oenologue

Mayo 2005 Russian River Valley Unfiltered Petite Syrah "Sodini Ranch"

2008-05-03T04:29:14Z

This one is bizarre and beautiful. Dark and intense atop chunky sediment. The promised blackberry-cobbler notes come through on the nose, but the real magic is on the palate. It is, I swear to god, like drinking a cocktail made of three parts Petite Syrah and one part eau de toilette of pure aldehydic Gilded Age violets. This is not hyperbole. I've been stunned by this time-travelling ladies' perfume thing on three consecutive visits to Mayo and finally bought two bottles to ensure my Sonoma-soaked mind and palate weren't playing tricks on me at the tasting room. They weren't.

The exhale after a sip is soprano, soaring, powdery-solid like a scented talc, and vanishes after about five seconds back into the wine. The aldehydes are so intense that it's tough to tell whether one likes this as a conventional wine. I actually think it's more of a fantasy, a window into strange places. 3.9 for pure mystery and fascination.

Chateau d'Arche Sauternes 2003

2008-04-27T05:18:09Z

Light sweet hay aroma. Vivid golden color. Flavors are concentrated and tightly focused with a nice spine of acidity: honey mead, stone, muscatel, creamy peach. 14% alcohol is very much present; finish is liqueur-like. Would meld well with an unsweet French buttery pastry, perhaps something with nuts, cream, apricots. Very much enjoyed it with a montblanc pastry.

St. Francis Sonoma County 2003 Merlot

2007-12-15T04:09:22Z

Lovely nose of violets and sliced fresh piquillo peppers. Yes, it was that exact. Big tannins and acidity. Tart blackberry feel and flavor in the mouth; stops well short of lushness. Modern; a bit overdone, but interesting and engaging. It's like the anti-Merlot.

St. Francis 2005 Sonoma County Old Vines Zinfandel

2007-12-01T03:48:12Z

A little loose in the glass, bright young color. Rich, sharp cherry aroma, with sweet florals and a musky dark chocolate note as it opens up. Lots of acidity up front and in your face. Young; juicy mouthfeel. Cherries again at the peak, some heat, nice lingering tannins. Cool black-fruit finish. Needs soft, rich cheese or meat with a good amount of fat. Not a sitting-and-sipping wine. Probably needs another year in bottle.

Podere Boccaccio 2003 Sangiovese

2006-01-28T03:28:05Z

Loose appearance in the glass, not intensely saturated. It's the brickish color of so many Sangioveses. Good scents of tannins and plum skins accompanied by some strange dusky ethers. Nice acidity. Short finish; lean fruits, tinny and thin-bodied in the mouth. 1.7.

Taylor Fladgate Tawny 10-year port

2006-01-18T01:50:22Z

Translucent red-gold in the glass, bright cherries and honey on the nose. Acidity starts off slightly harsh, but quickly becomes pleasant. Plenty of tannic structure to back up the mouth-filling flavors of fruit compote and grilled pineapple. Walnuts and dark caramels only unfold deep into the half-minute finish. A little simple compared to what one wants in a tawny. Notable also for bizarre fresh-cut nutty raw pumpkin note on the inside of the glass after swirling. Should probably check that out next time. 2.6.

Jonesy Old Tawny Port: Nice try

2005-12-16T15:31:16Z

It's just so... raisiny. And not like a sherry, where you would expect it. It does have a beautiful baked sour cherry thing going on, but the raisins just really get me. I don't like raisins. Especially the golden ones, the sultanas, which is what Jonesy smells like. It smells exactly like a trifle made with cherries, sultanas, pound cake, candied walnuts, and sherry. Like a dessert made by a fat, careless, and essentially unthinking maiden aunt: old, dull, heavy-handed, gluttonous.

Sweet, extremely dark, insufficient acidity. Not lively. No thanks. 1.4.

D. Loxarel brut rosato cava "999"

2005-12-16T15:19:36Z

I don't know what they're trying to say with the numbers there.

Tasty, very dry, strawberryish. Very nice. Lovely rose color, quite extracted for a rosato. Would like more fruit, but eh. Great acidity and tons of bubbles. 2.5.

Warre Otima 10-year Tawny Port

2005-12-16T15:02:28Z

Niiice. A rococo masterpiece: opulent honeys, a mouthful of fragrant fruits in compote, a little toffee, very faint sweet almond and a whisper of oak. A nice little zing of acidity to back it all up. Not sticky or cloying, but right on that perfect edge of dessert-sweetness. Comforting. Graceful. Ripe and lovely. 3.2.

Rumball Sparkling Shiraz Special Cuvee NV

2005-12-15T02:04:52Z

Cherry, vanilla, and smooth oak aroma, lively froth on the palate, feels frizzante rather than full-on spumante, sweet enough to be a demi-sec, off-dry. Very dark opaque red in the glass. Rich flavors of black cherry, mint. Nice aromas fall flat in the mouth. Not quite acidic enough, out of balance.

Gruet sparkling blanc de noirs New Mexico NV

2005-12-09T21:41:56Z

A tightly focused, extra-dry (but labelled brut), surprisingly fruity sparkler made in the desert outside the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Not at all the salmon color touted on the back label; this is a deep blond wine without a pink flush. Primarily pinot noir, but the color alone (as well as a slight apple character on the finish) points to a hefty allocation to Chardonnay.

Powerful but fleeting notes of cherry and ripe frutti di bosco, which at first tastes strange coming from a golden wine, but if you close your eyes and think "Pinot Noir", it all falls into place. The barest possible hint of sweetness goes far to illustrate the wine's fruitiness as well as its flaws: slightly harsh bubbles, off-balance acidity.

Very interesting. Worth drinking. 2.5

Crios de Susana Balbo Rose Malbec, Mendoza.

2005-12-01T14:27:57Z

Not all that delicious. A little sour and strawberryish, a little watery and yet a little overextracted. Strange but beautiful strong dark pink. Soft score: 1.6.

Peace Chardonnay 2004, Southeastern Australia

2005-12-01T14:22:45Z

It's not bad. A little new American oak, kind of smooth and vanilla'd and strangely soothing. A decent showing of what Australia can do with its second-most-typical grape. It's been a while, so this is a soft rating: 2.3.

Goats Do Roam White 2004 Western Cape

2005-11-29T14:07:28Z

I'm a fan of these goat wines. Simple but with the South African joie de vivre. I'm not as big a fan of the blend: Sauv Blanc, Chardonnay, Clairette Blanc and Grenache Blanc. Call me an American, but I like to taste the grape, and the blended experience gets muddy. Still, nice tangy fruit: peach, lime. 2.2.

Mionetto Prosecco di Valdobbiadene

2005-11-29T13:57:57Z

Not a bad prosecco in the frizzante style, a little soft, definitely informal, foaming rather than sparkling. This isn't the crown-capped Il Mionetto; it's more costyl and sealed with the traditional string-cork closure that marks a frizzante wine. Good for casual sipping and laissez-faire festivities. Not complex. 2.3.

Chateau La Grange Clinet 2002: What's a nice girl like you doing in a price like this?

2005-11-29T13:46:52Z

Now this is really very pleasant: a tasty Bordeaux for under $10. Not mind-blowing, not even exceptional... but a true, lovely, well-bred scion of Bordeaux. 50% Merlot, 27% Cab Sauv, 15% Cab Franc. Has the berries and fruits of its Merlot origins. Not huge, but complex. A wine that one can get lost in.

Highly recommended. One of the best values I've ever tasted. 2.9.

La Poussie Sancerre 2003

2005-11-29T13:33:49Z

This is an old-school, old-world wine. Rich rather than racy as new world Sauvs Blanc tend to be. Citrus and hay, fresh unbruised herbs. Refreshing, restrained, fine-boned, pretty. Not a bit of cream, despite what WineSpec has to say. Ever so slightly boring in that genteel manner of which only true ladies are capable. 2.9.

Albarino Palacio de Fefinanes, 2003

2005-11-10T02:53:29Z

Clear, sunny, with a beautiful peach note. Aromas of almond, apricot, wet slate. Very faintly sweet but not to the "residual sugar" threshold. Finishes a little soft. Would like a little more acidity. Graceful and retiring. Too ladylike for me. 1.8.

Manzanilla Jerez, Bodegas Dios Baco, NV: La bohemienne

2005-11-04T13:19:30Z

See, it's wines like this that make me love opera, or is it the other way around? This is what I was imagining when, at age sixteen, I first heard Carmen sing:

Près des remparts de Séville,
Chez mon ami Lillas Pastia,
Nous danserons la séguedilla
Et boirons du Manzanilla.

Well, of course I went running to look up "manzanilla", and was shocked when my Spanish dictionary told me that "manzanilla" meant "little apple", which was an infusion of chamomile commonly drunk after dinner. It was utterly bizarre to imagine Carmen and her lover dancing at Pastia's love shack, getting hot and heavy while throwing back cups of chamomile tea. I figured it out a couple of years later: manzanilla can be used to refer both to chamomile and a certain type of dry sherry, both of which tend to have golden apple notes. No need to guess which one Carmen was referring to.

This one's extraordinarily dry, with no more residual sugar than your average dry table wine. 18% alcohol, lean and elegant, briny, savory, with the much-vaunted almond and cashew thing very obvious. No fruit, dry or otherwise. Nicely aromatic. Pale straw-colored in the glass. A little searing due to the high alcohol without sweetness to back it up. Nicely casked nonetheless; the real artistry obviously took place in the barrel. 500ml bottle. Manchego, marcona almonds, crisply fried foods, and so forth. I'd always wondered how people could get drunk on Sherry with its usual sticky sweetness. One taste of this and it was all explained. It's worthy of Carmen. 2.8

Neil Ellis Groenekloof Sauv Blanc 2004

2005-11-04T12:43:19Z

Rounder than the 2002 I drank two years ago, a little less racy and more fruit-forward, with peach, fresh grass, and an odd little sweet-corn note ducking in and out before the finish, which is pure sunlight. It's a little less racy because it's just a hair higher in alcohol and has 1.8 grams residual sugar as opposed to the '02's 2.5... and, of course, a slightly lower pH. I'd imagine the sweet corn thing comes from the fact that, for the first time, they're aging 30% of the vintage in French oak instead of in tank.

I've been in love with this particular vineyard, run by Alex Versveld, for years. It's located on a high plateau overlooking the South Atlantic, which is cold and severe at that latitude. The soil is blood-red and rocky. Yields are low, and each year's vintage shares a certain joyous quality of sunlight on wet grass. This one's no exception; it's a happy wine. Out of memory alone, I'd probably give the '02 a retroactive 3.3; this one's a 3.1. It will probably get better as they play around with oak and alcohol (I'm in favor of no oak and lower alcohol. I don't want corn and walnuts in my Sauv Blanc).

Ercavio Tempranillo Roble 2003

2005-10-27T21:15:19Z

This one was a little soft and pudgy, a little blowsy. Big fruit, lack of structured acids to back it up. Out of balance, a little hot. Macerated plums, late overripe blackberries. Interesting nonetheless. 1.3.

Jardin Stellenbosch Sauvignon Blanc

2005-10-21T21:23:26Z

Hard bright grapefruit, citrus peel, green peaches. A little light in body but very tasty with the proper food. Tart and quite tangy; closer in style to New Zealand than South Africa. Definitely cool, perhaps even bitchy. 2.2.

Fairview Sauvignon Blanc, South Africa, 2004

2005-10-21T21:17:01Z

Love it. Big, green, sunny, expansive, joyous, reminiscent of our beloved 2002 Neil Ellis Groenekloof. Tart, racy, but quite full. Lemon peel, mineral. Not at all juicy or fruit-forward, a little severe on the finish. Radiant and not at all self-aware: a beautiful but cerebral sun-child. 3.1.

Nino Franco Rustico Prosecco di Valdobbiadene

2005-10-21T21:07:10Z

I'm always charmed by this Champagne-style prosecco. Just a little dough, straightforward fruit, not too abusive on the palate, dry but not painfully so. It's a Prosecco... what more could you want? 2.4.

Domaine Serene Yamhill Cuvee Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, 2003

2005-10-21T21:02:03Z

An unfiltered Pinot Noir from Oregon. Delightful, spicy, smoky, tons of plum. I see what Manzi sees in these... I just don't know the terroir well enough to get the meat out of them yet. I don't think I can rate this one.