WTN: Richter Freemark Bevan Gassac du Tertre St. Innocent

Lunch notes March 9 2018

2004 Richter Brauneberger-Juffer Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese – brought by me as a change from a bubbly while we chat before lunch. Pale straw colour, bright, with a quite good petrol varietal nose with some waxy pear. Significant residual sugar offset by very good levels of acidity, good fruit and length.

2014 Freemark Abbey Chardonnay – light colour, lightly oaked nose, good clean fruit, an enjoyable well mannered California chard.

2013 Bevan Cellars Sauvignon Blanc Dry Stack Vd. – light colour, a rich nose of grapefruit, with pear notes creeping in later on. Clean and tasty with good length. Very nice.

1995 Conde de Valdemar Rioja Reserva – pale edges, mature nose, the fruit decent while it was there, but sadly transient and the wine faded. Shouldn’t happen at this age.

2005 Ch. Pineraie Cahors L'Authentique – a bottle I picked up at the winery a few years ago. Still a dark purple wine, in keeping with the fact that this is the flagship for this winery, made from 100% Malbec 60 year old vines, yet it avoids any tannic surplus and is quite supple now. Big dark fruit nose with cassis and good well structured wine which I expect is just now coming into optimum tasting period. Spicy, extracted and tasty with good length. Wish we got this in our market.

2001 Mas de Daumas Gassac – a suitable following wine, another dark wine, this one a tad ripe in the nose, with vanilla and dark fruit, but pretty mellow on palate and with good length. Ready now, I believe.

2004 St. Innocent Pinot Noir Freedom Hill Vd. – nice colour, and obvious pinot nose, medium bodied with a sweet finish and just adequate acidity. Fully mature.

2003 Ch. Du Tertre – this Margaux showed very well. Colour is starting to lighten at the edges, the nose is classic claret with smoky herbal elements and hints of ripeness, good fruit and soft smooth tannins. Drink now or hold short term.

2005 Doudet Naudin Nuits Saint Georges Aux Tuyaux – bit of funk, backed by good fruit and tobacco aromas, nicely balanced and with good flavour intensity and fully mature now.

[David M. Bueker]

2004 is an overlooked vintage in Germany. There are a lot of delicious wines.

[Jenise]

Will post more notes later. This, btw, is the wine I had hoped to bring. I opened it Thursday night--obviously, it wasn't going anywhere:

2006 Domaine Ponsot Morey St. Denis 1er Cru Clos des Monts Luisants Vieilles Vignes Aligoté
2nd of 3 magnums purchased from Premier Cru and identical to the first: ripe golden color, oxidated flavors, and I'm blaming that on the source as the pristeen 750 I had in '14 would not have devolved like this is just four years. Rescued these about a month before the whole operation closed down--am guessing they turned the aircon off in the warehouse to help pay for Fox's bimbos.

While that is arguably the best Aligote in France, that grape makes a lighter earlier drinking wine than chard does, so I wonder if that played any part in the poor showing, although as you said, you wouldn't think it would tank in four years, especially out of a larger format bottle.

That would have been a killer blind wine - "OK, so it is White Burgundy - so a a chard" "What do you mean it's not chard??" Especially if you'd laid the groundwork and established it as premier cru - we'd all have probably discounted there being a premier cru other than chard.

[Jenise]

Bill, precisely. And the important thing is, this particular wine isn't a lighter wine than chardonnay. In fact I believed the first bottle of it I owned and drank WAS a chardonnay, and I thought it one of the most incredible chardonnays I'd ever drunk. Fortunately I was sharing it with Dave Cooper who knew what it really was (and was just as impressed as I was). That's why I went hunting and when the only bottles (same vintage) I could find in the U.S. were those three magnums from premier cru, I said sure why not and bought all three (and they weren't cheap). The aligotes from this property actually have a history of long aging (Dale W has posted on at least one older model, maybe an 80's).