This first dinner involved about 9 people, in a loungeroom built for 3 or 4..but it was fun
Here are the notes:89 Glenmark Riesling: Waipara. Old, but still amazingly varietal. Lime, lemon, some botrytis. Some maderised character and drying out a little but this IS a 20 year old Waipara riesling. Very interesting curio.
Food: Oyster Shooters
07 Donnhoff Oberhauser Brucke Spatlese: first bottle corked. Second bottle... How good is this? Light, bright, racy and young. This shows some struck match, lemon sherbet, bath salts and white flowers. Spritzy, racy minerally palate, almost searing. Taut and still very acidic. Lemon rind and bath salt again. Has a long life in front of it.
97 Joh Jos Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese: Pongy, sulphurous, potpourri nose. Fairly muted palate – perhaps this is suffering a bit of bottle shock from the travel (I hope the other wines that came over with me don’t…). Lime rind, minerals, shows some passionfruit after a while, some creamy, even buttery texture there too. Not as strong as my previous bottle of this.
Food: Some seriously tasty whitebait fritters, salt pepper, leaves and balsamic.
06 Dr Loosen Erdener Pralat Auslese Goldkapsel: honeyed lime and honeycomb nose (sweet...) a bit of botrytis here over exotic tropical fruits some called guava and feijoa. Richly textured and weighted and bit too sweet for this early on in proceedings. A hard wine to drink in a hurry, which we were called on to do!
07 Northburn Station Riesling: Bendigo subregion, Central Otago. A drier wine, 12% ABV and the paler colour shows too. Bath salts and talc. Very Crawford River nose with a bit of passionfruit thrown in. Elegant refined palate profile. Delicate in fact, but at the same time the length on this is impressive! Some ever so slightly creamy estery notes, carrying the perfumed fruit on to the finish, lovely crisp acids.
01 Bannock Brae Goldfields Pinot Noir: Bannockburn subregion, Central Otago. Earthy spicy warm climate pruney characters. Leather and still some black fruit. Well resolved and drinking now. Dry red style of Pinot, but a classic example of why no one should be emotionally biased against this style – its tasty in that context.
Food: Duck, duck livers, reduction and winter vegies
02 Bouchard la Vigne de l’Enfant Jesus: Tight and closed. Structure. Give me structure. Build me a fortress. It builds and builds. Violets and blackberry nose. After some time in the glass, some redcurrant, sweet blackberry, purple jubes, and framed in beautiful tannins. Length, texture, fabulous example of pinot goodness.
06 Christom Mt Jefferson Cuvee: Immediately sweeter than the Bouchard, almost fairy floss nose. Palate is new world in its fullness, but not oversweet. Sweetish earth, almost roast meats, intense and long. Not a style I’m familiar with, and I’m looking for the element that’s carrying this wine - is it some good quality oak? This is wine porn – you know you should look away but you can’t. Very good wine, restores my faith in Oregon.
05 Felton Road Block 3: Bright brambly blackberry nose, also showing strawberries and cream. The palate starts out in a similar way. Bright brambly, sappy, stalky, and still almost spritzy. Raspberry with a touch of blackberry. All the things new world pinot should be. Oddly anorexic after the Christom and unstructured after the Bouchard, but still a quality wine in its own right. A rare day a Felton Block wine would show as the least of a bracket of 3, and unfairly so. Still closed – give it more time to open.
Food: Venison leg, locally shot, juniper roasted, on mushroom risotto.
95 Henschke Hill of Grace: Surprisingly elegant. Intriguing, and enticing in its elegance. Hide and seek- come and find me. Vanilla and some VA. Elegant blackberry and dust. With some time, show s some ripe forest berries. Still elegant, which surprises me having had some experience with this label. Not the best HoG vintage, perhaps this is reflected in this showing.
98 Stonyridge Larose Merlot: Sweet fruit balanced with lovely tannin. Round and ripe and lovely, suggests merlot dominant blend? So different to the muck we get in Aus. Amazing condition for an 11 y.o. Merlot compared to what I'm used to.
04 Noon Eclipse Shiraz: Big, lots of stuffing, oak, fruit, coffee, but what is this really? Hard to deal with, but I wonder how much this view is influenced by seeing the label first.
07 Felton Road Block 1 Riesling: Not sweet enough for the affogato dessert with which it was served – perhaps should have changed places with the Erdener Pralat. Hard to judge while eating ice cream.
Food: Kahlua Affogato
06 Donnhoff Niederhauser Hermannsholle Beerenauslese: Waaay to young, and at this stage you aren’t drinking anything recognisably Donnhoff or Nahe but you are drinking a classic wine, with huge acid to balance off probably a pile of RS. After some time this shows a bit of creaminess too, and opens to show more fruit. Lovely wine for its potential, but this really does need a 20 year sleep.
There were also some cheeses – Quickes Cheddar, and NZ sheep’s cheese (that made Manchego look average).
More to come...
Cheers
Andrew
) 'NZ Tasty Cheddar'.