Afternoon late lunch and cribbage tournament notes.
2004 Champelou Le Portail Vouvray – a hint of sulphur and wax in the nose, then some floral elements. Well balanced with tasty acidity coming in almost too late.
2004 Dom. de la Charbonniere CNduP Blanc – lots of citrus in the nose, bright wine and fairly well balanced, but ultimately, for me, uninteresting.
1993 Terrabanca Campaccio – browing edges and very mature nose, but still kicking with earthiness and a mellow mid palate. Pleasant, but nowhere near as good as the 1990 Reserve we had recently.
1998 Macchiole (95% sangio, 5% merlot – going by memory here). Nice ripish nose, ver decent fruit and a long finish that was quite smooth.
2001 Macchiole – obviously younger nose with slightly fresher fruit, though a bit less complexity, over all very nice and probably the superior wine. My host’s secondary impression of vinous lassitude was traced to his inadvertent adulteration of this wine with the 1993 when topping up, his inattention no doubt induced by a nasty cribbage defeat at the hands of a lady card shark.
1994 Taurino Patriglione – made with dried grapes, this also had a quite ripe nose, was quite dark and showed some cocoa in the nose. A very nice smooth cheese wine.
My early luck at cribbage was followed by a thrashing at the hands of said female shark. A rematch is in order! Very pleasant afternoon – until it started seriously snowing and the designated driver declared herself a non-snow capable driver.