After a week of spending every available spare moment in the basement, everything is racked, a new CT account has mostly replaced my janky old homemade Excel spreadsheet, and all the boxes are ready for recycling, although I should really leave the crew from Casella Waste Systems a bottle of something nice to apologize for what they'll be facing this Friday. Meanwhile, we're nibbling around the edges, just picking things that seem suited to what we're cooking, though I admit I bought some steaks with a bottle of Corison in mind (coming soon). So far, so good:
Unti Vineyard 2013 Sangiovese Riserva, Dry Creek Valley. Last bottle of this vintage, and this is just singing. Beautifully integrated, nice pure sweet-tart red cherry fruit that becomes a little unctuous on the midpalate before transitioning to herbaceousness, black pepper, and the barest suggestion of wood-smoke. This hasn't become radically different with age; it's more like the the curtain of youth has been drawn back to reveal a balance and integrity that was always there. Big but not plodding and a good match with a hearty chorizo-chickpea-kale stew that might otherwise have taken a Rioja or a CdP. I've always liked Unti a lot and this is a good reminder of why.
Failla 2020 Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley, Olivet Ranch. Six weeks ago, before the cellar shipped, I was bemoaning our lack of Pinot in the Ithaca rump cellar and ordered a mixed case from Failla. This week, I wanted a young Pinot with a strong spice signature to pair with Sami Tamimi's salmon skewers with baharat samak, and this did the trick: bright cherry fruit, cola, and spicebox. A little disjointed at first but smoothed out after an hour's decant. A solid representation of the house style, which will be better when it's more integrated. Not profound, but pleasing. Will I keep buying Failla? I don't know; the single-vineyard bottlings are pricey, and I think there might be more value elsewhere at the basic level.
Domaine de la Pépière 2013 Muscadet de Sèvre et Main, Clisson. Picked this to go with A's linguine alle vongole. Light straw color, expressive citrus and tidal-pool nose, really lively in the mouth with concentrated citrus pith and oil, and some fruit that I’d probably call red if I were blindfolded. There’s a nice propulsive astringency as the wine turns toward the saline finish. A really good bottle of this, and a great match.
Ridge 2009 Lytton Estate Syrah, Dry Creek Valley. An oversupply of increasingly alcoholic Ridge Rhônes was what a big part of what got me to drop out of the ATP club a decade ago. Sold some, kept some, now I have a small corner of the cellar full of them and will pull them to see if they're worth drinking when we need a glass of big red and aren't feeling picky. This is okay for a single glass with red sauce: it's still got some big purple fruit and decent acidity, but it's also got a lot of raspy tannins and barrel char in the background, which become tiresome after a glass. Meh, dump.
J. J. Prüm 2016 Riesling Kabinett, Wehlener Sonnenuhr. Bought a six-pack of this shortly before being separated from the cellar, which was a good way to enforce self-restraint, except now I can't recall anything I read about it at the time. But who cares? This is excellent. Old dark residue on the top of the cork but the rest is clean and solid. At first sip, damn if this doesn't smell and taste just like a ripe white nectarine, explosively flavorful and summer-sweet, wrapped around a laser beam of acidity. The initial power softens with time in the glass, which lets the midpalate transition to wet rocks and petrol (just a little, and for me, only on the finish) come into clearer view. I don't follow Prüm every vintage so can't make super specific comparisons (I have some 2015s I also haven't opened), but this does seem a little weightier than the Kabs I remember from a decade-plus earlier, which isn't surprising. Still, I think this is balanced and will keep shedding fat as it develops, and it's very early days. Oh, what did we eat this with? A simple Cantonese beef with bok choy and oyster sauce.
Over the next month, we're also planning to do a series of Extradimensional Wine Co. Yeah! paired comparisons to try to get some analytical leverage on the huge number of bottlings they've put out over the last few years. I'll post results in April, stay tuned!
