My wife and I and another couple got together back at the end of August for some good food and wine out on our back porch. I cooked up some tenderloin and other goodies and we collectively opened some very nice wines, with a focus on Spanish reds.
Starter Whites:
1990 Charles Heidsieck Champagne Blanc des Millenaires Brut. This Champagne is golden yellow in color, with fine persistent bubbles. It features beautiful aromas of rich pear, chalk dust, lime zest, rich yeast notes and gently toasted nuts. It smells fresh, but does have that dark toast and nutty edge—perhaps beginning to ease into middle age, but right now showing the best of both worlds. It has a soft, easy entry onto the palate and then expands frothily through the middle. The wine has pleasing viscosity yet there’s a certain lightness to the whole thing. There is good structure, but it lets the wine shine through effortlessly. The finish has lovely mouthwatering juiciness around the back edges of the tongue. What a great way to start any evening.
2003 Peter Michael Chardonnay La Carriere Knights Valley. Initial sniffs reveal pretty aromas of lemon peel, beeswax, crushed stones, pear and apple flesh, honeydew melon and later on some fig. It has outstanding drive in the mouth, yet at times it feels delicate and lacy. It is not particularly viscous and is definitely lighter and less fleshy than the Aubert. The flavor profile veers to green fig and darker tree fruits, all with a bit of a tart edge. I would not call it oaky, but there is a decided kiss of what seems like wet green lumber right at the end that actually adds interest more than detracts from the overall profile. It is a beautiful wine, but did not quite grab me the way the Aubert did. My wife, however, had this as her wine of the night.
2004 Aubert Chardonnay Lauren Vineyard Sonoma Coast. The aromatic profile on this Chardonnay feels more bright and lifted than the Peter Michael—with powdered minerality galore, honeysuckle, crushed hazelnut dust and lemon peel notes strong and vibrant and classy. It has an oily texture and feels decidedly fleshier in the mouth than its flight-mate. It is quite luscious and full-bodied, and simply gushes with flavor. It is fabulous from stem to stern, with nary a drop-off in any dimension. The finish is fleshy, extremely pure and long, with just a hint of exotic sweetness creeping in there. The whole thing is rich and luxuriant but also focused and deeply alive. For all that, I think it will be even better with a bit more time in the cellar.
First Intermission:
2001 Las Rocas de San Alejandro Garnacha Calatayud Vinas Viejas. This has the appearance of a very young wine, with a dark dense ruby color. The nose has lots of stuff going on, with aromas of tanned leather, sweet blueberries, cracked black pepper, fruitcake, charred notes and some oaky vanilla and menthol deeper down. It is fairly smooth and seamless in the mouth, though the sneaky fine-grained tannins are very much present. Roasted blue and purple fruits and wild berry flavors are still rather primary, flowing in a dense column across the palate. Adam wanted to check in on this to see if it might be heading downhill any time soon, but the opposite is actually the case—this needs a few more years.
Rioja:
1998 Bodegas Roda Rioja Roda I Reserva. The Roda I is wide open and singing on the nose, featuring aromas of aged leather, grilled gamy meat, smoke, pungent salami, dried blood and earth. After a while, some of the gaminess recedes and allows the sweet fruit to poke its head up. It is seamlessly-textured in the mouth, with tons of fairly sweet blue and purple fruits and some fine acidic twang that propels it along. It is medium to fuller-bodied and has soft easy tannins. The finish is very long and persistent, with notes of clove, black cherry and blueberry lingering a good long while. While neither fully modern nor fully traditional, it manages to succeed with ease and can clearly go for a while and evolve further. An excellent showing for this wine.
2000 Marques de Murrietta Rioja Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial. Despite a 4+ hour decant, the nose on this young Rioja is rather tight and needs aggressive swirling to bring out tightly-focused aromas of forest greens, hickory smoke, black cherry, black currants, plums, and mulling spices. The wine leads with structure in the mouth, feeling protective and narrow for the time being. It is big-boned but has a certain sense of reserved elegance, too. The fruit is cool and chalky, framed by softly gritty but decently-integrated tannins. This definitely needs many more years of cellar time, but has everything needed to age easily for a good while.
Alion:
1995 Bodegas y Vinedos Alion Ribera del Duero. WOTN alert! It is obvious from the moment it reaches my nostrils and taste buds. The nose is gorgeously sexy—with aromas of sweet raspberries and candied cherry, creosote, aged leather, roasted pepper skins, earth and persimmon. It is similarly beautiful in the mouth, though a bit younger than the more advanced nose might seem to suggest. There is nothing out of place, and the sense of balance is fantastic, as the flavors of dark red berries, sexy red fruits, smoke and bell pepper flow effortlessly across the palate. The wine is relatively full-bodied, but is in no way either flabby or overly-structured. It has a sense of richness throughout, but each sip feels like it finishes with a sense of power married to charm. I would say this is definitely in the zone right now.
2002 Bodegas y Vinedos Alion Ribera del Duero. This wine is much cooler, more serious and less evolved than its 1995 flight-mate. The nose features aromas of smoke, black licorice, black currants, violets and fruitcake, all hinting at a deeper well of exotic sweet fruits buried down below for now. This is bigger and brawnier than the 1995 for sure, with more aggressive acidity and huge amounts of fine-grained tannin. The black fruits are cool, crisp and a touch austere—feeling generally primary at this point. The tannins are really the story here, though, coating the teeth with their chocolaty essence. There is all kinds of dark stuffing here, but it will take a good long while in the cellar to come around. Forget about this one for a while.
Priorat:
1998 Alvaro Palacios Priorat Finca Dofi. This Priorat offers up nice aromas of graphite and other powdered minerals, all kinds of red fruits, wintergreen, mild nutmeg and notes of largely neutral wood. It has a lovely rounded even-toned mouthfeel on the palate. The tannins are fine and refined for the most part, but do clamp down increasingly more and more on the finish. Flavors of cherry, caramel and licorice lead to a very persistent finish that is rather dry. This is a fairly large, but classy and sophisticated take on Priorat. In fact, it might be a bit aloof at this stage and will be even better in 3-5 years.
2005 Clos Erasmus Priorat Laurel. This wine is a wild and fun ride—coming across as young, sexy and full of energy. It has a sweet edge to the nose, with boysenberry, purple pixie stick, vanilla wafer cookie, soft Asian spices and Belgium waffle aromas. There is a crazy cocoa puffs taste on the attack that leads to an inner perfume of fresh briary berries, more cocoa and spices. This is not nearly as densely opulent as many of the wines this evening, veering more toward young, vibrantly open-textured and juicy. It shows good harmony already, but also lots of sneaky tannins. It feels like it might surprisingly be a good Priorat to drink in the immediate short term to capture the fun and then perhaps not again for 5-7 years.
Second Intermission:
1998 Cellar de Capcanes Montsant Cabrida. The nose here features aromas of wood embers, grilled meat, mixed cool berry fruit, spice cake, earthy forest notes and faint green pepper. In the mouth, it is unctuous and big, with extremely drying tannin at this stage of its life. It is dense and a bit hard to get a read on through the teeth-coating tannins. This needs many years and not sure what it will look like then—hopefully it will turn out to be worth the cellaring.
Finca Sandoval:
2002 Finca Sandoval Machuela. Boisterous berries, exotic brown spices and waffle aromas can be found on the nose of the 2002. It is medium to fuller-bodied in the mouth, with a stiff backbone around which hard-toned acidity, tight tannins and black cherry/black currant fruits revolve tightly. It finishes dry, with some woody accents and feels like it will be more open for business in 3 to 5 years. One really nice feature of this wine (and to a lesser extent the 2003) is that it holds up in the refrigerator for several days—offering drinking that is perhaps better on days 2 and 3 than on day 1.
2003 Finca Sandoval Machuela. The 2003 is a darker, denser color. The nose is cooler and more serious all around. There are some exotic scents of creosote, sweet roasted fruits, sweet berries and a powdered confectionary note. In the mouth, it feels less tannic than the 2002, with a sweeter more welcoming profile. Blackberry fruits are most evident, but some interesting savory flavors of bacon and herbs also fold in. The finish is cool and crisp, and again the wine seems like it will be better in a few years.
For me, the wines of the night were the ’95 Alion, the ’98 Roda I and the ’04 Aubert Lauren.
-Michael