Met Asher for a BYO dinner at Didi’s Frieden in Zurich (great food and service!).
Retasted all the wines at home with Dani 24 hours later (from even better stemware – the restaurant’s own was quite satisfactory, and we certainly got enough glasses to be able and compare all the wines).
Van Volxem Riesling #07 Wiltinger Gottesfuß "Alte Reben" 2003
Thanks to Rainer. Medium-full yellow-gold, faint green hue. Still fresh, adding nice herbs, seemingly greater sweetness, but also a nice soft bitter note to still relatively tropical yellow fruit. Very ripe indeed, and certainly a bit less finesseful and long (but still quite long) than it used to be, even so, aging beautifully for a slightly low-acid, “harmoniously dry” (i.e. it is not dry) Riesling. Faint petrol note to cooked curried apple. Curiously enough a bit Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr like with airing, exhibiting medium-heavy spring flowers. Rainer and I are set on experimenting with these wines’ ageworthiness, but thus far it seems this bottle was best at release and for a couple of years thereafter. Seemingly a bit lighter (or rather: sweeter and less tight at the core) by the next day, nice fruit subtlety, herbs and finesse notes, some minerality. Rating: 93--/91(-?)
François Raveneau Chablis Montée de Tonnerre 2002
Imprint on the cork reads “2004” for some reason (bought this pristine bottle at release, however, that is, in 2004?). Medium (if not still pale) yellow-green colour. Very youthful. Softly spicy oak, a bit green hazelnut and dried thistle like, as well as ever so slightly vanilla-tinged, but that integrated with airing, and became less noticeable as soon as the wine warmed up a little in the glass. Good body, faintly alcoholic as soon as it warms up in the glass. Faintly oaky but still subtle and finesseful, lemon rind, sour bread dough, anise. Echinacea medicinality. Some sea-salty minerality. Faint balm mint, kukurma and pumpkin. Bit tannic. Warmer herbs such as tarragon with airing. One of our favourite wines of the night. Drinking impeccably well the next day, too. Even balm-mintier, intense, lightly stone-dusty and quite tannic. Thistle oak and anise to minty candied lemon and pear. Firm, backed by refreshing acidity. Wow! Rating: 93+/94?
Gros Frère & Soeur Vosne-Romanée 1988
Thanks to Asher, a bottle he had ordered from a restaurant wine list earlier that night (the place to go in Zurich, so to speak, where wine lovers keep flocking in, even if not known for particularly cool storage). Medium to light raspberry-red-black with an orange hue, nicely healthy colour. Round and a bit white-truffley, prettily red-fruity and harmonious 1988, just lightly tannic, not very dusty, let alone hard for the vintage at all. Quite mild and smooth on the medium finish. Rainer thought this “a bit light”, but it is certainly not exceptionally so for a village Burgundy from the eighties. Ultimately not too complex, let alone deep, but holding up very well indeed. Rating: 88-/87(-?)
Peay Sonoma County Syrah Les Titans 2006
Thanks to Asher. “Les Titans is a blend of Estrella (47%), 1 (27%), a Côte Rôtie selection (18%) and 174 (8%). Blocks were picked, vinified and aged separately for 15 months in 33% new French oak barrels and bottled unfined and unfiltered. The alcohol is 14.0%.” Opaque purple, lighter at the rim. Smoky-spicy new oak, vanilla and some cocoa and dark chocolate. animal fur. Some roasted herbs. Slightly heavy-handed violet – Astrid even detected a suggestion of rose petal. Quite thick, even fractionally petrolly-oily (later more olive scented and flavoured). Fairly powerful. Slightly warming with alcohol. Quite tannic. The acidity exhibited a faint metallic touch and seemed a bit disintegrated at first, but then, the wine never stopped coming together with airing. Medium length. More milk shake like with airing, Rainer noted, but also drier underneath. When I served Dani a glass 24 hours later, he did not find it too typical of Syrah “apart from the bacon fat note and the colour”. I still felt the animal fur on the nose gives it away immediately. Although the wine’s fruit had absorbed its oak in a way that seemed like a preview of the kind of harmony it might achieve in a best case scenario, it nonetheless is an oaky wine. Pretty green pepper, violety olive fruit of good density, ripeness and sweetness. Quite nice, if somewhat oak-induced lightly lavender-scented tannin. Perhaps best on the nose, as Dani suggested, who added that he would still rather buy Côte-Rôtie (such as Jamet). Continued to drink well after 48 hours in the open bottle, very resistant to oxidation, even the oak integration seemed acceptable now. More French-styled than most American Syrahs I have tasted (not all that many). I will admit that I am giving this the benefit of doubt, hoping it will indeed absorb its oak before the fruit fades. Maybe in two to five more years? Rating: 90+/91?
Domaine de la Janasse Châteauneuf-du-Pape Vieilles Vignes 2001
Thanks to Asher. A blend of 70% Grenache and 30% Syrah and Mourvèdre, partly aged in tank, partly in small oak barrels. From 60- to over 100-year-old vines. Ever so slightly murky pruney-ruby-black with a little watery-orange at the rim, in fairness perhaps only because the sediment was shaken up during transport (it really settled quickly in the glass, however). Quite sweet and pruney, and really a bit hot (with alcohol, even if no more than 14.5% are labelled). A bit simplistic. Did I detect a whiff of new oak here? Low-acid for a 2001 (whose ageworthiness in general, we all agree, tends to be overestimated by some), but what is worse, not a very terroir-expressive classic as so many 2001 CdPs are. The tannin, while not bad and still safely short of coarse, certainly lacks finesse. Fairly powerful in an Amarone kind of way (albeit not the kind of Amarone I tend to like). Asher found it “buttery”, as well as “sweet and lacking in structure”. Rainer thought it nice enough to pour himself a second glass, but called it “sweet and flat”. More chocolaty with airing at first, revealing more mid-palate density along the way, but soon turning a bit oxidative, thus punier, if also longer. A touch peppery, which I like. But this lacks freshness, precision. Cheesy with yet more airing. Suggestion of roast lamb. As Rainer suggested, this may very well (I am actually convinced, without ever having tasted it) have been better at release than it is now. Perplexing, to say the least, ultimately disappointing. Even cheesier, punier, more oxidative and a bit horsey-sweaty the following day – ironically drinking better (more harmonious, less hot and no longer aggressive), if, as Dani noted (who preferred this to the Peay) with a rather heavy-handed florality, slightly bitter tannin. More luminescent colour now, too. A bit more like it. Then earthier and more petrolly, yet more like oxiditative Amarone after 48 hours – could not help thinking, again, that this lacks freshness and vivacity. Rating: ~89(+/-?)
Henri Bonneau Châteauneuf-du-Pape Réserve des Célestins 2000
N° Lot 001. Ruby-orange with a black hue and relatively wide watery orange rim. Ginger, dried orange, quite noble tobacco and Orange Pekoe black tea, dried porcini. More aged Piedmont Nebbiolo like now, especially so far as the tannin quality is concerned: flavourful like tea, not too dusty or dry, let alone coarse, quite smooth actually. Very long on the finish. Nicely ancient style. While this may not be improving in bottle, it is holding up very well, a relatively ageless 2000 CdP. Improves with airing, seemingly becoming (meat-)juicier, more orangey-finesseful as well as smokier and dried-meatier. More dried and roasted Provençal herbs and forest undergrowth. Suggestions of blood and iron. Tiny hazelnut coffee top note. Barely sweaty at all. Softly spicy. This did not stop improving with airing. I agree with Asher that this is not a Célestins vintage that is going to improve (in the sense of appreciate much in complexity etc.) – the kind of ageless wine that can be drunk with pleasure, but should keep for quite a few years. Virtually unchanged the following day, with perhaps a greater emphasis on hazelnut coffee, fig and date, cured beef if not lamb curry, as well as black tea, dried mace, sweet leather, medium-noble tobacco and cocoa finesse to the faintly dusty, Piedmont Nebbiolo-like tannin. Now came across as even more concentrated and palate-staining. Lovely wine. Rating: ~94?
Úri Borok (Vince Gergely) Tokaji Aszú 6 Puttonyos 1999
Thanks to Rainer. This keeps improving in bottle even if according to Vince Gergely, it "was kept in cask a year longer than the 2000, and was sulfurized too little." Golden amber-orange. Candied and dried orange and mango, dried mace, tobacco, quite complex and long. Soft orange rind bitter note. Rainer finds this „hugely tannic“ (still due to the oxidation, but I neither find it excessive, nor a real problem in view of so many lighter and less clean and pure, yet no less oxidative Aszús from the Socialist era, the best of which continue to age nicely in bottle). Quite flavourful acidity. Perhaps fractionally drier with that tannic rancio top note after 24 hours, if perhaps also more candied with tangerine rind, quince and orange, as well as acacia honey white chocolate. Seemingly even thicker and more viscous, almost a solid on the palate. Good minerality. Faint paprika, curry powder and dried shiitake and wood ear mushrooms, tiny walnut peel. Quite tangerine-flavoured acidity (a bit like Muscat de Beaumes de Venise). The 1999 vintage may have brought forth more harmonious Aszús, but this keeps growing on me (I did not like it enough at release to buy any, although it was very fairly priced, no doubt because Vince Gergely was not too convinced with its quality either). Dani’s favourite along with the Bonneau. Rating: 91+/92(+?)
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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„J'ai gâché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ – Roger Conti