WTN: Lazy Sunday wines with Rainer, Remo and Nicole

Notes from today, my guests just left and I am finishing this post listening to Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli playing heavenly Scarlatti sonatas. Great weather, almost too warm to drink this much alcohol, and have such a rich brunch (my own Indian-style carrot soup, beef ragout with bread dumplings and apricot tart with – of course homemade! – Tahiti vanilla ice cream and tuiles). But it was fun, as always!

Prager Riesling Weissenkirchen Smaragd Wachstum Bodenstein 2001
Thanks to Rainer. Medium yellow-green. Elder-berry, partly aged apple, grassy lime, stone dust, quite long and minerally finish. Good body. Rather closed, plus it does not show the ripeness and opulence of the 1997 Hollerin, again reminiscent of an Ürziger Würzgarten with some spicy herbs. Rating: 89+/90

Albino Rocca Barbaresco Brich Ronchi 1997
Deep garnet-ruby, black reflections, still opaque at the centre. Quite glyceric, highly concentrated. Sweet red plum, black cherry, rose-hip, half-dried blood orange, oregano-like Persil, faint licorice, perhaps suggestions of cocoa or coffee powder. Finely grained, palate-drenching, lightly dry oregano-flavoured tannin, nice for the vintage, a bit tarry with marzipan oak. Low acidity, extremely faint volatile acidity perhaps. Very complex, impressive, but not a stylistic favourite of mine. I kept wondering if it is getting drier in bottle, but note Rainer finds this virtually unchanged since we last had it a couple of years ago. The tannin got sweeter with airing, and the finish longer and more harmonious. Superripe suggestion of pear juice concentrate. This may or may not be one to keep, hard to tell. Rating: 93-
No less dry, nor impressive for its concentration, after 12 hours in the decanter.

Michel Clerget Chambolle-Musigny 1978
Thanks to Rainer. From one of my favourite Burgundy vintages of all time, and Remo’s year of birth (first time he got to drink a 1978, easy to make a guy happy sometimes). Absolutely pristine bottle, despite about one inch ullage. Nicely glossy, medium-plus ruby-orange with an orange rim. Smoky forest undergrowth and earth, red beet, bee’s wax, mild brett and mace, faint petrol. Intense and sweet, nicely medium bodied, well-concentrated, some glycerine. Impressively fine tannin and acidity. Nicely mouth-cleansing. Increasingly attractive tobacco leaf. Ultimately simplistic, but well-balanced, fairly long. The perfect condition here is almost baffling. Quite noble quince jelly and pheasant oxidation, faintest sweaty malt, not too stale rose petal. Hard to come by a similarly structured Chambolle village even today. Rating: 91-

Paul Jaboulet Aîné Hermitage La Chapelle 1997
Thanks to Remo, who just bought this for just over 60 dollars, in utterly pristine condition. Fresh-looking, deep ruby-black. Noble aromas of violet and lavender, and strong unfermented tobacco. Lard, fresh leather. Port-like fruit and concentration, Rainer says. A little horse sweat on the palate, prune with ripeness yet good cut. Some sweet marzipan oak. Fresh steely iron minerality, tannin and acidity. A bit lactic. Juicy, glyceric, rather long. Absolutely no dryness to the tannin. Currently most complex and floral on the nose, honeyed fig sweetness, as Rainer says. Over the years I have noticed there must be different lots of this wine, at least two, of which the thicker, sweeter and more opulent one is definitely worth owning and cellaring (if there were any guarantee as to which one gets, I would still buy more today). Rainer’s bottle at restaurant Da Renato in January was not bad either, but lighter, drier, less complex and deep, as well as less resistant to oxidation. Rating: 94+?
Highly impressive sweetness, glyceric viscosity and sweaty-beefy Syrah complexity after 12 hours in the decanter.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

I see some kind of RP effect creeping into your TNs. 100 pts for an overly hot Recioto recently and 94 pts for the 97 LC? What is this world coming to?
Cheers, victor

Dear Victor

Are you sure you're not confusing two wines here? The slightly "hot" Dal Forno that night was the not quite dry Amarone at 17.5%, not the sweet (138 g/l r.s.) Recioto at 15.2% - had it may half a dozen times so far with a number of people, and now hear for the first time ever someone sensed any surplus alcohol there. Quite on the contrary, most seem to think of it as some sort of yoghurt-like smoothie.

The 1997 La Chapelle is one of the most unnerving wines I have tasted, hard to believe all bottles contain the same wine (= don't these guys have an assemblage tank large enough to equalize the whole production?). It may be, in my book, the most inconsistently rated wine I've ever had, ranging from below outstanding (89 points once) to two bottles that bordered on greatness (94+?). Those latter two were also the only ones that seemed to have anything to do with that early barrel sample I could taste at you know which trade show in Bad Ragaz several years ago (which would have been a third potentially great sample I could taste).

From the early days that this wine was marketed, by the way, people, especially WLDG members from Great Britain, reported on disturbing differences between bottles, and of course the fact that a certain American wine critic had given the wine a seemingly disproportional barrel sample score (95-98 points) in the early going, then (again "seemingly") slammed on the brakes rating-wise (93) for the bottled product. As much as we may on average disagree with the man, judging from what I have tasted, this was a couragous and the right thing to do.

A number of wine lovers I know in Switzerland are very sensitive to this problem, even if not many have had the luck to come across one of the rare "good" bottles (as Rainer sheepishly calls them). Why else is it possible this vintage is still available for 80 Swiss Francs? That beautiful bottle Remo brought along was one he'd just bought a few days earlier! And yet, even at this seemingly low price, Rainer and I are still agonizing.

But: I refuse to down-rate a wine because bottles show inconsistently. I have always only rated what's in the glass, as interesting and necessary as it may be for collectors to acquire knowledge about a product before investing money in it.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

FWIW, here's my recent note on the Chapelle '97: Served blind. Right after decanting it seemed Tuscan with its cherry and sandalwood scents. About an hour later it had turned more like a Southern Rhone, jammy and rather alcoholic also with strange, almost eucalyptus-like hints. The palate was big and sweet, and was pleasantly structured from both soft tannins and acids. Even when revealed I didn't find much N. Rhone character in the wine, but it is a pleasant wine anyway. Though a nice wine, it is a disappointment for what one would expect from La Chapelle's reputation.

Maybe this was one of the "bad" bottlings, or maybe I just do not want jammy notes in my N. Rhones. Thanks again for all the notes - they are always a delight to read.

-O-

Dave,
Even though Alzheimer begins to cast its shadow, at least my brief, scribbly TNs provide a clear recollection of your 2 Dal Fornos tasted in May 2006...

1) '95 Amarone - nose of dark floral essences, with a medicinal touch. Alcohol submerged below layers of extremely ripe fruit. Superb tannin quality. Tremendous depth and density. Little subtility though. Moreover I wondered how it will age and what else it had going for it other than power and concentration? Gave it the benefit of the doubt, based on past experiences, such as our Quintarelli vertical (rated 95+)

2) '97 recioto - almost black-coloured, again a terrific level of depth and extract. Rather sweet entry, intermingled with aromas of honey, yoghurt, licorice and coffee. Diabolical concentration, almost over the top levels in dry extract! Finish becomes increasingly akin to a VP over time. Amazing winemaking accomplishment, if not a wine I could imagine sipping all night long, as mentioned to you before (rated 96)

Thanks again for providing these two formidable wines!

Concerning the LC: I must have always had weak bts since I never gave them more than 90 - 92 points.

Cheers, victor

But: I refuse to down-rate a wine because bottles show inconsistently. I have always only rated what's in the glass.

What if the wine in your glass is always the underperforming version of the wine? Surely you wouldn't give it the high marks of the reputed bottles?

And I agree that you should give your opinion on what was in your glass (i.e. what you drank) but after a certain point too much variation does taint the glory of a specific bottling, IMHO. Because storage aside, if the wine has too high a probability of being faulty, its attractiveness diminishes considerably regardless of the heights it can occasionally reach.

What if the wine in your glass is always the underperforming version of the wine? Surely you wouldn't give it the high marks of the reputed bottles?

Precisely! How could you? There's simply no way around rating what you have in the glass in front of you. The only reason not to rate a wine would be a flaw (such as TCA). Other than that, what I try to do is mention that I have tasted better bottles before, or that the one at hand is exceptionally good etc. - just as I did in the TN here.

Because storage aside, if the wine has too high a probability of being faulty, its attractiveness diminishes considerably regardless of the heights it can occasionally reach.

Quite honestly, as you could guess from my discussion with Victor above, it means I won't buy the wine. The fine wines we are talking about here are expensive enough (63 USD per bottle is a lot of money, after all) to risk a cork-tainted bottle once in a while, but bottle variation and/or inferior storage - no way!

Greetings from Switzerland, David.