhaps, but then, the 2004 Howell Mountain came across as disturbingly light when one returned to it from Bonneau’s 1998 Cuvée Spéciale (the same was not a problem with Rouget’s 1998 Cros Parantoux at all). Perplexing, hmm... Rating 92+/93(+?)
Henri Bonneau Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Spéciale 1998
Thanks to Wolfgang. 16.7% natural alcohol, about 4-5 g/l residual sugar, from Réserve des Célestins lots that refused to ferment dry. Lot 001 (probably the only one there is?), bottle No. 1040 of 2200 made. Opaque pruney garnet-orange, tiny orange rim, adding gloss with airing. Hugely ripe and thick wine, almost a soup, a bit diffuse at first. Sweat, morels, malt, peaty earth, American hazelnut coffee, complex bitter cocoa, Slivovitz-like damson plum, dried Provençal herbs, with airing also more roasted garrigue. A bit dusty and cedary preserved fruit at first, this currently needs six-plus hours of decanting to gain at least some focus and precision (but there really seemed no end to it – reminds of the 1998 Célestins still in bottling shock). So multi-layered and complex. Lovely, lightly dusty Orange Pekoe black tea tannin, that also became racier with airing. Traditional-style Amarone like raisin sweetness on the long finish (again, the wine became longer the longer it aired). Unusual, no doubt, but this should age very well. I remember the 1990 as more precise at the same early stage. The 1998 appears to be, if not better, than bigger – it is really one of the most outsized and hard-to-stomach wines I have ever drunk (it reminded me of Greenock Creek’s 1995 Roennfeldt Road or Magpie Estate’s 1996 Malcolm Shirazes in this regard – in terms of size alone, it may be the biggest Bonneau ever, surpassing even his 1989 and 1990 Célestins – even so, it is fascinating and promising, I had two refills!). Oliver sat in front of his glass shaking his head, mumbling something like “I could die and go to Heaven smelling this, but I am not going to finish my glass” – and indeed, he handed it to Wolfgang shortly thereafter. The complexity and depth are extremely promising, but in contrast to what I had expected (a replay of the 1990 Cuvée Spéciale? – the truth is, I rarely ever have expectations), I recommend letting this settle in bottle for at least another year or two, and would not be surprised if it turned out to be ageworthier than the 1990 (whose Recioto-like character – the 1998 is more like Amarone – I may have liked best in its early teens). Judging from the way it behaved with air (firming up and becoming more precise and focused, as well as inching closer in character to the 1998 Célestins, of which one might say it is really “only” a selection of the most concentrated lots), it should slowly become more civilized with bottle age. Probably best to disregard how evolved Bonneau’s wines look or even smell sometimes – this is a baby monster! Rating: 96+/97(+?)
Lafaurie-Peyraguey Sauternes 1970
Thanks to Wolfgang, a wine from the year of his birth (did not know he is so young – was fun discussing all our favourite wines from the vintage). The traditional old Cordier bottle that Marc noted he likes so much. Pristine bottle, perfect fill level apparently (did not see it myself). Quite full yellow-golden colour, looks youthful. Medium-light blood orange and bitter almond, soft dandelion and green tobacco leaf, stale white glue bitter note. Lighter and more medicinal than the best of the vintage, even if I agree with Wolfgang that not even the Yquem is all that much better. A bit Passito-like, in a lean way. A little viscosity becomes this well. Fair enough length. Rather low acidity, even for Sauternes. But not alcoholic given the medium-at-best concentration, plus this retains good medium-plus sweetness. Rating: 87-
Fonseca Guimaraens Vintage Port 1976
A bottle I opened to do Wolfgang (and Oliver, who had previously only had a highly volatile bottle) a favour. Unfortunately, this was slightly volatile too (at this stage, every fourth if not third appears to exhibit that trait, without which this would simply be one of the Ports of the century – in a best-case scenario, it is), a bottle whose cork was so loose, it turned revolved around its own axis when I tried to screw in the corkscrew. Even so, I am kind of proud of myself for having recognized this wine’s greatness back when everyone (professional critics included) claimed it was “all tannin, no fruit” – back when, consequently, it was comparatively easy to come by. The volatile acidity per se is usually less of a problem in this wine than what it takes away from its liveliness, expression and finesse, as well as, in a worst-case scenario, sweetness, complexity and length. Such bottles also tend to be hotter with alcohol and exhibit even more drought year/dried fruit characteristics. Deep, nearly opaque plummy ruby-black with a slight orange rim. Hyper-concentrated dried fig and date, more roasted coffee and chocolate to the sweet plum and mulberry juice than the finest bottles. Slightly hot. More like a traditionally styled Recioto. Despite my reservations Oliver’s favourite wine of the night. The volatile acidity does not blow off, by the way (it never did in any wine I have ever tasted, although I keep hearing rumours that this should be possible), so that this tasted even hotter and more cedary if not palisander-like (other than that like a fruit cake solid in the mouth) 48 hours later, when I enjoyed my last glass. Perhaps the slightest amount of (undue, of course) oxidation in this bottle, barely noticeable thanks to the extraordinary concentration, density and intensity of this wine. Quite powerful, but not as long as the best bottles. Rating: ~95? (this bottle, pristine ones can be near perfection)
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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„J'ai gâché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ – Roger Conti
