Chinon Vieilles Vignes 1998 - Philippe Alliet – is an excellent effort, especially considering the indifferent year; round red fruit, mixed vegetables, minerals, a touch of wet leather, lively acidity without trace of astringency or greenness and no signs of fading; 15.5/20++.
I don’t know what I was thinking of when I bought a few bottles of Rioja 2006 – Bodegas Navajas – at a Spring tasting ; this wine is supposed to be drunk young but I found that its pretty fruit was now obscured by quite bitter notes of dry molasses and caramel towards the finish; it went badly with a mozzarella soufflé with ham and vegetables and curiously better after a cherry tart; 13.5/20 but will it balance better with some age? I wouldn’t count on it.
Santenay 1er cru La Comme 2001 - Château de la Maltoye (R)- is not a wine for the apocryphal Australian who said “if you can see through it, it is a bad wine” nor for the Parker school; quite pale in colour and light in body but showing brightly focussed red and dark fruit with a lot of sour cherry balanced by a touch of pleasing quinine style bitterness towards the finish; an elegant companion for a simple dish of firm AOC chicken with cèpe and chanterelle mushrooms; 15.5/20+++.
Alsace Riesling Clos Häuserer 2000 – Domaine Zind-Humbrecht – was a slight disappointment compared to my memories of 1993 and 1996 (WTNs in the old archive); full, round and structured (I have heard Olivier Humbrecht talk of tannins in his whites!) with plenty of flesh and just a hint of RS but showing a slight alcoholic burn and hints of rusticity on the finish with less brightly appealing acidity and minerality than in those other two vintages; 15.5/20.
My last bottle of Jurançon Sec Cuvée Marie 2004 – Charles Hours – had the same crystalline brilliance of focus and superb minerality as the previous bottles (see more detailed WTN) but perhaps a tad less amplitude than I remember; much preferable to the more prestigious Z-H and, interestingly in spite of higher claimed alcohol (14°v. 13.5°), there was no sensation at all of alcoholic burn; 17/20.
There were some more interesting wines on show last Saturday at Rob. Sancerre Florès (white) 2007 – Vincent Pinard – showed more nerve and minerality than his fatter 2006; preference is a matter of taste but this one is, I think, better for shell fish; 15.5/20+. Bourgogne Côte Chalonnaise 2006 – Domaine de l’Eveché – was a very nice QPR (€ 13) expression of Chardonnay showing minerality and gentle white fruit; 15/20. Saint-Chinian Côte de Arbo 2006 – Mas Champart – made from Grenache and Syrah was full of dark fruit and herbs and was more polished, linear and austere than the Grenache dominated Côtes du Rhône 2007 – Domaine Cros de la Mûre – which burst with generosity, touches of tar and ripe tannins; both 16/20. An unfamiliar Bordeaux, Château Béhéré Pauillac 2005 showed a remarkably developed nose of rich red tangy fruit hints of leather and cedar, after which the relatively closed palate was a surprise; there was plenty of structure and substance, though, and I guess that, in a short time, the palate will be as expressive as the nose; 16/20+. Priorat Usatges 2004 – Costers del Suirana – was a serious wine, full bodied with complex dark fruit, garrigue notes and brooding tannins; keep for a few years; 16/20.
Also on show were a Rueda, which I would have taken for a Kiwi Sauvignon blanc with its explosive nose of herbaceous gooseberry and bright aromatic palate, and a Ribera del Duero whose concentrated fruit and structure was spoiled for me by the American oak derived finish of dry caramel and molasses; I think that here these unpleasant notes have a better chance of integrating with time than with the light Rioja above. Apologies for not getting more details of the provenance of the last two.