WTN: Rhone, IGTs, Bordeaux...

An eclectic group of wines for this month’s lunch!


2002 Jean Dauvissat Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons Vielles Vignes – light colour, steely clean nose and feel, nice length. A good one.

2003 Willow Heights Reserve Chardonnay (Niagara) – even lighter colour with a lime nose that quickly morphed into a coconut and vanilla confection. Finished with lively acidity. Very good.

1998 Dom. La Roquette CNduP – this Brunier wine had a clearly Rhone nose, slight heat, and was full flavoured and had good length, finishing with quite soft tannin. This suave wine is now ready for prime time, which means I had better try and locate my half case!

1997 Rocca di Montegrassi Geremia – this Tuscan IGT is mostly sangiovese. Showing medium colour and an excellent fruit driven nose, it had juicy fruit on palate and a nice long finish. Drinks as well as it ever will right now.

2000 Sant’Elena Tato – another IGT, this time from Venezia Giulia, and a really hard wine to try and place. Dark, with an interesting soya nose with green elements, this cabernet/merlot wine was really big in the mouth, and ended sweetly with an unusual burnt toast thing at the end. Nice.

2001 Geografico Ferraiolo – yet another IGT, this time a blend of sangio and cab, again from Tuscany. Unfortunately this one had a stewed nose and sharp taste, obviously heat damaged.

1970 Cos d’Estournel – it was hard to pick this out as a 1970 as it lacked the weight you expect from that vintage as well as some of the fruit, but it was obviously Bordeaux from the nose, medium weight and ready to roll, with decent length and soft tannins. Picking the vintage was tough and we were wondering if it might be a slightly dried out 83, or perhaps an 88.

1990 Leoville Poyferre – I opened this because of a Commanderie de Bordeaux dinner earlier in the week where 2 out of 3 bottles had shown as flat and lifeless. We had better luck with this one, as was immediately evident from the nose, which had cocoa and cassis. Full flavoured with good concentration anf flavour intensity as well as length. This wasn’t the absolute best showing I’ve seen with this wine, but it certainly passed muster for us.

1998 Burrowing Owl Cabernet Sauvignon – this was a real surprise. I had often bought wines from this BC winery back when California winemaker Bill Dyer was responsible for winemaking there, but once he left, quality took a significant nose dive and we tend to pay much less attention to their product in recent years. This was one of the old classics, and showed beautifully. Dark with a sweet fig and briar nose, together on palate and with decent length. delighted to find I supposedly have a half case of this somewhere – must get to it!

2002 Quinta da Terrugem (Allentejo) – this baby had some nice spice in the nose, with a hint of green, very tannin still, with chocolate on palate. A very international style Michel Roland wine, good but almost impossible to detect any sense of place.


2000 Quinta da Carolina – this one was an oddball! A wine made from Portuguese grapes in the Douro, by Californians Jerry Luper and his wife, probably more familiar to many as making Cabs in Napa in the 70s and 80s.Ripe nose, with a bit of heat in the mouth and soft tannins, it is a creditable wine. I googled them and found an item from last year indicating that they had a hard time getting help and were selling out - no idea if that happened or not.

[Jenise]

@#$#@#@!!~!#@

I just wrote an entire tasting note from yours, and just when I went to click Submit, I hit a wrong button and zapped my own post. I'm going to have to do it all again. I want to slit my wrists.

Okay, for the second time....


With lobster ravioli in a light and delightful bisque sauce:

2002 Jean Dauvissat Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons Vielles Vignes – steel and cream. Classic, textbook Chablis. Excellent.
Superb with the ravioli.

2003 Willow Heights Reserve Chardonnay (Niagara) – this was one of those fascinating wines that changed every time you put your nose in the glass. Lime and pine nose--possibly a hint of American oak, and green apple and raw coconut on the palate. Still, all that was at a fairly moderate volume and I wouldn't call this wine tropical. Thought it was chardonnay right from the beginning though none of you did--and not bragging, it's just that I am positive I drink a lot more new world chards than you guys do. This had that "deck wine" quality, but with more stuffing and complexity, and what perplexed was the age of it, which didn't show at all. I liked it a lot--a great sipping chardonnay.

Between courses:

1998 Dom. La Roquette You're kinder to this wine than I'm going to be. But then I don't have any in my cellar. Very mature fruit lacking most of what has been attractive about most of the 98's I've had in the past two years and dominated by alcohol. Huge legs on the glass and a mild vodka flavor's on the palate. It's best days are behind it--I hope this is just one of those flakey super-advanced bottles and yours are better.

With a really wonderful, light and garlicky rabbit terrine:

1997 Rocca di Montegrassi Geremia – Bright, hugely fragrant spice and sweet cherry fruit on the nose and palate buoyed by ample acidity. Absolutely joyful. If I were George and I owned more of these, they'd be dead ducks in the coming months--I'd use every excuse to open one.

2000 Sant’Elena Tato – One of the wines we brought, and for me a disappointment. Purchased from Garagiste at what I think is the end of its useful life (that soy sauce nose is to me an indicator of a wine NOT aging gracefully--it's just going to die instead of go anywhere good), it's ripe and opaque black fruit (Garagiste compared it to Leoville Las Cases--HA!) and slight green element contradicted each other about vintage and obscured all tracks to it's origins. That part was fun, no one could figure it out, but while it's a blast to stump the chumps the wine needs to deliver on all the other pleasure levels too (like that wonderful Roman cesanese I brought to Weird Italian night, you might remember, also a Garagiste find). This one did not. I hereby vow to never bring another untested Garagiste purchase.

2001 Geografico Ferraiolo – what you said.

With a mixed grill of duck confit, veal liver and onions and grilled venison steak:

1970 Cos d’Estournel – what you said--my initial guess was that this was a lesser wine than Cos from '88.

1990 Leoville Poyferre – Loved this, thanks. The only LP's I own are '98 vintage, and I enjoyed being reminded of what I'm waiting for, vintage differences notwithstanding.

1998 Burrowing Owl Cabernet Sauvignon – The sweet cabernet nose on this had 'California' suggestions flying but that austere palate just would never be California wine, I protested. I actually thought it more likely to be Bordeaux, though it didn't quite have the complexity or soul that Bdx usually has. So it was quite perfect that it turned out to be what it was; very nice wine. You captured it well--the fig note is especially appropos.

With cheese plate:

2002 Quinta da Terrugem (Allentejo) – Big and linear. Black chery and chocolate. Suavely serious but monochromatic--a perfect wine for the Wine Spectator buyer who buys on points because he doesn't have the experience or a developed palate. So big is better as long as there are no rough edges, and the geek flaw 'linear' is actually a positive because the wine's direct and easy to understand. Even the lack of 'sense of place' is good as the wine has a certain elegant texture and reminds him of the big California wines that probably got him into this game.

2000 Quinta da Carolina – Warm, generous, supple, minerally red fruit with fruitcake spice, good acidity and a complex, raisiny finish--like a marriage or rioja and amarone. The fruit's sweet without being sappy or having a shiraz-y heaviness. According to Garagiste, from whom I also bought this, it's from 100 year old vines on a 2 hectare plot of land at some remote elevation in the Tasos-os-Montes region outside the Duoro. I'm very happy I bought six of these.

I'm going to hit the Send button now before I hurt myself.

1998 Dom. La Roquette You're kinder to this wine than I'm going to be. But then I don't have any in my cellar. Very mature fruit lacking most of what has been attractive about most of the 98's I've had in the past two years and dominated by alcohol. Huge legs on the glass and a mild vodka flavor's on the palate. It's best days are behind it--I hope this is just one of those flakey super-advanced bottles and yours are better.

Actually I tend to be harder on my own wines and will consign them to the stew pot without a qualm if they don't stand up. I expect my funkiness quotient is higher than yours - must have been drinking Rhones while you were chugging down all those insipid New World Chards

I hope my Roquette stands up, or banished it shall be.

I think you were a bit harder on the Tato than I as - it was getting on a little, but still interesting, and defintely puzzling. As you know, I have a problem with Italian wines that have no sense of place. Internationalization may get better scores, but it robs us of the local typicity that can be so charming. I criticized the Tat oon those grounds, not because it was over the hill.

Suavely serious but monochromatic--a perfect wine for the Wine Spectator buyer who buys on points because he doesn't have the experience or a developed palate.

Oh dear, I have a few of the higher-end Terrugem wines in the cellar, purchased after a recent in-store tasting. Thing is I do not read the WS!!

[Jenise]

Actually I tend to be harder on my own wines and will consign them to the stew pot without a qualm if they don't stand up. I expect my funkiness quotient is higher than yours - must have been drinking Rhones while you were chugging down all those insipid New World Chards

Oh, funk I love! But for me, the wine was too dominated by it's alcohol.