Nice dinner last night with friends. I welcomed them with the 2015 Huet Le Haut Lieu Vouvray Sec which is still ripe rich and forceful but has calmed down since last year. Now it is showing more of the tingly mineral chalky tang that one would want from a sec (as opposed to the exuberant tropicality I remember from last summer). Nice.
My friends then opened a 1996 Rochioli Pinot Noir, which is not my usual fare. Cork was saturated and there was a bit of stink at first, but then the juicy dark mature fully resolved Russian River fruit made itself clear. I suppose people like to call these flavors 'cola'. They were not what I would expect from an aged red Burgundy, they were broader smoother and less distinctive. But it was fine. And to be fair, this was the basic bottling, so there was probably no need to expect fireworks.
I was more excited by my bottle of 2001 ESJ Bassetti Syrah which was also mellowed and resolved on the tannin front. But, with more depth of flavor and structure than the Rochioli pinot noir. It also managed that clever trick of retaining the dark brooding feral bass tones that were present right after release, but merging them into a resolved suave texture. Very nice. Happy to have gotten a few of these in the recent library sale. I have many more bottles of the '05 Bassetti that I will be waiting on, but this '01 had a unique character and we are all better off for having experienced it!