WTN: white, pink, and (barely) red

A few vaguely noteworthy items from the last few weeks:

The other day, I had lunch with a friend in Evanston and had a good Provençal rosé from Clos Cibonne -- I think it was the Cuvée Tradition and the 2016. An interesting combination of very round fruit that leads you to expect sweetness, but a snappy, dry finish. Nice. That night, I remembered that I had a red from the same producer in the queue, so I opened a Clos Cibonne 2015 Côtes de Provence Tibouren, Cuvée Spéciale Tibouren, $20. Light, dusty pinkish-red; herbaceous cherry fruit with some spice, a very nice match with salumi, and could really be treated almost like a rosé.

Also very much liked a Dom. Bernard Baudry 2015 Chinon Rosé; I bought four of these late last summer and never got around to drinking any of them, but they seem to be in fine form, very pale, strongly aromatic, bone-dry, and mouthwatering.

In Vancouver a few weeks ago for a conference, had a totally stunning omakase meal at Zest in Kitsilano, including several dishes featuring the best uni I have ever tasted. Drank a Tyrrell's Hunter Valley Semillon, Vat 1, almost certain it was 2010. I liked this a lot; it's rich, even creamy, but the wine can take the wood, and has enough structure of its own to push back. Worked well with the seafood. After I got home, Andrea and I went to Momotaro in Chicago for sushi and robata. Impressive, interesting wine list -- and with the meal at Zest in my head, I went for the one Semillon on the list, a BLANKbottle 2014 Elgin (South Africa) Semillon, "Epi...." This is sold outside the US as "Epileptic Inspiration," which I think isn't permitted on the label under BATF regs; the winemaker, apparently, suffers from epilepsy. A totally different wine from the Tyrrell's: raised in neutral wood, but still quite rich, a little waxy, nicely lifted by a surprising degree of underlying acidity. Delicious, and on a fancy wine list, a steal at under $60. (Of course, we then blew our "savings" on a couple of Coravin pours of 2009 Domaine de Chevalier, but hey, easy come, easy go.)

[David M. Bueker]

Epileptic inspiration??

From the winemaker:

"For those of you who don't know this: I have epilepsy which the doctors control with medication. But I absolutely hate taking pills. So I was relieved when the dr said I could leave my medication a while back. Then, in November 2013, while not on medication, I had a huge epileptic fit. So the Dr booked me off driving and surfing, yet again. Now when this happens to me, at first, I forget everything. My long term memory returns quite soon but the short term analytical memory takes about 2-3 months to return - if at all. But I discovered a huge upside to this: financial pressures and other stress factors disappeared together with the rest of my short term memory! So when I couldn't remember what to stress about, it blew my creative side right open.

And this is when I started to design my new labels for the 2013 wines. This time not using the computer much but rather making use of scissors, paint, Lino, pencil and old paper. And the result: I think I had a breakthrough in design, inspiration of Epileptic proportions."

http://www.blankbottle.co.za/blog/?p=3769