The Whining Winos of IWL

[bu11itt]

Thanks. I actually preferred the Cali BdB over the Ruinart Rosé.

[Col Angus]

Schramsberg BdB is world class. Stands toe-to-toe with the majority of Champagnes available and beats a good number of them. Especially in the last 5 or so years.

[Henry Krinkle]

Had a Te Mania 2009 Reserve Pinot Noir with our meal last night.

Lovely ruby colour. Very herbaceous and green on the nose. It had a slightly surprising, though not overpowering, amount of tannins. Without food the spicy qualities in it were to the forefront, but with the cardamom and cinnamon spice on the lamb it opened up into lovely plummy flavours with a little bit of berry tingle on the tongue.

[geoffbot]

[MarkO]

Cheers ....




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[bu11itt]

Thread bump... Per Geoff's old request; Buy it here

2001 Domaine du Pégaü Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Réservée - France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape (3/27/2016)

Nose: The nose is quite reductive at each pour (barnyard and bandaid) but that resolves nicely into wonderful aromas of leather and earth accented with bright red fruits and hints of blood.

Palate: Sharp and angular, the fruit is zippy, tangy and lean with strong notes of cherries. The tannins are noticeable but not overpowering. There's a smoothness to the mouthfeel that belies the apparent structure underneath.

Finish: Barnyard funky and bright. The red fruit travels from the nose, through the palate to the finish.

Thoughts: I'm not normally a Southern Rhone kind of guy, but this is an exception. Just enough of a bretty funk to provide a little excitement with a bright fruit profile and plenty of structure without being heavy. At almost 15 years old this wine is still quite young. No clue to hold long it'll live, but I wouldn't be in a hurry to drink it. (91 pts.)




Posted from CellarTracker

[geoffbot]

I've had plenty of inexpensive chateauneuf du papes; do you have any general thoughts on those vs say a similarly priced bordeaux?

[bu11itt]

Like I said in my note, I'm not a southern Rhone kinda guy so I don't really drink a lot of CdP. From a purely general standpoint (and it's really hard to generalize because there is a lot of wine in both regions at a lower price point). The CdP might be a little lighter and perfumed, more red fruited than a Bordeaux, thanks to the grenache dominance. The Bordeaux would probably be a little more structured and darker fruited, from the cab/cab and merlot/malbec, not to mention the oak treatment.

Of course take this with a grain of salt as it's just my slightly uneducated opinion. I'm sure the Col could chime in with some more knowledge and experience.

[bu11itt]

So here are some notes from my '81 tasting I had for my birthday recently. I have been searching for the notes I took that night but can’t find them. I’m guessing they accidently got thrown away during the cleanup, so I’m just going to go from memory here. All bottles were double decanted about 15 minutes before they were tasted and tried over the next 15 minutes.

We started with the ’04 Dom P. The "yeasty brioche" on the nose really stands out in my mind. It was somewhat heavy and full, but countered with a crisp, lively acidity. The bottle didn't last 30 minutes.




Now it's time for the 81's...




1981 Santa Lucia Cellars Pinot Noir Burgundy
It was surprisingly consistent with the bottle I had late last year, if not a little younger. Solventy notes on the nose with a bit of a decomposing fruit aspect, the palate was somewhat more lively as the red fruit picked up with some dried cherries. It was thin and light but not tired and slightly bright on the finish. All in all it wasn’t a bad bottle and everyone found something to like about it.

1981 Château Montrose and 1981 Château Pape-Clement
These two shared a flight and I am going to lump them together because they both showed very similarly, with the Pape-Clement edging out the Montrose as the better bottle that evening. Cigar box and graphite (the Pape-Clement having a stronger note) on the nose, there were hints of darker fruit on both. On the palate they were definitely showing their age with the Montrose feeling flat a little over the hill, whereas the Pape-Clement was still holding onto life with a bright finish that belied it’s age. I can say that I sipped the Montrose after the tasting while we were hanging around and getting ready to cook and it started to show a little better and wake up with some more air, never falling flat. Of course, the Pape-Clement also got better with air and turned out be me my #2 wine of the evening.
I will note that the Montrose cork was soaked almost through and spongy (I learned you can use the prongs of an Ah-so like tweezers to pull the last ¼” of cork out of a bottle) while the Pape-Clement was dry and brittle and the capsule twisted right off, indicating it might have been stored upright for most of its life. Just some additional data points.

1981 Château Palmer
The biggest disappointment of the night. Oddly enough, of all the Bordeaux it had the best, most expressive nose but had a horrible metallic taste on the palate and finish. Some descriptors from the table were; hard water, river water, copper, iron and my personal favorite, “It’s like licking corroded steel pipe.” Don’t know what went wrong as I’ve never run across such a strong metallic taste in a wine, especially one that smelt so good, which prompted my wife to quip, “This bottle has obviously had a nose job”. I left it open all night and tried a sip again the next morning, still bad. I’d venture to say that 80%-85% of this bottle got poured down the sink.

1981 Robert Mondavi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
HOT DAMN!!! Wine of the night hands down. So open and expressive with fruit and earth and barrels notes all on the nose. The palate was just alive with flavors and felt so young with wonderfully integrated tannins that still showed their presence and a tart acidic kick that lasted all the way to the end. Everyone loved it.

Really the best thing I can say about this wine is the wife of one of the guys at the table just does not care for red wine. She will normally drink beer or a cocktail when we all get together. Out of curiosity and I guess open-mindedness, she halfway participated in the tasting, taking small sips from her husband’s glasses. After sampling the Mondavi she looked up and said, “Oh wow. That’s good.”

Due to some people backing out at the last minute and us just enjoying some of enjoying the earlier bottles a little too much, the Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse-de-Lalande, Leoville-Las-Cases and Ducru-Beaucaillou were not opened. I also wanted to save a few bottles for some other wine loving friends who wanted to make it but couldn’t.

All in all it was a fun night, and people got into it more than I expected they would. I will be doing more of these. Next time I’m printing out some tasting sheets though so I can be better organized.

[geoffbot]

This is very tannic, very kinda sour, very thick, loads of mouthfeel, not for me.