A week ago I was on a loooong flight home from Helsinki after a week there and in Jyväskylä, now I'm in a Holiday Inn in Nashville with a bunch of deutsche Philologen, but in between the Lakka and the Bulleit -- come to think of it, "between the Lakka and the Bulleit" might have been a song I heard at the hotel bar last night (right when they were getting ready to Finnish) -- I had a few interesting bottles of wine at home. It was a week for opening some new-to-us labels from California (notes from memory):
Liquid Farm 2013 Santa Rita Hills Chardonnay "Golden Slope." 14.0% abv, blended from several vineyards' parcels to represent a lusher style, this is indeed ripe and mouthfilling, with pear and tropical fruit, but also a solid enough acid structure to carry it, and a lot of back-end complexity, including gentle wood spice and something green, almost like that bit of melon flesh that's right at the edge of the rind. I have a feeling I'll prefer the "White Hill," but this is really good and I'd happily buy it again on my own dime ($36).
Kutch 2013 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. 12.6% abv, IIRC. Lovely nose, medium-intensity raspberry and cranberry fruit with some grip on the finish, this was the sort of bottle that I simultaneously wanted to savor and to gulp. Gulping won the day. Solid value for the region at $38.
Jonata 2013 Ballard Canyon, Santa Ynez Valley red wine, "El Alma de Jonata." 13.5% abv, 80-some percent Cabernet Franc, the rest mostly Cabernet Sauvignon with a little bit of Merlot. This was aromatic and delicious and also very young. The Cab Franc signature was understated but unmissable; the fruit was silken and "soft" without being at all unfocused, and it ranged pleasingly from bright to deep; and the use of wood was judicious, lending the wine a toasty undercurrent without any obvious char or vanilla or other Starbucks Latte flavors; it'll integrate easily with time. That said: I got two bottles of this at about 40% off the $140 release price -- which induces a different kind of "gulp" -- and even at the discounted price, it probably wouldn't be a repeat purchase.
I did actually have some excellent wine in Finland, too -- two very good glasses of white and red South African blends at Ravintola Lasipalatsi in Helsinki, for example, and some excellent glass pours with a tasting menu in Jyväskylä -- French and Italian but also a Finnish fruit wine with just a hint of cloudberry, which I preferred to straight Lakka. But I didn't take notes on labels. I do, however, HIGHLY recommend the restaurant "Chapter," on Aleksanderinkatu across from the cathedral, which apparently has opened only in the last few weeks -- I ate at the bar, but even their "simple" bar food was outstanding; a whitefish crudo with fresh and fermented cucumber and vendace roe was one of the best things I've eaten this year, and I had a very nice conversation with one of the owners (who are 20-somethings who had worked in Michelin restaurants but struck out on their own to escape that hierarchy). They also make outstanding cocktails.
