Topic: TN: Stucky, Frasnelli, Chave, Provins
Author: David
Date: Tue May 22 06:57:30 2001
Wines drunk with my parents at the Restaurant Muggensturm in Bischofszell. Once again particularly fine, and imaginatively prepared, food, btw.

Werner Stucky Temenos 1998
A blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Completer. Strawy yellow colour. A glyceric, intensely flavoured, complex fruit of impressive ripeness and minor nuttiness, with fine persistence and length. Some new oak, luckily not too much, fits this well. Quite delicious. Perhaps not one to cellar but enjoy as it is, but what do I know. Outstanding.

Frasnelli-Sartori Teroldego Rotaliano 1998
Apparently an ancient indigenous grape variety in Trentino that I didn''t know. Ruby-black. Highly individual (one might say unusual) spicy and intense fruit seems to exude heat without being overly ripe, let alone roasted. Strong, very attractive metal and some minerally aromas and flavours. Despite the ripeness, concentration and full body this appears to have little glycerin. Well-structured with a firm backbone. A fine, quite refreshing food wine, but tannin and acidity in perfect balance. Persistent and long. Little oak. We were all rather impressed. Outstanding.

Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage 1997
This proves Chave isn''t superlative regardless of vintage, which some people claim, but rather very reliable. Full raspberry-ruby colour looks almost like some young Burgundies. Comes across as distinctly Burgundian, too. Sweetly-ripe, soft and round, with low acidity, lovely glycerin and an emphasis on red berry fruit (red licorice and elderberry jam, candied raspberry and Amarena cherry) in almost complete contrast to the darker-fruited ''95. Hardly strikes me as Syrah on this evening at all. Some tannin is noticeable, but this drinks almost too easily. Some Indian spice from the very well-integrated oak, very minor notes of leather, earth, roasted nut, peach and laurel; pretty green pepper and metal notes develop with airing. Complex enough, and really delicious already, but deceptive I guess. The balance is such that this will easily keep for a decade or two, and the purity of fruit (it is not overripe, but essentially still fresh) leads me to believe it should be worth waiting until more complexity develops. It''s not a huge wine, but concentrated enough and quite long. Outstanding, but atypically user-friendly. In this vintage I prefer Jaboulet''s extraordinarily successful La Chapelle, but that is a wine one doesn''t have the choice to open now; that one must be be left alone in the cellar. This, on the other hand, was very much admired by my parents and their friends as it showed on this evening.

Provins Grains de Malice Vendange Tardive Cuvée Maître de Chais 1998
We were offered a glass with dessert. I have no idea what this is, but would have guessed Alsatian Tokay Pinot Gris blind. Quite deep yellow-gold. Much brown-bready botrytis over oily-sweet candied apricot, fig and brown butter aromas and flavours, balanced by enough acidity and the 13.5% alc. Long. Not the ultimate in interest, but beats quite a few Alsatian SGNs at their game, it seemed to me. I''d personally not dare age this, not because it isn''t structured, but because I''ve seen too many such wines go weird in flavour profile rather than improve, but then, this seems more trustworthy than most western Swiss dessert wines I''ve had. Excellent.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

P.S.
I have discontinued divulging numerical scores on this board (in order to avoid e-mails solely concentrating on them, since I''d really rather talk about the wines themselves). For those who have problems interpreting my "verbal scoring", the numerical correspondences would be as follows:

79 and below = NOT GOOD (i.e. I''m unattracted enough to be too lazy to figure out)
80 - 84 = GOOD (same as 16 and over in the European 20-point system)
85 - 89 = VERY GOOD (same as 17 and over; I sometimes use EXCELLENT to indicate 88 - 89, or almost-OUTSTANDING)
90 - 94 = OUTSTANDING (same as 18 and over)
95 - 99 = GREAT (or CLASSIC, same as 19 and over)
100 = PERFECT (20/20)