A wine-loving visitor from New York came to Helsinki for a brief visit so the logical thing to do was to go to Carelia for some entrecote and wine.
Bodegas Franco-Españolas Viña Soledad Tête de Cuvée Gran Reserva 1981White wine but otherwise served blind. My initial reaction was that it must be oldish LdH, I guessed 1976. An ex-oaky smell, oxidative; rich, almost oily palate but bright acidity. A very LdH-like wine. Lovely.
Fruitiere Vinicole d'Arbois Béthanie 1998Served blind: A blend of Chardonnay and Savagnin. A really lovely Sherry (Manzanilla) smell; oxidative, rich, racy and quite similar to the Rioja though more obviously Sherry-like aromas. Lovely.
Antonio Vallana e Figlio Spanna Cantina del Camino 1958My bottle, so it was blind only to the others. I had stood this up for a couple weeks to make sure the sediment would settle. This was a superb example of old Nebbiolo IMO. It seemed amazingly young in comparison to some others from roughly this period I have had. Sweet, floral, slightly shitty (in the good way) perfume; mature but still vigorous. Knowing what it was I wouldn't have thought of this but others felt it was like a '70s Musar albeit not quite so volatile (it's hard to say if they were reading me more than the bottle since that actually was a pretty accurate description of the wine, but they were still all expecting me to open Musar for some strange reason).
Prieler Goldberg Blaufränkisch 2006Blind from magnum. I have tried a few of these Burgenland Prielers before but never this "top" range wine. I thought this was quite reductive (seems typical for Prieler - I don't normally mind reductiveness too much, but sometimes his wines need two days open and that's a bit excessive). But vigorous swirling did open it up somewhat, but it is still a VERY primary wine, purple in colour, but with attractive cherry aromas. A polished style but still reminiscent of Sangiovese so I thought this was a Chianti. Nice wine, but really needed air and/or age.
Edmunds St. John Bassetti Vineyard Syrah 2005Jeff kindly brought this over from the US. I love ESJ, but haven't tasted any vintages post 1998 since that was the last vintage imported here. I thought this was a fantastic, unmanipulated Syrah in a relatively cool climate -style for California. There's a bit of blueberry on the nose, but otherwise it as a very pretty Syrah-fruit (and knowing what ESJ goes for, I guess the blueberry isn't anything to do with oak but perhaps with slight reduction?). Savoury, nicely structured, refreshing and moreish. Fantastic stuff and I'd love to have a case of this ageing in my cellar.
Clape Cornas 2001Blind. This was a bit of a disappointment. I was geographically challenged when asked where this came from. Eventually I ended up in the southern parts of France and was thinking of Chateauneuf du Pape. This was sweetly fruity/super-ripe, with a slight dried fruit character on the nose; quite soft in both acidity and tannins and therefore seemed more like Grenache than Syrah to me. Since I was thinking it was a perfectly nice wine until I heard it was Clape; because I really expected Clape to be much more typical to N. Rhone despite being a slightly polished style of Cornas.
Ch. Rauzan-Gassies 2004A non-blind Margaux. This was not a very good wine yesterday: it smelled of bacon and oak and bananas. I took the remains with me and finished the bottle tonight and it seems much better. R-G's reputation seems to be that it is a fairly traditional Bordeaux and tonight that seems right. It has a nice savoury scent of baked bean and a nice savoury palate with adequate structure and it actually became quite moreish overnight. Yesterday: meh. Tonight: yeah, ok! But not 60€ ok! But I guess it only costs 60€ in Finland. Normally it will only be 25-35€ elsewhere if this is the price here.
Selbach-Oster Graacher Domprobst Riesling Spätlese 2007A nice Mosel Auslese; rich and a bit lower in acidity than I ideally prefer (hot year!).
Crushpad Töövi Marsanne Saralee's Vineyeard 2010A Californian example of this grape. Aromatic and expressive for this often reticent grape. Rich, fat, but with good levels of acidity. Nice!
I don't drink wine because of religious reasons ... only for other reasons.