Notes from a blind tasting at my house last night:
There was no specific theme, but I wanted to have both white and red to mark the end of summer & the coming of fall. Luckily the weather cooperated, and it was pleasantly cool in the evening (rather than the stifling humidity of the prior day).
When I was prepping the flights I opened two White Burgundies, but they were both prematurely and horribly oxidized. So a 2001 Jadot Meursault Genevrières 1er Cru and a 2002 William Fèvre Chablis Grenouilles Grand Cru both went down the sink. Bah!
Some reorganization then took place, thus messing with my warm-up wine and the mini-theme of the first flight. So I combined one un-oxidized White Burg with a California wine from a producer that might be a bit familiar.
2006 Edmunds St. John Pinot Gris (Witters Vineyard, El Dorado County, CA)
I’ve had this wine on two previous occasions & it reminded me more of Viognier than Pinot Gris. This time it finally smelled and tasted like Pinot Gris. Bright and refreshing, with subtly smoky pear elements, this was the wine’s best showing yet. Very enjoyable.
2000 Fichet Meursault Meix Sous la Château
This bottle showed more buttery oak than any other I have had. Of course that may have been due to placing it side by side with the ESJ. There was plenty of acidity & still plenty of good fruit as well, but the oak really stuck out.
Then we moved on to some reds:
1995 Chateau d’Armailhac (Pauillac)
Lovely aromatics that have developed some complexity. Still has a great deal of primary red fruit, but also the beginnings of earthy elements. The texture is turning towards silky, but there’s still a rush of tannin on the finish. This wine is starting to drink very well, but will hold and maybe improve further over the short/medium term.
1995 Les Forts de Latour (Pauillac)
Initially brooding and backwards this evolved in the glass to become frutier, richer and eventually oakier (?), indicating a need for more cellar time. Much more tannic than the d’Armailhac, so I would hold for 3-5 more years (if I still had any).
2000 Chateau Fombrauge (St. Emilion)
Clearly this wine (and the next) was going to be riper and fleshier than the 1995s, but it was also drinking remarkably well. I would not say that it has hit a peak, but it’s delicious now, and has fine balance of fruit and structural elements. It’s in a more forward style, but not over the top at all.
2000 La Fleur de Bouard (Lalande de Pomerol)
If the Fombrauge was forward this was fast-forward. Take the fruit of the Fombrauge and ramp it up three notches, add lavish coffee toast oak (much like the oak treatment on Chateau Lagrange to my palate) & throw in a backbone of iron tannins & you have Fleur de Bouard. It’s big, it’s impressive, it’s no traditional Bordeaux, but it is good, really good. It’s also got tons of time left if you can keep your hands off it.
Finally we moved on to a trio of German Rieslings. I had expected the Rieslings to be good, but not this good…
2006 Kerpen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese*
I could smell this the second I took out the vino-lok stopper; all the apple, lemon and floral honey you could ever want in a wine. Rich, but well structured by acidity & with a lemony top note that kept it as the most refreshing of the three Rieslings. It’s a big auslese, but it drinks like an auslese. Fantastic wine that can be drink now or cellared for years to come.
2006 Vollenweider Wolfer Goldgrube ‘Portz’ Riesling Auslese (Mosel)
Umm…if the Kerpen was fantastic then what the heck is this? This is spicier (clearly more botrytis) and more rustic, but also with more guts and the most upside potential of the three Rieslings. This is really a solid BA rather than an auslese, but who am I to complain. Outstanding palate presence & a great finishing acidity; this wine needs about 10 years of finishing school in a cool cellar to round off a few of the jagged edges and turn it into a monument. I’ve had a lot of Daniel Vollenweider’s wines & this is the best yet.
2006 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Sonnenuhr ‘Rotlay’ Auslese (Mosel)
Oh damn…this is even better. It doesn’t have the untamed life of the Vollenweider, but it is regal, with every single element precisely balanced. This is The Beatles in 1967 to the Vollenweider’s Rolling Stones in 1969. It’s all a matter of preference, but the one place where the Selbach wins out is the finish. I tried this wine four times from when it was opened to when I was cleaning up after the event (and found a precious few drops still in the bottle), and each time the finish just stopped me cold with its presence, clarity, depth and length. Utterly unbelievable. I’m sure this wine will benefit from 10 or 20 years of cellaring, but it’s just so amazing now that it would be a shame to not taste it.