2004 Cusumano Sàgana Nero d’Avola (Sicily) If you are looking for a rather large, fruit forward wine with absolutely no sense of place or of varietal composition, then this is the wine for you. It has pleasant aromatics of dark fruit and violets, sweet dark fruit flavors, rather round, creamy, mid-palate, a good dose of chocolate, and chewy tannins. It’s not a bad wine but I find nothing here to interest me.
2004 Potel-Aviron Fleurie Vieilles Vignes (Beaujolais) It must be boring wine week. This wine is much more pinot-like than gamay but it’s devoid of any life. Bold red cherry flavors, silky mouthfeel, silky tannins but only a slight hint of that tart, acidic finish that I really enjoy in a good Beaujolais. No minerality, nothing herbal, no earth, no complexity at all really.
N.V. G. H. Mumm & Cie Champagne Mumm de Cramant (Champagne) L0640700792 (which I assume is disgorge date of 64th day of 2007) engraved on the side of the bottle near the base not on the punt as some have stated. Microwave popcorn aromas followed by a sharp spike of acidity that gets run over by an insipid blob. Blech.