These are notes from our last poker and blind wine tasting afternoon. Wines were served in flights of 2, with the Amarone on its own.
2004 Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir Walker Bay. These first two wines were clearly Pinot Noirs, with this one leaning toward heavier-styled aromatics that include brambly sweet red and blue berries, milk chocolate, warm earth and leafy underbrush. In the mouth, it has a nice glycerin feel and a tangy, spicy profile in a medium-weight package. It has decent length, but shows a touch of warmth on the finish.
2005 Windy Oaks Pinot Noir Estate Cuvee Schultze Family Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains. This wine has a very aggressive nose with bright cherry cola, spices galore, baked berry pie and a somewhat weedy note underneath. It is fairly rich in the mouth, with a chalky, grippy texture. It has plenty of blue fruits through the middle and a pronounced soft peppermint note that comes on strong. It is generous and spicy, but again with a slightly elevated sense of alcoholic warmth. The chocolate powder-tinged finish is nicely fanned out.
1997 Montes Cabernet Sauvignon Alpha Curico Valley. This sports a very pretty nose of black currants, exotic perfume, dried herbs and sooty smoke. The entry is nice, with cool fruits leading to a rich, rounded middle-palate. It hangs together well, but does not really fan out, holding to a fairly tight beam of fruit. Blue and black fruits are the order of the day, along with plenty of spicy, chewy tannins leading to a good-length finish. My guess was a California meritage.
1997 Joseph Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley. This wine offers up an exciting bouquet of big-time crème de cassis, cherry liqueur, all kinds of desiccated flowers, generous exotic spices and faint eucalyptus. It walks a fine line of being just a hint over-ripe, but pulls it off nicely. In the mouth, it is luscious and seamless, with a cool acid streak running through it. It is fuller-bodied with cool rich fruit and caressing tannins. The chocolaty tannins are mostly relegated to the lengthy finish. Overall, this is really nice and was my runner-up for WOTN.
2004 Behrens and Hitchcock Fat Boy Napa Valley. Like the wine before it, this offering has an exotic nose—with black currants, incense and darkly toasted spices. It is lovely in the mouth, with intense dense dark fruit, oodles of body and solid drive. The spices are very abundant, along with flavors like molten chocolate. It is a bit teeth-staining, but that is fine with me as long as it tastes this fine. My guess was California Cabernet-based meritage. In actuality, this is 91% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% each Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. My WOTN.
2003 Falesco Montiano Lazio. The nose here is serious and brooding, with dark fruits, black licorice and earth most prominent, but with a sprinkling of fresh sawdust on top. It is clean and moderately full-bodied in the mouth, with a very classy texture and a promising overall feel to it. However, I find it to be a bit tightly-wound and rigid right now—feeling like a young wine to me. This needs some time to open up and grow into itself. My guess was young Bordeaux.
2004 Glaetzer Godolphin Barossa Valley. Dark, dense coloring. My first thought upon putting my nose in the glass was Turley Zin. Sugar-sweet aromatics of candied plums, red flowers and briery berries are appealing one minute and just too much the next. I’m a bit ambivalent, really. In the mouth, it is similarly sweet (again at times, too much), with gooey warm fruits dominating the flavor profile. It has lots of body, tons of fine spices and a long finish that is tinged with alcohol warmth. In the right mood, I can see going for this (with a potentially high “fun factor”), but at other times I could see being turned off. On this day, I was leaning toward the fun factor.
2004 Yarra Yering Dry Red Wine No. 2 Yarra Valley. Having thought the previous wine to be a Zin, I got it into my head that this was also a Zin, albeit more in the Ridge style. This sports a perfumed bouquet of mesquite, bicycle tires, briery berries, incense and cool aloe. It is not nearly so sweet as the previous wine, and is both more dynamic and more layered. It veers more toward the red-fruit spectrum, though it is again briery and brambly in a fruit-forward fashion. Chocolate and earth notes are featured on the fine finish. My #3 wine of the night.
1985 Masi Amarone della Valpolicella Classico. This opens with decided notes of VA, but also presents aromas of macerated cherries, high-toned red fruits, dried figs, dates and faint leather. It is big and chunky-bodied in the mouth, with a noticeable amount of alcohol poking through the rich warm fruit. There are fine tannins toward the back of the palate and a bit of odd spritz on the finish. My guess was Amarone. The strangest thing is that a friend of mine served this exact same vintage to me just two nights earlier, with very similar tasting notes. Both Tom and he agreed that the wine was fantastic just 2-3 years earlier. I suggest drinking these up.
Afterwards:
1995 Zind Humbrecht Gewurztraminer Herrenweg de Turckheim Vendage Tardives. I had several glasses of this while being the designated dealer for the final pair of players. It has very pretty aromatics of rose petals, orange blossom, litchi, sweet caramel, spun sugar, vanilla, botrytis and kerosene. In the mouth, it is just sweet enough without being too sweet. Indeed, it is less unctuous than the nose would seem to promise, but that is OK. It has good length through the middle and finishes easy, with a hint of toasted sugar. It is a wine that grows on you as you sip it.
2005 Chateau Ste Michelle Cabernet Sauvignon Indian Wells Columbia Valley. I just had a sip or two of this while packing up to go, so no formal tasting note. All my notes read are corpulent black cherry fruit and nettles on the nose, dark chocolate and black cherry on the palate, big palate impression, but somewhat coarse and obvious tannins.
8 people voted for Wine of the Night.
2004 Yarra Yering: 16 pts (3 firsts, 3 seconds, 1 third)
2004 B&H Fat Boy: 9 pts (2 firsts, 1 second, 1 third)
1997 Phelps Cab: 9 pts (2 firsts, 1 second, 1 third)
2003 Falesco Montiano: 7 points (1 first, 2 seconds)
2005 Windy Oaks Pinot: 4 points (4 thirds)
1997 Montes Cab: 3 points (1 second, 1 third)
-Michael