The following notes are a mish-mash from a few different recent get-togethers with friends and family.
NV Bisol Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore di Cartizze. This sparkler has a nose of dried apples, honey and citrus. It is full, frothy and rounded in the mouth, with interesting richer-styled flavors of darkly poached pear, smoke, old-fashioned ginger ale, copper, mandarin orange, lemon rind and a sort of odd stale beer note. This is unusually serious and complex for a Prosecco and an interesting change of pace.
NV Pierre Gimonnet Champagne Blanc de Blancs Cuis 1er Cru. The Gimonnet shows a very small bead and offers an elegant nose of gentle citrus peel, apple skin, peach and flinty minerals. It has very good citric intensity in the mouth to go with a vibrant, crisp minerality and some tart apple flavors. It is medium-bodied and turns a bit more airy and light on the finish, which also shows added tang and some dry chalky accents. This bottle is very enjoyable, but I have had slightly more exciting tastes of this wine in recent months.
2006 Castelvecchio Carso Traminer Aromatico. This has a fresh, yet delicate aromatic profile that includes whiffs of soft orange blossom, honeysuckle, peach fuzz, rosewater, litchi fruit and honeyed cantaloupe, along with some faint minerality. It is sort of like a gewürztraminer meets a moscato. It is dry and crisp on the palate, with bright acids and some heavier glycerin feel. It has stone and steel flavors, along with accents of tangy pineapple, lime and bitter quinine. The fruit seems to go dormant on the finish, while some tougher acidity and a mineral tang take over for a good long while. It is an interesting and pleasant wine.
2006 Scholium Project Sauvignon Blanc Glos McDowell Vineyards. My friend Ken served this to me double blind. Man, what an absolutely crazy nose on this wine! My notes are all over the place, citing aromas of citrus skin, beeswax, lanolin, agave, escarole, bitter herbs, jalapeno pepper and vegetable garden compost. It is totally unique and very hard to describe—it actually hurt my brain trying to get a handle on what this could be. It is not a pleasant bouquet per se, to be honest, just so very different. My initial feeling was that it was complex, but the more I thought about it, the more it actually seemed like manufactured complexity—somehow not quite natural. In any event, it is much more likeable in the mouth, where it shows solid density, very good length, and excellent drive. It tingles the nerves with its vibrant acidity and manages to have a texture that is both creamy and oily at the same time. It pumps out a ton of flavors and holds its intensity all the way through the finely grainy finish. In the end, though, it feels like a bit of work to get through this wine—but it cannot be said that it does not challenge the senses.
1992 Domaine des Baumard Savennieres. This is a deep gold color and is displaying an interesting nose of browning apples, nectarine flesh, burnt matchstick and copper kettle. It is medium-bodied, with a tensile backbone in the mouth, with good drive to its flavors of stony minerality, forest greenery and cool, crisp pear fruit. It is a bit drying on the decent-length finish, which turns a bit more grainy-textured and somewhat more tropical-fruited.
2000 Mount Eden Vineyards Chardonnay Estate Bottled Santa Cruz Mountains. This is a darker, more honeyed color than the 2001. It is also fairly different in all-around personality. Here, we have aromas of soft honey, butterscotch and cream layered over fine minerality. It is big, masculine and oily in the mouth, with excellent layering and persistence of flavor. It is in no way overdone, though. It is showing a bit of age, but is hanging in there.
2001 Mount Eden Vineyards Chardonnay Estate Bottled Santa Cruz Mountains. This is a beauty on the nose, with stone, crystalline pineapple, cotton candy, cream and faint red berry aromas. It gives an intense burst of flavor on the palate, with great length and a lot of personality. The myriad flavors of peach, pear and pineapple are sharply focused and well-melded together in a finely-balanced and well-structured package.
2003 Rochioli Chardonnay Estate Russian River Valley. The Rochioli is a nice full-yellow color, with hints of green. It smells to varying degrees of smoked wood, lemon oil, graphite, fresh white flowers, nutmeg and candy cigarettes. As it warms in the glass, it becomes more aromatically oak-tinged. In the mouth, it walks a fine line between oily and creamy, with a fine level of viscosity. It is pure and not nearly as oaky as the nose would suggest—with flavors of pear, tangerine, pineapple and other citrusy elements leading to a tight, tangy finish that fleshes out a bit as the night progresses.
2004 Ramey Chardonnay Russian River Valley. Immediately recognizable as a Ramey Chardonnay on the nose, this wine presents aromas of creamy chalk, nuts, stirred lees, soft peppermint dust and moss-covered river stones. Flavors of pear tart, pistachio nut and oaky planking accompany a big shot of tingly acidity that squirts into the back of the mouth. It is soft and creamy in a medium-bodied package through the mid-palate and more tightly acidic on the finish.
2004 Lewis Cellars Chardonnay Barcaglia Lane Russian River Valley. The nose is generally more crisp and cool than I expected from Lewis. Shockingly chablis-like aromas of seashells, powdered minerals, peach pit and grassy notes dominate at first, but there are hints of richer notes like fresh figs and candy bottle caps that begin poking in and out with time in the glass. The richness I expected then does come out in the mouth, with big swaths of oak and vanilla that coat the palate, but also tons of classy delicious apple flavors, a fresh fig component and a good degree of complex spiciness. It has ample body and fruit, but needs to better integrate the oak.
-Michael