June 2025 Tasting notes - a bit of everything

Notes from our monthly blind tasting lunch.

2019 Drouhin Oregon Roserock Chardonnay – pale yellow, and a nice lemony nose with a bit of flint, smooth dry and with good length.

2023 Black Market Collusion series Cinsault Rose – grapes from the Yakima area go into this wine, hence the name. Pale pink, smooth with a clean acidic finish and some nice citrus elements in the nose. Quite dry.

2017 00 Wines Chardonnay VGW – bright yellow and a good big Willamette wine with no flint nor lactic going on, just a good clean Chard. Oddest winery name I can recall...

1990 Ch. d'Armailhac – still surprisingly dark though with paler edges, a smoky nose with plumy fruit, some wax, and hints of tobacco. Long clean finish. Airing it for an hour eliminated the smokiness and it settled in to be a straight ahead and quite good claret. My last bottle.

2013 Domaine Georges Vernay St. Joseph Terres d'Encre – a darker wine with a pleasant nose of tapenade and spice, with good length.

2015 Montalto Tuerong Block Pinot Noir – this Mornington peninsula wine was lighter in colour, and had a vanilla and strawberry nose. Clean acidic finish.

2011 Ch. Musar – very dark with sweet fruit nose, brambley and smooth with nice balance though it clearly needs a few more years to come together.

2014 Laughing Stock Portfolio – this B.C.winery blends a Bordeaux style wine a bit differently every year. This one had 49% merlot, 28% cabernet sauvignon, 20% cab franc, 2% malbec and 1% petit verdot. It was a big wine but drank really well at this point, though it will add complexity as it softens with age.

2020 Guigal Condrieu La Doriane – medium yellow with a fresh lemony nose and some enticing secondary things happening.A lighter and often more interesting white than a chardonnay, fresh and dry.

[David M. Bueker]

Reminds me that I still have one bottle of 2021 Guigal Dorianne to get to.

[Jenise]

Some thoughts:

2019 Drouhin Oregon Roserock Chardonnay – What you said, and I want to add that I love this wine. I got there late and this had already been discussed, but I would guess everyone else's guesses started in France. This chardonnay is the perfect crossroads between Burgundian style and American fruit. Wish I owned some.

2023 Black Market Collusion series Cinsault Rose – Yes, quite dry and that's what I loved about it. I would buy more rose if they were like this one.

2017 00 Wines Chardonnay VGW, Oregon – My wine, and no I didn't know that Coop was also bringing an Oregon chardonnay. This was fairly concentrated and showed a little toasted oak as well as lactic character, and the first guesses were justifiably Rhone blend, and I think the second was South African chenin blanc. Interesting wine, but as chardonnay goes--no.

1990 Ch. d'Armailhac – Ethereal aromas, excellent body. Excellent!

2013 Domaine Georges Vernay St. Joseph Terres d'Encre – Nobody went straight to St. Joseph here, though once we knew it was like "of course!", perhaps because the herbaceousness was a little more front and center at first, like a Loire Cab Franc. With time in the glass the green olive character emerged, and it was a killer match with the cauliflower and green olive escabeche I brought.

2015 Montalto Tuerong Block Pinot Noir – Very Burgundian, and lighter/less giving than the different '15 from the same producer you opened last month.

2011 Ch. Musar – This was also Coop's wine. Delightful but young; this is going to be a great Musar some day.

2014 Laughing Stock Portfolio – Dark and ripe with some tannins, and my first guess was Right Bank Bordeaux so it nails the intent. Impressive potential.

2020 Guigal Condrieu La Doriane – My wine for the cheese course. I was surprised how dry it showed and how much it has lightened up since I brought a previous bottle to the terrine event to pair with a lobster thermidor terrine. It lacked the concentration and impact expected and experienced by the previous CT review just a month ago of a "Gorgeous big rich Condrieu. The palate is assailed by spicy vanilla oak, exotic fruits, dried apricots and pear. Slightest hints of butterscotch, showing the tertiaries are coming. Full bodied, big textured mouthfeel...." That's what I expected, and that's why I thought it would be a great cheese wine.