Vancouver had a visitor from New York this week, John Morris, who was in town at just the right time to attend a small Piemonte dinner put on by one of the local wine aficionados.
2004 Maxim Andorter Anna Leidenschaft – an Austrian wine blended from chardonnay, Gruner Veltliner and sauvignon blanc. A little oak in the nose, and vanilla up front in the mouth, fairly full bodied, with decent length, perhaps a tad hot. At retail of $75 a tough price range to try and compete with more traditional wines.
With corn veloute with crispy guanciale and saffron.
2000 Nervi Vigneto Molsino Gattinara – unusual candle wax nose, medium colour, some tannin, fairly smooth with clean acidity. Not as bad as the ratings I’ve seen on this wine.
1988 Dessilani Caramino – these two were sort of a rogue’s gallery of questionable wines. RP gave the first wine 80 and this one 58! This Nebbiolo was mellow and mature, but the nose was a bit funky and it lacked fruit while showing considerable acidity and some tannin. Too lean for any real pleasure.
With heirloom tomato salad.
1990 Borgogno Reserva – an old style Barolo with nice ar and roses, medium colour and obvious maturity. Nice sweet note at the end. I drank mine some time ago as it matured early. Still have some 1989 I should get into.
With lamb carpaccio (seared very rare)
1993 Bartolo Mascarello Barolo – tar and leather in the nose with a licorice overlay. Some nice fruit on palate, the tannins soft, drinking well now. I like the 93s and have had considerable enjoyment from that vintage.
1990 Vajra Freisa delle Langhe – a surprise as most people think of Freisas in the lightweight category. A serious wine with a warm spice driven nose, decent fruit and significant tannin. Fooled many of us into thinking it a Barolo (it is supposed to be related to nebbiolo). A real ringer and a fun wine to try to figure out. Thanks John!
With ricotta gnocchi and mushroom ragu
1967 Capellano (Gabutti) – Burgundian colour, great mature nose with cinnamon and later some celery, sweet in the mouth, but still showing some tannin and ample acidity
1967 Fratelli Barali – wax and chestnuts (and some volatile acidity) in this nose. Similar light colour. Very traditional wine that I thought worked better with the fish and it improved in the glass. Both were very interesting wines.
With lightly smoked sablefish with fennel oranges and star anise
1989 Pio Cesare Barbaresco – the nose on this one was closed a bit, and it was still pretty tannic, but it had lots of weight and some spicy notes emerged with time. The fruit made an appearance and the finish was commendably long, but I felt this one needed either more time in the glass or more time in the cellar.
1989 Vietti Brunate – an immediately attractive nose of sweet fruit, tar and flowers, delicious on palate and all coming together nicely with very good length. I liked this one a lot.
With sliced rare veal, truffled new potatoes and braised greens
Finally, with cheese, we opened a notable bottle of another sort:
1989 Hugel Gewurztraminer Selection des Grains Nobles – these late harvest wines of Hugel are always great fun, and this one retained the gewurz characteristics which not all sweeter wines do. It showed an apricot, rose, and spiced honey nose, fair bit of residual sugar, but also very good balance with excellent flavour intensity and length. Coming two days after I’d drunk a bottle of German Eiswein, this seemed to be a great week for late harvest experiences.
Thanks for the great meal and interesting wines, Rasoul!