What a wonderful wine! Earthy and layered with complexity from start to finish. Riecine has become my favorite estate in Chianti and they never fail to deliver an excellent wine. If you want to see what made Chianti famous to begin with taste this wine. The pure character of sangiovese in this wine is a marvel and emphasises how most producers have destroyed the character of this great vine in their wines.
Sweet and dull. Way to expensive at $17. I rather drink a good Cava at $10 than this!
I keep trying to like this wine. The nose seems earthy and promising if a little herbal. Yet, it just falls apart on the palate. Not much of a deal here as it is just too boring.
Cabernet Sauvignon 65%, Cabernet Franc 35%
A fine effort, balanced and restrained will still providing plenty of power. The structure is firm, but well integrated. A wine of great character that compliments a fine steak with style.
A lovely balanced wine that will turn off anyone who doesn’t like the herbal side of cabernet. Refined, yet rich with a sweet dose of oak layered throughout with mint, spice and wild herbs. A good, but not distinguished effort. The $48 price tag is a bit stiff considering.
Like all wine regions, most of the wine produced in the Beaujolais region is boring commercial plonk. To make things worse, the region has been cursed by what should have been a blessing. Nouveau Beaujolais, a fun party wine for the winter after the vintage came to define the region, which is so much more. Certainly the amount of great Beaujolais produced is miniscule compared to the amount of industrial wine produced, but the same thing can be said for Napa, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chianti and every wine region of significance in the world. Unfortunately for Beaujolais, their worst wine also became their most famous.
Yet, like in Muscadet, in Beaujolais there are small producers with outstanding vineyards and a burning passion who create great art that sparkles like stars bringing small points of brilliance to the vast empty darkness of the commercial universe of wine.
Recently two wines brought home this purity of purpose to me. These two Cru Beaujolais are so compelling to drink with a meal that they elevate any dining experience. Both of these wines I matched with a simple herb roasted chicken and the experience was food and wine matching nirvana.
These wines are imported by Kermit Lynch and should be purchased by the case for drinking over the next several years. Better yet, they are both under $25. What is most compelling about both of these wines is that with each sip the volume of pleasure is kicked up a notch and reaching the end of the bottle is a cause for sorrow.
2005 Morgon, Domaine Marcel Lapierre is a svelte beauty, shy at first, it opens into a brilliant balanced whole. A zesty, exotic blend of ripe black fruit and a tightrope of a backbone, that exudes a punchy silkiness and a haunting finish. The 2005 Moulin-a-Vent, Domaine Diochon is simply astounding with a meal. Racy and elegant with a juicy minerality that is almost electric on the palate. A real marvel of harmony and balance.
“TN: Peevish pinot: Loring 2004 Pinot Noir Brosseau (Chalone) – Red-black fruit, soupy and searingly alcoholic. More like a harsh, grappa-infused berry liqueur than wine, and not a particularly balanced one as well. The next day, however, the alcohol has calmed down somewhat…perhaps a nice sweet rum rather than grappa…which makes it a little less painful to drink. But it’s still profoundly imbalanced. (12/06)”
My tasting notes on big bruiser pinot noir I always felt were lacking the right descriptors, but thanks to Thor Iverson at oenoLogic, I finally know how to describe them!
Tirage is the French Champagne term that refers to the time that the wine ages in contact with the lees (the dead yeast cells) in the bottle after the second fermentation that gives sparkling wines its bubbles. This is a process that can add great depth, complexity and texture to fine sparkling wines. “Can” is the operative word here as this is a slow process and the winemaker needs to age the wines for years to attain these attributes.
What makes this wine such a bargain, in addition to its quality, is that while most big brand French Champagnes selling for the same price have not a day more of aging on the lees than the minimum required fifteen months, the Argyle Extended Tirage has been aging on the lees for a full ten years. Compare a bottle of this wine with big brand Champagne and be prepared to be stunned.
Champagne is no longer what it used to be. The rest of the world has finally not only caught, but surpassed the French.
Made from 20% pinot noir and 80% chardonnay, this wine offers great freshness and a lively frothy creaminess from the chardonnay and a rich complexity from pinot noir and extended time on the lees. Unfortunately only 584 cases were produced.
The only thing I could think of was Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s: unbelievably beautiful and elegant in a simple black formal.
The inspiration for this vision was one sip of pinot noir perfection: 1992 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir Laurene, graciously shared by Anne Amie Vineyards winemaker Ron Shea with us at dinner last Saturday night.
A fourteen-year-old Oregon pinot noir may seem a bit risky, but there were apparently no chances taken by DDO when they made this wine. Still vibrant, with clean fresh fruit aromas and flavors, this understated beauty soon opened into a graceful, elegant complexity whose layers teased and enticed all the senses. This kind of harmony and balance is what defines pinot noir at its most seductive.
When you taste the perfection this wine has acquired over time, you can’t help but be concerned about what will happen to the current generation of Oregon wines in the future as their fruit-forward, higher alcohol style will never produce the kind of complexity that this 1992 DDO attainted after fourteen years.
When you look at a picture of Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a movie made forty-five years ago, time has only enhanced her beauty. The same should go for fine pinot noir.
First it started out forward and surprisingly pleasant.
Then it seemed complex and perfect with the meal.
Then it closed down and got tannic.
At first it tasted modern, by the next day it was traditional.
What makes the best wines interesting is they are always in motion - each sip is a different etude.
Few wines can range more in personality from sip to sip than Barolo and the excellent 2001 Paolo Manzoni Barolo Serralunga fully lives up to that reputation. While this is a producer that gives more than a tip of the hat to the modern school, here is a wine that proves you can’t always pigeon hole a wine based only on barrels. In fact, Mazoni uses 500 L. barrels instead of 225 L. barriques and the results from these larger barrels are very promising both in the Langhe and in Montalcino as many producers in both areas have abandoned small barrels for larger sizes.
Winemaking is an evolutionary process and it is good to see that in the tough world of survival of the fittest that there seems to be a return to terroir movement in winemaking regions throughout the globe. The barrique craze of the 90’s seems to have lost to the process of natural selection and less intrusive winemaking techniques are once again becoming the dominate species.
Another excellent wine from this strong estate. A blend of dolcetto, barbera and nebbiolo that speaks more of nebbiolo than the other varieties. Rich and earthy with bright, fresh clean bittersweet black cherry fruit over a firm angular structure. An excellent bargain that’s easy to find for under $15. Every wine from this producer is worth buying.
Racy with a mineral pungency that cries for fresh seafood. Lovely bright citrus fruit flows from start to finish. Yet another bargain from Muscadet. Put on your buy-by-the-case list.
A great value as this wine offers more complexity and character than many a Meursault or Puligny Montrachet. Very firm, while being rich and powerful this excellent chardonnay is laced with minerals and a firm stony backbone. From the warm 2003 vintage, I’d drink this wine up sooner rather than later as it’s already delicious.
Good solid Barolo here, not great, but very nice. Still restrained and closed at this point, with a few more years of aging it should reveal a very nice wine. The very fair price, under $40, makes this a great starting place for those who what to see what Barolo is all about. On the classic side when it comes to style.
Big, bright, fruity and easy without being simplistic. This is a great everyday wine bargain produced from 60 to 80 year old vines. Think Australian Shiraz with acidity and a touch of complexity and you’ll get the idea. An amazing bargain at around ten bucks.
Brilliant bright ruby with an enticing nose of currents and raspberry with a touch of bitter tar. This has to be one of the more balanced 2003 Rhone wines I’ve run across. Brilliantly clean and fresh on the palate, it has more than enough power to stand up to roasts and chops, while still being lively and balanced. A great bargain at $16.
Shy at first, this dolcetto soon expands into a gracefully bittersweet razor carried by bright, fresh dark cherry and black raspberry fruit. After an hour or so, layered aromas of wildflowers join the fresh, yet firm fruit flavors. The zesty and fresh finish wakes up your saliva glands.
I must have had this wine a dozen or more times by now and I never tire of it. Perfectly ready to drink, its lean balance of fresh fruit and tart bitterness makes it among the most food friendly wines you’ll run into. Probably about ready to disappear from the market, but no problem as the 2005 is lovely too.
Brilliant ruby, with a fresh nose full of mint, chocolate and smooth dark cherry. Not a lot of complexity, but a lot of pleasure throughout this nicely balanced effort. It’s so smooth and easy to drink now, I don’t see a lot of reason for waiting. All in all very nice, but a bit pricy for such easy pleasure.
