Poker notes: 05 Moulin de Tricot, 96 Marquis de Terme

[Michael Malinoski]

Our regular poker and wine group held our 65th official tournament a little while back at Zach’s house, with wines supplied by the previous month’s winner, Kyle. As always, the wines were served blind during the course of the tournament and most were drunk with food. It was a great time, as usual, with Kyle emerging victorious yet again.

Sparkling and white flight:

NV Lanson Champagne Brut Rosé Rose Label. This was actually not poured blind, serving as a starter while the masses assembled. Disgorged February 2013, the nose is showing some aromas of toasty bread, graphite, dried raspberry and cherry fruit, fireplace smoke and pencil shavings. On the palate, there’s an odd salty-sweaty streak out front that leads to a sweeter core of candied red fruit and caramel apple. It’s quite soft-edged and maybe a little flabby at times through the middle before turning tinny on the finish. It feels disjointed to me and I just never really connected with it.

2005 Domaine de la Pépière (Marc Ollivier) Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie Vieilles Vignes Clos des Briords. This is a pale straw color with glints of gold. It starts out stately and reserved on the nose, but really comes on strong with some aeration—delivering cool, lithe aromas of alpine meadow, crushed shell, chalk, honeydew melon, wax and wool that are controlled but inviting. It’s similarly cool and chiseled in tone on the palate—showing flavors of steel, flint, shells and river rock atop airy citrus-tinged acidity. It has sneaky sinew down deep but stays crisp and ethereal, turning just a bit compact on the finish. I really like it but would probably opt to sit on it a few more years if I could keep my hands off it.

Flight two:

2007 Eric Kent Wine Cellars Pinot Noir Stiling Vineyard Russian River Valley. This is decidedly outgoing on the nose, showing off a big purple berry-laden bouquet with accents of sassafras, birch, wet leaves, suede leather, moist soil and hoisin. It has some interesting facets to consider but is really dominated by that lovely, rich purple fruit. In the mouth, it’s rather expansive, smooth and rounded—with loads and loads of toasty spice notes to go along with sweet blueberry, plum and warm baked earth flavors. It’s quite giving, luscious, juicy and persistent, with a little nick of oakiness on the finish. It’s a big, richer-styled Pinot, but I find it tasty and enjoyable.

2007 Eric Kent Wine Cellars Pinot Noir Freestone Russian River Valley. This is lighter and more transparent in color, translating through to a lighter-styled bouquet to go with it—featuring fun, spicy scents of wild raspberries, strawberries, earthy funk and dried brush. In the mouth, it shows more restraint but is still a bit woody at this stage of the game. Beyond that, though, it delivers lovely flavors of zesty mountain berries that are tingly, light-hearted and delicious without quite the weight or thickness of the previous wine. It’s smooth, with no hard edges and an easy finish exhibiting fine balance. I like the tone and lighter character here, but both wines are showing well.

Flight three:

1995 Giovanni Sordo Barolo. Here one finds aromas of dried cherries, black raspberries, old leather, iron filings, iodine and smoke on the nose. In the mouth, it’s rather sticky-textured with a leathery feel to it at times. It’s also a bit elevated in alcohol, giving off a warm shot of booze running beneath flavors of dried cherries, raspberries and singed iron. It has some nice things here and there, but overall it’s rather uneven and seemingly in a pretty awkward place.

1998 Aurelio Settimo Barolo Rocche. The second wine in this flight has a nice savory streak to the nose—showing off interesting aromas of roast coffee, chicory, tobacco, leather, clay, foresty undergrowth, blackberry and creamed cherry. In the mouth, it’s still quite tight and tannic, with many of the features seemingly warring with themselves. There’s a nice slinky, glycerin flow to it, but the acidity is a bit ajar at times and the young, strapping fruit has trouble showing through the wall of tannin sometimes. It’s big, elevated, robust and full of stuffing, but just not entirely holistic at this stage of its development.

Flight four:

2005 Havens Wine Cellars Bourriquot Napa Valley. This blend of 67% Cabernet Franc and 33% Merlot is a quite enjoyable to sit and sniff, as it treats the senses to lovely aromas of wild zesty mountain berries, tree bark, all kinds of woodsy spices and fertile earth scents combining into a rather nice package. It’s showing a bit less charm on the palate, but it’s still lush and fun to drink. It’s loaded with creamy, pliant fruit flavors of plum and blueberry to go with some charred wood and fine earth tones. The wood and alcohol could use a few more years in the cellar to integrate better, but the fruit is really nice and should carry the wine through to a very good place in a few years.

2005 Château Moulin de Tricot Margaux. I like this wine a lot. It features a lithe, slinky, refined, black-fruited nose that is plush but cool, generous but svelte. Black currant, light smoke, leather, charcoal and clean earth scents combine really nicely and just make for a very nice experience. Palate-wise, it’s quite similar and consistent with this profile—delivering juicy black currant fruit, soft leather and clean earth flavors that are kicking right from the entry and last beautifully right through to the even-keeled finish. It has a nice cohesiveness to it and a refined ease all around for such a young wine. I had it as my wine of the day, and I’ll be interested to follow its evolution over the next decade.

Flight five:

2004 Bodegas El Nido Jumilla Clio. Man, these are two big, bold wines! This first one smells absolutely sweet-fruited, extra-lush, and super-sexified—blasting out of the glass with fun-filled aromas of eucalyptus, sawn cedar wood, menthol, dried dill, spice box and sweet purple fruit galore. In the mouth, it’s generously sweet-flavored, incredibly lush and creamy, decidedly mouth-filling and ultra-modern, yet not over the top to my way of thinking. Sure, it has some cocktail wine traits but in the end is actually pretty fun to drink once you get acclimated to the style.

2005 Bodegas El Nido Jumilla Clio. Even blind, it’s obvious that this is very much cut from the same cloth as the previous wine, but maybe just a bit darker in its overall aromatic tones of eucalyptus, menthol, cedar, blackberry and black currant. There are rounded edges to it in the mouth, but it’s a bit pastier and a touch more voluminous than the 2004, though also showing a bit more leafy character hiding beneath the fruit stuffing. It’s a lush, free-flowing big boy of a modern wine, just on the edge of being “too much” without toppling over, at least to my tastes (though I know several tasters did think these were simply too made-up for their enjoyment).

Flight six:

2006 L'Aventure Optimus Paso Robles. This blend of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Syrah and 5% Petit Verdot is full of vim and vigor on the nose, giving off strong scents of raw oak, toasted brown spices, mocha paste, chocolate, blackberries and blueberries. For me, it’s a bit young and obvious. In the mouth, it’s incredibly pushy, with huge volume and dense weight to go with finely-buffed and polished fruit flavors of blueberries, boysenberries and plums. It’s not showing a lot of nuance, layering or complexity yet, and I actually find it pretty tiring to sip just now. There are some nice components to it, to be sure, but I’d be inclined to wait another 4-5 years before trying it again.

2007 L'Aventure Estate Cuvée Paso Robles. According to the label, this wine is a blend of 49% Syrah, 37% Cabernet Sauvignon and 14% Petit Verdot. It’s more aromatically interesting than the previous wine, showing a lot of smoky overtones to the core scents of black currants, bridle leather, grilled meats, cigar wrapper, carob, toasted stems and clean horse barn. In the mouth, it is again a big, voluminous wine with a lot of amplitude, but I find it to be very creamy in texture, with some slippery glycerin character hiding the sneaky tannins lurking below the black currant, blackberry and ashy earth flavors. This is a more complex wine, but I again find it tiresome to drink at this stage of the day, and would have to suggest some further aging.

After hours (non-blind):

2012 Domaine Gaston & Pierre Ravaut Bourgogne. My notes get kind of sketchy here, but I did note that the nose is airy and pretty, with lightly savory tinges, featuring scents of light cherry, raspberry, evergreen and light leather. It shows some musky earth tones on the palate to go along with pine, sour cherry and mixed berry fruit. It’s light-bodied and not too serious, with a yielding structure and light tannins still buzzing about.

1996 Château Marquis de Terme Margaux. This wine really picked me up at the end of a long day of tasting. It’s really inviting on the nose, with scents of leather, lilac, crumbled clay, dried cherries and black currants giving it a fine classic Old World aromatic profile. It’s still a bit young on the palate, but I do like the lithe, wiry feel to the fudgy black fruit and dark earth flavors. I’d give this a few more years, but it’s awfully nice right now, too.


-Michael

[stefan]

If Kyle keeps winning he might go broke supplying you losers with wine like this.

[Roel]

Nice notes! Good to read about the 1996 Marquis de Terme, a rare and symphatic wine imho.