WTN: Salil in Cambridge

Salil was in the Boston area so that meant we found ourselves having dinner at my place. He was happy and ready to open the 2007 AJ Adam Dhron Hofberg Riesling that he had been praising and it showed very well. It started out as quite the curious beast that was juicy and succulent but also restrained, sort of in-between the drier and off-dry riesling styles that are more common. With air it firmed up nicely showing a very confident and almost stern profile but with the florals and flavors that reminded me of ripe fun Mosel. Interesting and tasty.

The 2002 Alzinger Steinertal Grüner Veltliner Smaragd did not hold the same interest as it started out with the waxy and golden notes I remembered from a previous bottle but then the finish started tasting oxidized and slightly damaged. What a shame. The previous bottle was fun fun fun.

But we were not lacking wine and with the main course mushroom pizza we moved to the 1995 Bernard Baudry Chinon Cuvée Signature which was my last bottle and remained true to what I have expected over the years from the wine. Dark fruit, crisp cool vegetal edges, and still a good amount of structure. This seemed to be perfect drinking for me and I have no idea where it is going from here but I will need someone else’s bottles to find out.

Salil was eager for more riesling so we opened a bottle of his haul-of-the-day which was the 2004 Diel Dorsheimer Burgberg Riesling Spätlese. It started off (plenty) sweet and slightly simple but with air it firmed up and was a very pleasant and easy-drinking wine. Apparently Salil purchased it on sale, marked down from $40 to $20. I think we both agreed that at $40 it would be bad value but for $20 it was fun to open and enjoy. And that we did.

Rahsaan,
Thanks for having me over for dinner. Was a pleasure catching up again and the food was excellent (particularly enjoyed the mushroom pizza; I need to find some of those mushrooms myself - had a really different texture/taste to any other mushroom I've encountered).

On the wines - I loved the Adam, certainly a very different style of Riesling than the more standard sweet wines from the Mosel but really well balanced, complex and interesting to follow over a couple of hours. I'm looking forward to trying his 08s once they arrive.
The Baudry was lovely (wasn't that a 95 though?) - the last time I'd had that wine was when I was distracted by that Jadot Amoureuses and the FX Kellerbergs, so it was great to revisit it and give it some more attention. Really refreshing and tasty, and I need to start exploring Chinon a bit more for more wines like that.
Shame about the Alzinger which had some nice fruit and spice suggesting a pristine bottle would be lovely, but the oxidation eventually overshadowed the more pleasurable elements. And the 98 Gouges - ouch!

I enjoyed the Diel although found it much closer to a big Auslese than Spätlese in its fruit profile - very ripe, sweet and tasty with some nice minerally elements emerging later. Certainly very happy with that buy (as I enjoy Diel's wines, but generally can't bring myself to buy them at their usual sticker prices).

The Baudry was lovely (wasn't that a 95 though?) - the last time I'd had that wine was when I was distracted by that Jadot Amoureuses and the FX Kellerbergs, so it was great to revisit it and give it some more attention. Really refreshing and tasty, and I need to start exploring Chinon a bit more for more wines like that..

Thanks for catching the typo, it was indeed a 95. And as I've said before, this was the first vintage of the Croix Boissee vineyard (only labeled as such from 96 onwards) and you can pretty easily find current and recent vintages to compare. Lots of great Chinon around.

[David M. Bueker]

So that was the same Chinon we had at my house a few weeks earlier?

Nice that you got the chance to have the Adam. I really liked it a lot when I had it.

So that was the same Chinon we had at my house a few weeks earlier?

Indeed it was. My first choice for red wine was a 1998 Gouges that was off/damaged so then I went to what was upstairs in my apartment (as opposed to downstairs in the basement and requiring a lot of effort in the middle of dinner) and tried to tempt Salil with a 2001 Lagrein but he mentioned something about an aversion to Italy and wanting to revisit the Chinon so that's what we opened.